With all the Great Leap Forward books I’ve been reading, I thought I’d take a break and try something contemporary. So last week I picked up Yan Lianke’s Dream of Ding Village (Grove Press, 2011), which has been listed as a finalist for the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize.

Several weeks ago I read and enjoyed Yan’s novel, Serve the People (Grove Press, 2008). What stood out in both these novels was Yan’s ability to depict love stories in times of crisis. Serve the People takes place during the Cultural Revolution while Dream of Ding Village is set in the present. But Dream could have been written about the Great Leap Forward. The story is a present day version of the helplessness from back then.

The narrator is Ding Qiang, a deceased 12 year old boy from rural Henan province. The boy dies after some villagers poison him to get back at his father, Ding Hui, an entrepreneur who made a fortune on the sale of his fellow villagers’ blood.

Not only does Ding Hui profit from the blood sales–which result in an HIV/AIDS epidemic–but he also intercepts the free coffins the government aims to provide villagers who die from AIDS, and sells them at a profit. Ding Hui finds yet another venture to profit off the dead. In the end, he’s risen in the government and is wealthier than anyone else in that area.

Ding Hui’s brother, simply named Uncle, contracts HIV in his thirties. His wife leaves him, so rather than suffering alone, he starts an affair with a young woman who also has HIV and is abandoned by her husband. But since Uncle and Lingling are still married to other people, the villagers frown upon their affair. They move in together and later marry. Uncle and Lingling’s relationship is my favorite part of the book.

As you can imagine, the residents of Ding Village don’t fare well. Grandpa, or Ding Shuiyang, is the hero of the story and quite a sympathetic character.

While reading Dream of Ding Village, I could picture the same scenario set some forty years earlier as cadres profited while peasants whittled away to nothing.

Yan Lianke’s books are by and large banned in China. This one is no exception.

This week I fired up my Kindle and read Kim Arbor’s page-clicking novel, His Wife and Daughters.

Although the story revolves around the family of a California congressman who is involved in a 1980s sex scandal, it’s so much more than a scandal. As a result, this novel has caused me to look at the real scandals in a more human light, not as a CNN circus sideshow.

Dan Brath and his wife, Trina, have two teenage daughters when the congressman’s scandal breaks out. Jill is seventeen and Phoebe just thirteen. Trina deals with her husband’s infidelities in a few ways–some helpful, some not–and shows how a woman in her situation can still lead a dignified life, even if it takes years to get there.

Decades later Jill is a divorced realtor. Although the story is ultimately sad, I found myself laughing out loud when Jill is convinced her ex-husband is about to ask her back or when she spills coffee all over herself in a public spectacle at a cafe. She’s so human and sympathetic.

Phoebe, on the other hand, is a lost soul who feels betrayed by her family and cuts off all contact with them. She finds herself in Tokyo fulfilling the same role as her father’s teenage mistress all those years ago.

I love the San Francisco setting, especially Potrero Hill, which was the closest nice neighborhood to where I lived for a couple years in the 1990s. But I had no clue about San Francisco’s stairway streets. They’re definitely something to check out on my next visit. One could even do a walking tour of many of the places in this book–and see a side of San Francisco off the tourist path.

If I could change one thing about this book, I’d add a disclaimer at the beginning warning readers not to start this book on an empty stomach. The food descriptions are just too delicious to read when you’re hungry!

Stuart Beaton guest blogs here about the festivities and customs surrounding the Spring Festival in China. Stu also has his own site at http://rastous.podomatic.com/. I’m excited to share his latest post as we approach the start of the Year of the Dragon. Here’s Stu:

As I sit here, writing this, the still night outside is being rent by short, crackling bursts, punctuated by the loud “crump” of explosions. Rockets scream in arcs over buildings, and the smell of black powder is everywhere.

I am not crouched in a shellscrape in the Helmand Province, but at my desk in downtown Tianjin – currently doubling for early Eighties Beirut, it seems.

Spring Festival is here, not with a whimper, but with a bang – and there are many more to come. The official holiday starts on the 22^nd of January, but already the place feels like it’s on a break.

Local courier companies, much to my wife’s chagrin, ceased deliveries on the 10^th, and many online businesses have been forced to put up their virtual shutters until the holiday is over.

My wallet thanks them, too.

Spare a thought, however, for the millions of migrant workers who make up the vast majority of the urban construction crews that are building the “Miracle Economy”.

Most Chinese, rich or poor, want to travel to their hometowns, and spend the Festival with their parents and relatives. The usual method is to travel by the backbone of Chinese transport – the railways.

Unfortunately, this year saw the implementation of a new Internet based ticket reservation system, designed to streamline ticket sales, and reduce waiting times.

Which it hasn’t.

Migrant workers, by their very nature, are those least likely to have access to a computer, let alone the Internet. Unskilled, underpaid, and more often than not poorly educated, these workers are the ones that are now having the most difficulty getting home to their families.

This is also the season that construction crew bosses tend to abscond with suitcases packed with their workers’ wages, so you can see that it’s not going to be a very happy time for some people – stranded in terrible conditions, far from home.

It’s also a time of gifting and excess, when little red envelopes (Hong Bao) come into their own. Originally given by parents to children, Hong Bao are now the grease that oils almost all parts of Chinese society.

Can’t get a promotion on merit? Buy it with a bundle of used yuan. Your kid can’t get a place at a school? A nice wedge will get their bum on a seat. Facing an investigation for bribery? Buy your way out of it with a pretty red envelope.

This happens all the time, and it’s not even seen as the corruption as it is – it’s just another tradition… one that I am yet to take part in.

Another emerging trend is the “contract girlfriend” (or boyfriend).

No one wants to travel back home, and display their sad, lonely status (or display their “perverted” sexual orientation) – so why not hire a companion for the journey? For a carefully negotiated fee, which includes just how much “hand holding” will occur, you too can have a pretty partner to display to everyone you know.

After the holiday, you can simply tell all and sundry that you broke up with them… then hire someone else next year.

Finally, it’s the time to eat until you burst – and then eat some more. I’ve seen far too much food wasted here than I care to dwell on, and the image of half a dozen untouched roast duck being discarded will go with me to my grave.

But our house is decorated with paper seals on the windows and door, and red lanterns in the window, and we’ve planned to spend a few days at Ellen’s parents’ house…

Luckily it’s only a short bus ride away.

Xin nian kuai le, folks.