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Friends Hospital

Fiction by Bradford Philen

 

“No, not figuratively dimmer, actually dimmer.” 

With that, professor Zhi Xun nodded to the student in the audience who had asked the question. He was a doctor actually, professor Zhi Xun: an esteemed Doctor of Philosophy in Chinese history. The student was Bill Hurley, an American, from Dover, Indiana, studying and working in Beijing on a Fulbright scholarship. Bill figured he was nearly fluent in Chinese, but thought maybe he was missing something. 

The panel discussion Life after Mao and Mao in the After-Life had just ended. There were artists, politicians, government officials, writers, and scholars on the panel. Mostly Chinese men. Zhi Xun was taking a few questions.

“It is a scientific fact,” Zhi Xun continued. “When Chairman Mao died in 1976, we have astronomical measurements that the sun grew dimmer.”

His face didn’t move or twitch and his eyes didn’t wander to see the audience react. It was as if he’d said something so known to be true, speaking it had little value. Chinese eat rice with chopsticks. True always and always true. The birth of Mao brought the shining sun in the Far East. True and true and true.

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Halloween flash fiction

 

A quick note from our friends at That's Beijing:

If you haven’t yet picked up our October magazine, let it be known: the That’s Beijing flash horror fiction competition is open and accepting entries. We’re teaming up with the Capital M Literary Festival (which takes place Oct 30 – Nov 1) to put on a special Halloween event, so we’re looking for stories of to give us the chills.

Send us your story of 1,000 words or less to be in with a chance of winning.

Whether you opt for a traditional tales of ghosts and ghouls or a tense thriller, if your tale makes the final shortlist you’ll have a chance to read it out at the Capital M Literary Festival. The judging panel (featuring That’s Beijing Editor-in-Chief, Oscar Holland; writer, journalist and founder of the Anthill, Alec Ash; and more TBC) will then select and announce a winner at the event.

To enter, send your story to oscarholland@urbanatomy.com by Monday October 26. Make it a scary one.

The winning story will be published on the hill for Halloween, so get writing! Deadlines are, of course, the most terrifying horror of them all ...

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Shower Business

Last days of a Beijing bathhouse – by Robert Foyle Hunwick

 

Hong Sheng, qigong master, can perform nude splits on a bridge of cracked tiles in a sauna the temperature of Mount Doom like a man half his age. That’s how some guys like to roll in China: the backslapping, the baijiu toasting, the bonobo displays of power. Beijing’s last old-style bathhouse isn’t the kind of place to worry about stray hairs, clean towels or a brace of someone else’s overripe cherries.

Just shy of a century old, the Shuangxingtang bathhouses in the far south Beijing suburb of Fengtai is one of the capital’s toughest buildings. So far it has survived a republic, various warlords, a full-scale occupation and a bitter civil war, followed by everything the Communist Party could throw at it. It’s fitting that property developers are most likely to finish this place off. A shame – there aren’t many hide-aways where one can escape from decorum so cheaply. Napping, grumbling, smoking and masculine displays are all being pushed out to the suburbs.

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Emei City

Lost homes – a poem by Yuan Yang

 

 

The summer soon gone,

I was walking in my first hometown.

 

The guardsmen at the district gate

watched me like a stray white cat:

 

unthreatening.

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Photo essay: Clowning Around

A photo essay by Yang Zhazha

 

Ed: After his last series on the Anthill, Youth!, we're proud to publish another photo essay by Shandong-born, Beijing-based photographer Yang Zhazha, which we'll call "Funny Business". You can decide for yourself who the clown is ...

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