MCLC: crime with Chinese characteristics

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: crime with Chinese characteristics
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Source: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (1/22/13):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323468604578247150410547798.h
tmlTION

Crime with Chinese Characteristics
By ILARIA MARIA SALA

Something is rotten in the city of Dongzhou. A new anti-corruption
campaign has shaken the city's leaders, threatening their ability to
embezzle funds and gamble them away in Macau's casinos.

As the noose tightens, Vice Mayor Peng Guoliang stands ready to do
everything in his power to save himself and his protégés from prison.
Fellow Vice Mayor Liu Yihe, meanwhile, is so preoccupied with his own
lofty ideals that he cannot see the enemies he is making and the moral
decay spreading below him.

Is this the makings of yet another Chinese political scandal? Given the
noirish turn Party politics have taken since l'affaire Bo Xilai, one could
be forgiven for thinking so. But Dongzhou is the fictional setting of "The
Civil Servant's Notebook," the first of popular author Wang Xiaofang's
novels to be translated into English.

Dongzhou may be imaginary, but as Mr. Wang explained in an interview last
October, its venality is emblematic of not just most cities in China, but
of the country as a whole. The author should know: As personal secretary
to Shenyang's Deputy Mayor Ma Xiandong, Mr. Wang witnessed events that
bear an uncanny resemblance to those he describes in his novel.

Mayor Ma was executed in 2001 after gambling away over $3.6 million of
public funds in Macau. While Mr. Wang was cleared of wrongdoing, he
decided to leave the civil service. He has since dedicated his life to
describing the overwhelming reach of corruption in the country.

"The Civil Servant's Notebook" reads a bit like a thriller, albeit one
that has soaked too long in a postmodern sauna. The narrative voice
changes from chapter to chapter, as every single protagonist—as well as
the chair, stapler and pen in the mayor's office—is given voice to tell
his side of the story. The office chair, for example, recalls when Zhao
Zhong, former head of department in Dongzhou, now turned crooked manager
of a Buddhist monastery, sat on it: "Zhao had a habit of bouncing a leg….
The only circumstance when his leg fell still was when a woman was sitting
on it. Zhao Zhong liked women."

While Mr. Wang says that this device provides "a 360 degrees view of what
happened," it detracts from the dramatic momentum. Nevertheless, for a
nearly first-hand account of the mechanics of corruption in an average
Chinese administration, "The Civil Servant's Notebook" is a good starting
point.

For those pining for a more traditional thriller with Chinese
characteristics, the recent translation of "Hanging Devils" by prolific
author He Jiahong fits the procedural bill. There are no surprises in the
novel's structure: a lone investigator methodically connects the dots to
emerge with the proof needed to convict a criminal. The one wrinkle is
that since private detectives are illegal in China, our hero is a lawyer,
Hong Jun.

By the standards of Chinese crime fiction, the plot also sticks to safe
ground. Hong Jun does not investigate a recent crime, but rather a
possible miscarriage of justice. The crime was consummated in the 1980s,
but originated in the political upheavals that took place in the Cultural
Revolution. Criticism of this turbulent and often lawless period has long
been accepted.

A Beijing native with a stint in Chicago, our lawyer has to go to China's
far northeast, near Harbin, to pursue the case of a brutal rape and
murder. Again we're taken to an imaginary location, Binbei County. As with
Mr. Wang's expose, more truth can be revealed when events transpire in a
fictitious Somewhereland that does not single out any authorities in
particular.

Though entertaining and atmospheric, "Hanging Devils" is often
predictable. Generous helpings of serendipity intervene in every chapter,
with former students and love interests jumping in every time a
breakthrough is needed. Our lawyer pines for a woman he is resigned to not
having (but who proves extremely useful in the investigation), and he has
a pretty and bright assistant too. A bit of rough and tumble comes when
action is needed, and all is explained in the end. If only real-life
Chinese justice was as tidy.