Qiu Xiaolong: Enigma of China

Chen was waving back at Young Bao when he heard footsteps. He turned around to see An, the newly elected head of the association, approaching.

An was a swarthy, medium-built woman in her midforties. She had written a prize-winning novel portraying the vicissitudes of Shanghai from the point of view of an unfortunate, helpless woman who had fallen prey to the relentless changes of the time. The novel was made into a movie, but An had not done anything close to that level since then. Perhaps, Chen contemplated, it was no wonder. In her new position, she enjoyed the privileges of a ministry-ranking Party cadre. She wouldn’t want to write anything that could jeopardize that.

“Party Secretary Chen,” she said jokingly. It was conventional for people to add one’s official title to one’s name and to delete the deputy as well.

“Come on, An,” he said. “I felt ashamed listening to that lecture as a policeman, let alone as a deputy Party secretary for the police bureau.”

“You don’t have to talk about that with me, Chen. Back in college, you intended to be a poet, not a cop, but when you graduated, you were state-assigned to the police bureau. It’s a story that we all know well. Still, there’s no denying that you’ve done well at your present position. There’s no point discussing that, either.”

What she did want to discuss with him was a series of lectures being sponsored by the association. All of them were to be delivered by its members, and given the excellent location of the association here, there was no worry about there being a decent turnout. Not only that, there was the possibility of collaborating with Shanghai Oriental TV. Recently, lectures about Chinese classics had become popular. People were too busy making money to read the classics, but when relaxing in front of the TV, they enjoyed lectures with easy explanations and vivid images in the background-like fast food.

“A critic compared these lectures to infant formula, which the audience swallows without having to digest,” Chen pointed out.

“It’s better than nothing.”

“That’s true.”

“They will not only bring in additional revenue to our organization, but a much-needed boost to literature too. So as an executive member, you should be the one to lecture about the Book of Poetry .”

“No, I’m not qualified to do it. I’ve written nothing but free verse.”

Chen understood her reasons for promoting the lecture series. The government subsidy for the association was on the decline, and in spite of An’s efforts to generate extra money, such as renting out the attached building to a wine importer in the name of “cultivating an exchange between Chinese and French culture” and breaking down a section of the wall along Julu Road to build a café, the association remained financially strained. Its members were constantly complaining of inadequate service and benefits, and An was under a lot of pressure.

A cicada started chirping, a bit early for the time of the year, during a temporary lull in their conversation.

Chen glanced up to see a young girl moving light-footedly toward them.

Slender, supple, she’s so young, / the tip of a cardamom bud / in the early spring. He didn’t think she was one of the members, having never seen her at the association before. She was dressed in a scarlet silk Tang jacket, reminiscent of a delicate figure stepping out of a traditional scroll, with “spring waves” rippling in her large clear eyes as in a line of classical poetry, yet holding a modern camera.

“Hi, Chairman An.” She greeted An before turning to him with a bright smile, “You’re Comrade Chief Inspector Chen, aren’t you? I’ve read your poems. You used to write for us.”

“So you are…?”

“I’m Lianping, of Wenhui Daily . I’m a new hand, covering the literature section for the time being. I would like to ask both of you to continue to give your works to our newspaper.”

She handed over her business card, which beneath her name declared her to be “the number-one finance journalist.”

Interesting. He’d never seen such a title on a business card. Still, her request was not an unpleasant one.

“Yaqing’s out on maternity leave. So I’m stepping in to cover the literature section while she’s away.” Lianping added, “Please send your poems to me, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“Of course, as soon as I have any time for poetry.”

For the newspaper nowadays, poetry was nothing but a bunch of plastic flowers tossed into a forgotten corner of an upstart’s mansion. Few paid any real attention to it.

Then, as if in response to the cicada, his cell phone started chirping. The number displayed was that of Party Secretary Li.

Chen excused himself and strode off, stopping under a flowering pear tree. Flipping open the phone, he heard agitated voices in the background. Li wasn’t alone in the office.

“Come back to the bureau, Chief Inspector Chen. We’re having an emergency meeting. Liao and Wei are with me at my office.”

Inspector Liao was the head of the homicide squad, and his assistant, Detective Wei, was a veteran police officer who had joined the force at about the same time as Chen.

“I’m attending a meeting at the Writers’ Association, Party Secretary Li.”

“You are truly versatile, Poet Chen. But ours is a most special case.”

Chen detected a sarcastic note in Li’s voice, even though the phrase “a most special case” sounded like a typical cliché from the Party boss. Once a sort of mentor to Chen in bureau politics, Li now saw him more and more as a rival.

“What case?”

“Zhou Keng committed suicide while in the Moller Villa Hotel.”

“Zhou Keng-I don’t think I know who that is.”

“You’ve never heard about him?”

“The name sounds familiar, but sorry, I can’t recall anything.”

“You must have been working too hard on your poetry, Chief Inspector Chen. Let me put you on speaker phone, and Detective Wei will fill you in.”

The deep voice of Wei took over. “Zhou Keng was the director of the Shanghai Housing Development Committee,” Wei stated. “About two weeks ago, he was targeted in a ‘human-flesh search,’ or crowd-sourced investigation, on the Internet. As a result, a number of his corrupt practices were exposed. Zhou was then shuangguied and kept at the hotel, where he hanged himself last night.”

Another characteristic of China’s socialism was its reliance on shuanggui, a sort of extralegal detention by the Party disciplinary bodies. The practice began as a response to the uncontrollable corruption of the one-party system. Initially, the word meant “two specifics”: a Party official implicated in a criminal or corruption probe would be detained in a specific (gui) place and for a specific ( gui ) period of time. The Chinese constitution stipulated that all forms of detention had to be authorized in a law passed by the National People’s Congress, and yet shuanggui took place regularly, despite never having had such authorization. Shuanggui also had no time limit or established legal procedure. From time to time, senior Party officials vanished into shuanggui, and no information was made available to the police or media. In theory, officials caught up in the extrajudicial twilight zone of shuanggui were supposed to merely make themselves available to the Party investigation and, once that was concluded, to be released. More often than not, however, they were handed over to the government prosecutors months or even years later for a show trial and predetermined punishment. The authorities claimed that shuanggui was an essential element of the legal system, not an aberration to be corrected. More importantly, shuanggui prevented any dirty details from being revealed and tarnishing the Party’s image, Chen reflected, since everything was under the strict control of Party authorities.