The new Han Han magazine has arrived…. Although there’s not a single advertisment in the magazine, it is known as the most generous publication in China—paying each of the authors 2000 RMB per 1000 words (as you can see from the picture above, that’s basically all of them).
The magazine is a nice mixture of short novels, essays, photographs, commics, etc. But it was quite an disapointment for me not seeing the orginal cool cover picture on the actual copies.
As I look through the magazine, I found the following excerpt very informative. It is It’s from Han Han’s own article I WANT TO TALK TO THIS WORLD (我想和這個世界談談 wo xiang he zhe ge shi jie tan tan). Here is the rough translation (Thank you Katrien for editing it for me):
I.
The town is built along both side of the national highway. There are no other shops than dark auto repair shops and colorful massage shops. It seems that all the businesses along the national high way are catering to the truck drivers passing by. I chose the “Gold Delta” massage shop, because it’s the only bath shop whose neon lights were still all on. In addition, right below the shop name, the neon sign of “Sauna, Leisure, Chess/Poker, Rooms, and Finland” were also on.
I asked the waitress: “What does “Finland” on your neon lights mean?” But she asked for my ID card expressionlessly, with no reply to my question.
I told her that I don’t have my ID card with me.
Her face finally came alive. She glared at me and asked: “Do you have your driver’s license?”
I told her I was only staying for one night and I didn’t have my driver’s license, either.
She said: “That won’t work. We are under the Public Security Bureau Network. You have to show a certificate or license. What license do you have?”
“Does the driving permit work?” I asked her.
She pleasantly and quickly said yes.
Out of nowhere, she uttered: “Finland is Finland-style Bath”
II.
A female voice came through the door. It said: Please open the door, sir. Please let me in so we can talk.”
“Sir, my name is Shanshan. Please let me in. Then you’ll see.”
Now I understood. It was the special service. I decided to peek at her at through the “Cat Eye” on the door. But soon I realize that the doors in this hotel didn’t have that eye. I had to open the door to see her. I am an upright person and I had been to many cities. In most cases, I turned down special services in the hotels after peeking through the door. Of course, I let them in a couple of times because they were really beautiful. I believe that once I would open the door, I would have to do it even if she looked like a pig. I cannot bear to see the girl’s face when she is being declined.
Shanshan was an ordinary looking girl. But it would be too embarrassing to drive her out. I had to do it out of courtesy. She walked around the house, closed the curtains, and sat at the edge of the bed. She asked me if I know the service items.
I asked her to go on. She played with her newly-done finger nails and said, “Half a set is 100 RMB. The whole set is 200 RMB.” I was not intrigued, so I asked her if they have a quarter set. “You are not kidding, right?” She looked back at me, stunned.
After the whole set service, she quickly putted on her clothes. I asked her how she knew so quickly that I checked in.
Shanshan said it’s because she stayed up whole night. There were more than 30 technicians in the shop. Since almost all customers were truck drivers passing by they didn’t have regular customers. If she waited for her shift, which was arranged by the “mommy”, it would probably be two days later. So she worked extra hard. Even after everybody’s asleep, she would still listen if anyone came. Usually people did not bother to switch when it was so late at night. She was not particularly popular, because people, especially the Cantonese, liked to pick numbers, e.g. 8 or 18. But she didn’t have a “lucky” number. So she had to depend on herself.
I said, I wished the government worked as hard as you. What’s your number?
No.38, she said.
Why don’t you switch to a more popular one?
Shanshan said, no.1 to no.40 all provide special services. But girls with no.41 or the number plus only provide foot massage. I didn’t work on my relationship with the mommy. So she didn’t favor me with a good number.
“Would you like the all-night package? It only cost an extra 50 RMB. Then you can do whatever you want.” Shanshan suggested.
Why you worked so hard, I asked.
“I am pregnant with somebody’s child. I decided to bring him/her to the world. Besides the whole set and the half set, we have a no-condom set. It only cost an extra 50 RMB. I guess the contraception pill that I took lost effect.”
III.
The door was kicked open. The kick was so hard that door hit the wall and bounced back. I was wondering which waiter was so bold but soon a dozen of people broke in. I was seized before I could move. I held still but people were still coming to me. They dragged my arms behind my shoulders and pressed my face against the floor. Three other people clutched my neck and one other put his knee against my waist. There were still three people coming in. I suddenly felt guilty for them because I didn’t have other body parts to be held in control. I was totally motionless since the moment they came in, but still, they kept shouting at me “don’t move” and they kept flooding to my direction.
I saw Shanshan in the gap between all those hands. She was cornered by five other people and a camera was held high upon the shoulder of a camera man, shooting ceaselessly around the room. Shanshan squatted with both hands holding the back of her head. She tried to pull the curtain, but failed. I guess she wanted to cover her body. People suddenly became very nervous. Two men who were holding me in control moved in Shanshan’s direction and locked her to the light post with handcuffs, with fingers pointing at her, shouting: “Why do you move when we told you not to?! What do you what to do? Hold still!”
I did the headcount and made the total maybe the 15 policemen were afraid that Shanshan would kill them all with the curtain.
IV.
The room finally simmered down. But then I heard the camera man cursing: “Damn, I forget to take off the camera cap. Do you think the sound is enough?
A man came to him to discuss. Then he announced to me: “We have some problem collecting evidence so we are now reduplicating the scene. We are going to break in one more time and you just hold youR position.”
Then I pointed at Shanshan and asked, “what about her? She is already handcuffed.”
The man thought for a while and said, “She shall remain like that. It will be a trouble if she jumped down from the window to kill herself. You never know what a woman can do.”
I desperately said, “Please don’t treat me as an SM maniac then. It’s you who handcuffed her.”
Then man gave me another kick and then they all rushed out. However, the door now could no longer be closed seamlessly. So the camera man took out her handkerchief and thrust it in the seam.
When the door was kicked again, the handkerchief stretched itself in the air in front of me, then fell by my feet. I threw it to Shanshan but Shanshan hesitated which of the three parts needed to be covered the most. I shouted, “Cover your face!”
Then there was another kick at me and I fainted.
V.
When I came back to consciousness, I was already in interrogation the room. Blood was running down from the corner of my eye.
The policeman who saw me wake up said, “You will be held half a year in detention. There’s only one way that you can do away with it. You need to sign a contract and say you are perfectly healthy. If anything happens to you, it does not have anything to do with our action. Of course, you can still choose the detention. But if anything happens to you there, it still has nothing to do with us. Sign it. You were really lucky this time that we had flaws during the execution. You will not be as lucky the next time.”
I sealed the deal without a second thought.
(posted by carrie yang and kj)
