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5th out of 55 books
—
7 voters
The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories, China from the Bottom Up
The Corpse Walker introduces us to regular men and women at the bottom of Chinese society, most of whom have been battered by life but have managed to retain their dignity: a professional mourner, a human trafficker, a public toilet manager, a leper, a grave robber, and a Falung Gong practitioner, among others. By asking challenging questions with respect and empathy, Liao...more
Hardcover, 336 pages
Published
April 15th 2008
by Pantheon
(first published 2008)
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Wonderful interviews with Chinese people, reminiscent of Mayhew's "London Labour and The London Poor". The accounts of life during the cultural revolution and the starvation that followed the Great Leap Forward are chilling, but the people are never less than fascinating.
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Aug 03, 2008
Mike
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
fans of character study, Chinese culture, and/or oral history
Recommended to Mike by:
Philip Gourevitch's rave sold me
Half-read (so far). These are excellent oral histories/narratives of people displaced, marginalized, oppressed, eccentric, and/or forgotten in the New China. In some ways reminiscent of the best of Studs Terkel's stuff, as many reviewers note, but the accounts seem more shaped, are certainly given more room to breathe and bump about. I think they're most appreciated as sipping whiskey, rather than swallowed whole, and now the damn library demands it back tomorrow.
But I'll reserve again, screwin...more
But I'll reserve again, screwin...more
A series of interviews of the poor and oppressed in China. I don't think the translator captured the true feel of the original standard Mandarin, because the language was extremely clunky. However, I was still caught up in the stories, which all inevitably included beatings by the Red Guard, cold-hearted actions by the Communist Party, and the details of the everyday lives of Chinese peasants. What popped up the most? The Great Leap Forward was "a total disaster," and Chairman Mao sucks. I'm get...more
One of the most fascinating things about this book is how it came to be. Liao Yiwu is constantly on the run from the Chinese government, has been jailed, tortured, and forced to be a wandering street musician. The text for this book was smuggled out of China and published for the rest of the world to read, and wow, what a read! Yiwu interviews the members of the lowest rungs in Chinese society like the public toilet manager, a leper, a grave robber, a father who lost his son in the Tiananmen mas...more
Liao Yiwo, a poet and political prisoner, became interested in others on the outskirts of Chinese society. He performed interviews, some of which were risky, with people who didn't fit in modern times. Old people who remembered traditional ways - like the corpse walker - people who had suffered under Mao's purges, people who had been marginalized by recent accommodations with capitalism. Although Liao travels a bit, most of the interviews take place around Chengdu, his home. The 26 stories in th...more
It's often hard to know how much to believe of an oral history from one's own culture; it's that much harder to know how to evaluate this collection of interviews, culled and translated from the original Chinese, with a variety of people on the fringes and lower edges of modern Chinese society. The sense of trust is not enhanced by the inclusion of sentences that couldn't possibly have been in the original book, such as one interviewee saying, to author Liao Yiwu, "As you know, in China, old peo...more
I read this collection of interviews for a Modern Chinese History class. It has some interesting interviews with some interesting people: real-world Chinese. Many of them were criminals, as the title suggests. Those on the margins of society are given attention. There are some downright hilarious moments in this book. "The Peasant Emperor" is by-far the funniest interviewee in the book. The recollections of the party officials and former-party members are fascinating. There is much recollection...more
Very good book that provides insight into the impact of the communist revolution in China. Focuses on 25-30 stories of lower class people. There are numerous stories of beatings by the authorities and jailings. There are many memorable stories, like a prisoner who escaped from jail through the latrines and the people who carried corpses to their home towns.
The three things that prevented me from giving five stars are 1) if you are looking at this from a historian's perspective, one has to be a l...more
The three things that prevented me from giving five stars are 1) if you are looking at this from a historian's perspective, one has to be a l...more
Adored the book. Tragedy, comedy, pathos, beauty. These are portraits of Chinese citizens told via interviews Liao has conducted and transcribed (and perhaps embellished a bit). Liao has a theme, which is that people in a crazy totalitarian system must become a little crazy themselves if they are to survive, but it is gently worked in, and mostly he revels in the odd, sweet, troubled, weird lives he presents. Liao keeps a very nice middle distance between himself and the subjects, and this since...more
I can see how reviews would differ on this book, but this book was tailor-made for somebody like me who knows very little about modern China. I absolutely had no idea what the Chinese people were put through during their hard-core communist revolutionary days. Mao's leadership was a nightmare! And though perhaps somewhat diminished, the nightmare continues today! And yet, the resilience of some of these interviewees is stunning and touching. Lesser folk would have easily succumbed to the nightma...more
An article in the New York Times about the author being allowed to leave China led me to this book. He interviewed a wide number of people and let them each speak in a separate chapter. It is a fascinating book but not one which I could zip through because many of the stories were terrible. The failure of The Great Leap Forward which caused millions to starve to death and led to cannibalism was, perhaps, the worst chapter. The title story is about an old way of transporting a body hundreds of m...more
In some ways this is a hard book to review. Liao Yiwu, the author, has captured the real-life stories of 27 people in the lowet orders of Chinese society. There is definitely a bias because there is a clear decision to emphasize the atrocities of the Mao years - the starvation and the inhuman treatment of people - as well as the continuing overall inhumane treatment evidenced under the current Chinese leadership. However, many of these people are on the lowest rungs of society - for whatever rea...more
A book that shows you the impacts of the recent chinese history on everyday life. Going from the rural peasant to the former monk to university teachers, they all tell the story of their lifes. This means brutal, real-life stories, showing the enormous impact of Mao on the mind of chinese people. Liao Yiwu talked to them and wrote the "reports" of these conversations afterwards. So what you get is like an autobiography of every person involved.
Sometimes, reading this book, I just wondered how i...more
Sometimes, reading this book, I just wondered how i...more
I really try to avoid should-ing on people (my dad always says it's like sh!t-ing on people), however I'll make an exception in this case.
You should read this book,
because should know this story.
And you should be prepared. These people will make an impression.
The stories are short, you can take the book in little intellectual bites.
"The Corpse Walker" is filled with life stories from people who lived during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976?) in china. With depictions of daily life the book pr...more
You should read this book,
because should know this story.
And you should be prepared. These people will make an impression.
The stories are short, you can take the book in little intellectual bites.
"The Corpse Walker" is filled with life stories from people who lived during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976?) in china. With depictions of daily life the book pr...more
May 09, 2011
Lisa
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
anyone who cares about human rights or is interested in China
Did you know that Confucius was once a professional mourner, paid to put on a good show at funerals? No? Neither did I until I started reading this collection of stories from Liao Yiwu, a dissident author, oral historian and poet from Sichuan Province in China who was due to visit Australia in May, but as of yesterday (May 9th) has been refused permission to travel by the authorities.
Some time very soon indeed, China’s economic output is going to exceed America’s. In my lifetime and yours, they...more
Some time very soon indeed, China’s economic output is going to exceed America’s. In my lifetime and yours, they...more
2 likes · like · see review
I wanted to read this after learning of Liao Yiwu’s recent departure from his native China for asylum in Germany. The interviews focus on an older generation - those who survived the Cultural Revolution - which provides a better understanding of Chinese society today (namely that transitioning a billion people from communism to free markets/capitalism doesn’t come easily). They reflected mostly on life during their 20s and 30s; what I would have enjoyed was being able to compare twentysomethings...more
Bizarrely, this book was marked as a good read for the beach! The brutal nature of the stories made for a slow read as the tragedies perpetuated by Mao were detailed again and again. The stories begin to run together in the mind as some surreal nightmare that can't possibly be real. The interviewer/story gatherer's introductions and comments add to the strangeness of the book for their almost naive simplicity. The book reads like the movie Bananas except for the fact that these stories are real...more
I read this book while living in a small town in northern China. The book had been given to a friend of mine in a hostel in Beijing, and after she finished it, passed it on to a Chinese friend, who in turned passed it on to another, and so on. I liked the idea of it immediately. Liao Yiwu tells the world the stories that China would rather the world not know. It has been heartbreaking for me to listen to stories of my students and friends here who have been victims of censorship, or whose parent...more
Knowing the history of China and actually understanding the effects of "history" on Chinese people are very different things. This collection of interviews gives one an idea of what it must've been like to live through the People's Revolution, a brief answer being: Horrific. Honestly, I'm glad to have read it, I believe it's important knowledge to have, but most of these people's stories are unbearably depressing. After a while the constant atrocities they suffered sort of numbs you, and the ind...more
I learned more about China from reading Liao Yiwu's The Corpse Walker and Other True Stories of Life in China than I'd previously learned in a lifetime.
The book comprises twenty-seven true life interviews with Chinese citizens from all walks of life and Liao Yiwu has been imprisoned for 4 years for writing the truth and recording oral history. In fact, he is legally unable to leave China to promote his book or attend international literary festivals.
His collection takes its name from an old pra...more
The book comprises twenty-seven true life interviews with Chinese citizens from all walks of life and Liao Yiwu has been imprisoned for 4 years for writing the truth and recording oral history. In fact, he is legally unable to leave China to promote his book or attend international literary festivals.
His collection takes its name from an old pra...more
As the son of class enemies and a banned journalist, Liao Yiwu decided to use his outcast status to gain the trust of and interview other people at the margins of Chinese society, yielding a fascinating collection of oral history pieces--from the wealthy but socially outcast (the public toilet magnate, the mortician), actual criminals (human trafficker, safecracker, border jumper), people haplessly caught up in political machinations they step in (the composer, the sleepwalker), remnants of Chin...more
You should read this if you have any interest in China and/or in people. It consists of several interviews with various Chinese personalities, many of whom would be actively silenced domestically (e.g. a Falun Gong practitioner). Meet grave robbers, professional mourners, human traffickers, a public restroom manager, and one guy with a fairly obvious disability who proclaimed himself Emperor and is currently serving life in prison (he attacked a hospital and several people died - the prison sent...more
I was pleased to discover how many of the stories came from Sichuan, Chongqing, and the surrounding areas. At some point, the stories of hardship began to blur together, began to seem repetitive in the ways they had been affected by the political vacillations of mid-century China. The more interesting storytelling came through in the descriptions of the specifics of each unique occupation: mortician, former landowner, Falun Gong practitioner, and so on. The collection gave me a new appreciation...more
Compared to interviews between Americans, the Chinese strike me as more aggressive, candid and willful speakers. There's little room given in their speech patterns for superficial politeness of any kind. This only emphasizes Liao Yiwu's many biases, especially when he's talking with someone you already know he doesn't like. One example would be a rather unrepentant human trafficker who Liao tells to his face that he'd like to "cut out [his] tongue."
Nevertheless, these hardball interviews get to...more
Nevertheless, these hardball interviews get to...more
Outstanding and sometimes shockingly frank literary interviews with Chinese people displaced by political shifts in China. I learned about professional mourners, who are paid to wail loud and long at funerals, and about corpse walkers, who are hired to literally walk the dead back to their homelands for burial. There's also a bracing interview with a despicable sex trafficker, from jail, who discusses his methods and philosophy. Most of the interviewees tell of being severely punished or in some...more
this is one of those 3.5 star books. 4 stars for cultural relevance and interest, but 3 stars for enjoyment. i could be judging the enjoyment value a little harshly, i came into this with really high hopes.
every story is entertaining and interesting, and most reveal interesting and, often, lesser-known facts about modern chinese history, culture and politics. this is a great intro or accompaniment text for someone who's interested in a social account of recent chinese history. the main players a...more
every story is entertaining and interesting, and most reveal interesting and, often, lesser-known facts about modern chinese history, culture and politics. this is a great intro or accompaniment text for someone who's interested in a social account of recent chinese history. the main players a...more
I really don't know how I feel about this book. There is certainly somewhat of a bias - I have many Chinese friends who tend to be proud of their country, and this is not a book that would make one proud of China's history. Liao Yiwu interviews people at the bottom of the proverbial ladder in China. There is a strong current of Chinese culture that I find fascinating, although there were times when I was almost cringing at some of the beliefs expressed in this book. I also had the natural tenden...more
Liao Yiwu is a poet, novelist, and screenwriter who was imprisoned for four years for his poem "Massacre" that condemned the killings in Tiananmen Square. This was not an anomaly — the twenty-seven oral histories in this volume explore China's underbelly, portraying dispossessed, spurned, and abandon people that the Chinese government does its best to keep invisible to the rest of the world. I found the book deeply disturbing, and was able to keep reading only because individual entries are shor...more
Not what I expected. The book opens with two stories about funerals and "corpse walking" and closes with a few interesting pieces about blind musicians and career criminals, but everything in between? Classify under, "What Appalling Things Happened to Me During the Cultural Revolution" and "The Even More Appalling Things I Did to Other People During the Cultural Revolution."
I understand that there was no escape from the Cultural Revolution and I guess I should have realized that for anyone over...more
I understand that there was no escape from the Cultural Revolution and I guess I should have realized that for anyone over...more
An amazing and enthralling document of the price China pays for her modernization, told entirely through vividly cinematic accounts from the streets. Grand stories get fished out of the marginalized citizens. Though they look orange and apples in appearance, this book shares the spirit of the Chinese classic "Outlaws of the Marsh" in that they both celebrate the people of the streets through these odd, supposedly prosperous periods. There haven't been too many honest books focused on the street...more
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Liao is a Chinese author, reporter, musician and poet. He is a critic of the Chinese regime, for which he has been imprisoned, and the majority of his writings are banned in China. He is the recipient of a Freedom to Write Award from the Independent Chinese PEN Center.
More about Yiwu Liao...
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