From Yu Hua: "I realize I’ve always been living amid absurdities. The Cultural Revolution was absurd, and today’s China seems even more so. If you are constantly living in absurdity, you can easily lose your awareness of it. During the Cultural Revolution, you saw portraits of Mao Zedong everywhere, even in toilets, but nobody thought it at all strange to see Mao on the wall of a toilet. It’s just the same now: We’re all so used to the absurdities of life in China today that we don’t give them a second thought. Chinese society is constantly changing in absurd ways, and as a realistic writer, I need to keep constantly alert to such changes. If you visit China as a tourist and check into a hotel, chances are you will see a “No Smoking” sign on the coffee table—and next to it an ashtray. That’s what I want to write about—the ashtray next to the “No Smoking” sign."

January 13, 2015 at 08:06AM via Facebook