non-fiction

Two generations pay their respects – by Carl Setzer

“42, 43, 44, 45. I think this is the spot.”

Grandpa stopped and searched for his cigarettes, trying to ignore the pain in his hands and legs.

Strangers on a train, with bad intentions – by Michael Taylor

A few years ago I decided to visit my friend Tom who was teaching English in Xichang, Sichuan province. I knew nothing about the place, except for my friend’s description of it as a lot more lawless and wild than Beijing. So I packed my bag with a few clothes and my passport, and headed down to Beijing West station to buy a ticket and get on the next train.

Taking in Guizhou from the tinted windows of an Audi A6

I came to Xiaohuang village in Car No. 2, an immaculately clean Audi A6 that Mr Qian kept temperature controlled at 22.5ºC. He and his wife were on holiday from Guangzhou and, in the spirit of adventure that travelling through rural Guizhou inspires, were sight-sighting as part of an eight-sedan caravan of friends. Each car was equipped with a walkie-talkie, so Car No. 1 would often radio back the scenery and road conditions up ahead.

A dispatch from the last day of the Gaokao

Beijing No. 5 Middle School is a few doors down from my flat in the hutongs, seperated by a public toilet and a mahjong parlour. From my rooftop I can see them play basketball on the outside sports court, and spy into the classrooms that line the south face of the wide, five story building, a Pringle tube tower of stairs tacked on one end. I watch students in their baggy blue and white overalls cram books, monkey around, and wipe clean the plastic windows every day before school ends.

Harrowing new evidence from the underworld

Geng Longyue is 6.8 years old and says she has exactly 26 secrets. I met her during the long, middle stretch of an 18-hour train ride from Kunming into Sichuan where she and her parents were going to visit Chengdu for the first time. Longyue and I sat opposite a small, plastic table beside the window and gazed out at the morning landscape – rubble-strewn mountains, rice paddies, damp red-brown clay trails and leather-skinned peasants bent over in the muck. The rail line between the provinces weaves through countless tunnels and it was after one of those 30-second dips into darkness, as Longyue and I squinted at each other back in the sunlight, that she asked if I had ever heard of a Black Shadow.