Please Don't Call Me Human [Hardcover]

Wang Shuo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 19, 2000

Now Wang Shuo, easily Chinas coolest and most popular novelist, applies his genius for satire and cultural irreverence to one of the worlds sacred rituals, the Olympic Games. In Please Dont Call Me Human, he imagines an Olympics where nations compete not on the basis of athletic prowess, but on their citizens capacity for humiliationand China is determined to win at any cost. Banned in China for its rudeness and vulgarity, this astonishing, tripped-out novel is filled with outlandish antics that have earned Wang Shuo his own genre, hooligan literature.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Only the second novel by the prolific Chinese literary outlaw to be translated into English, Shuo's (Playing for Thrills) hallucinatory political burlesque follows the National Mobilization Committee (aka "MobCom") in its attempt to create a national wrestling hero capable of earning China renewed international esteem. Since their champion suffered a humiliating loss at the last Olympics, the MobComAled by disheveled chair Zhao Hangyu and genteel lady general Bai DuAhas launched a campaign to locate a successor to the legendary Big Dream Boxer, a 19th-century hero. They stumble upon a street-smart pedicab driver named Tang Yuanbao. Tang is not only a martial arts master, but also the son of the original Boxer, who is alive and well, although he is now 111 years old. Inexplicably, Big Dream is whisked off by authorities to be interrogated about his involvement in a century-old failed rebellion, while the submissive Tang is dragged around Beijing by the lady general and her minions, put on public display, reeducated, dressed up in women's clothing, castrated, and publicly humiliated in a gruesome, staged spectacle. According to the translator's note, Shuo's work is banned in China by the Propaganda Department. Shuo aspires to the surreal, dreamlike subversive comedy of William Burroughs or France's Boris Vian. His characters consult a coin-operated, talking Buddha; three-legged chickens serve as entertainment for the masses. Despite obvious cultural symbolism, however, the story is so confusing that one forgets there was ever a plot, characters are indistinguishable except by name, and popular cultural references are not explained. Consequently, the novel may be of greater interest to the sinologist than to the lay reader. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...the purest of diabolical pleasures...may be the most delicious parody ever of China's often self-destructive pride..." -- Wall Street Journal, 8/11/00

"...unnervingly funny...plot is simple, although it wanders into the wonderfully wild territory of mythic exaggeration..." -- USA Today, 8/10/00

Wang Shuo, dubbed "China's Kerouac"... [this] surreal farce carries through to an apocalyptic close -- The Economist, April 14, 2001

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; 1st edition (July 19, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786864192
• ISBN-13: 978-0786864195
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #344,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Olympics of Humiliation, September 28, 2000

By 

Augusta Palmer (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Please Don't Call Me Human (Hardcover)

Don't Call Me Human is a shockingly fun read filled with off-color humor and disgusting detail. The plot revolves around a shady Beijing organization called MobCom, which is desperate to vindicate China's humiliating loss at the hands of an oafish American wrestler. MobCom's search for a modern-day Chinese hero who knows the secrets of the Boxers (who, among other things, mistakenly thought they were immune to the power of firearms) finds its unfortunate object in a Beijing pedicab driver named Tang Yuanbao. Written by China's most famous liumang (low-life slacker is an acceptable translation), Wang Shuo,the novel follows the miseducation and shameless promotion of Tang by MobCom, an endeavor which requires multiple press conferences ridiculously devoid of content, ballet lessons given by an octogenarian in an abandoned art gallery, an unbelievable mock-military excercise in which Tang single-handedly defeats more than one battalion, and even an eventual sex change. The rise and fall of Tang and his backers (who manage to consume 7,000 packages of instant noodles, 100 kilos of tea, and 14000 cigarettes in their first week of hardly working) is the best-told tale of slacking off and deep national/personal humiliation you're ever likely to read.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kafka-esque. But I mean that in a good way, January 23, 2001

By 

mungo181 (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Please Don't Call Me Human (Hardcover)

One of the funniest books I've read in a while, "Please Don't Call Me Human" goes way beyond being a satire of Chinese nationalism--it's an hysterical condemnation of how far people will go for fame. So original, each outrageous event is a huge surprise.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Worthwhile, March 5, 2009

By 

Reader in Tokyo - See all my reviews

This review is from: Please Don't Call Me Human (Paperback)

This book was written ca. 2000 by Wang Shuo and translated into English the same year. Wang has been writing since the 1980s and gained prominence after one of his novels was filmed in 1993. A number of his works have followed the lives of disaffected youths during his nation's shift from socialism to a market economy, demonstrating an ear for language. He's been called a "spiritual pollutant" by his government.

This novel followed the adventures of a martial arts boxer who was chosen by a private-sector committee to represent China and revenge defeat by a foreign wrestler. The committee gave lip service to preserving the nation's honor, but was no less concerned with the profits they expected to make on him. They required full mobilization at all times, political correctness -- or at least the appearance of it -- and training in every possible method -- qigong, ballet and so on. Each member's self-interest was masked by appeals to the greater good.

The individual at the center -- the boxer -- was required to make ever-greater sacrifices in accordance with the committee's whimsical decisions. He did this without complaint, because unlike most other characters he lacked an agenda and was sincere. Other plots followed the boxer's aged father, a participant in the 1900 Boxer Rebellion, who the authorities wished characteristically to condemn for historical mistakes, and the fate of the boxer's neighborhood, which was fenced off and destroyed by the authorities, who auctioned off the contents to the highest bidder.

The main things I could get from this book were the author's condemnation of his society's utter lack of concern for the individual, who was at the mercy of any social entity that claimed it was acting for the greater good. And the author's contempt for the hypocrisy of those who cloaked greed in appeals to the national interest. Near the book's end, authorities were asked, "What will you do if the Communist Party ever returns to power?"

In its irony, ear for language, dark view of people and groups, and political manipulation of a naive hero, the book often seemed like the Chinese counterpart of A Cool Million, a 1934 novel by Nathanael West. The author's conception and sarcasm were brilliant: the story's development allowed him to comment on everything from committee operations to media advertising to the position of women in society. Many of the committee's campaigns seemed to end in scenes reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, in mass demonstrations or mass denunciations.

Especially interesting was the author's use of various types of language -- the proverbs quoted by most participants at the drop of a hat, the speech of committees, the pungent words of the members behind the scenes, the language common people used with officials. But the novel's execution often seemed cartoonish and slapdash, and some scenes and details remained obscure.

Excerpts:

"Comrades, we must act prudently, just beating up some foreigner won't do it. Our ultimate purpose is to establish a national model."

"We're lucky to be given the chance to get swept up in the mighty torrent of another human being's transformation."

"The publicity should focus on how we took a pile of s--t and a puddle of p--s and turned it into somebody. We must make this clear to the masses."

"I have strict orders from old Zhao to reach his profit quota."

"Is there anyone here who actually treats you as a human? They're all using you for their own purposes, and they'll destroy you in the process. They'll turn you into whatever their hearts desire."

"If you close your eyes, I no longer exist, I only sense my existence from your reactions. If you're happy, I feel that my life is of value."

"You have retrieved the golden goblet of national integrity . . . you have lived gloriously and will die with honor . . . Flying across the mountain pass, you raise your glass to toast the bright moon; in dreams the universe is vast, awake one's life is long . . . The little boat leaves from here, the rest of one's life is claimed by rivers and oceans. When bright mountain flowers are in full bloom, your laughter will emerge from the thicket . . ."

"Revered and wise and beloved pioneer vanguard architect beacon torch demon-revealing mirror dog-beating club father mother grandfather grandmother ancestor primal ape imperial father ancient sage Jade Emperor Guanyin Boddhisatva commander-in-chief, you have been busy with a myriad of daily matters suffering untold hardships old habits die hard overworked to the point of illness addicted to labor shouldering crushing burdens mounting the clouds and riding the mist soaring across the sky helping those in danger and relieving those in distress restoring justice banishing evil and expelling heresies curing rheumatism and cold sweats invigorating the yang nourishing the kidneys and the brain building up the liver harmonizing the stomach easing pain suppressing coughs and relieving constipation . . ."

[In a TV commercial, the newly minted hero] buries his face in a book and says with profound emotion: "Whenever I get tired of reading, my thoughts turn to the East and to Chill-Way refrigerators."

"We, all of us, have razor-sharp tongues but hearts made of tofu. If we . . . weren't forced to serve the greater good, do you really think we could turn into what we've become -- beasts in human form?"