A brief daily
news column of the Spanish local paper I read is called '3 Minutes'.
The space is short, although what is important is on what the 3 minutes
are dedicated to. It seems that the theme is always on the light side,
but the journalist claimed the liberty to comment recently on a new
novel 'Years of Prosperity', centred on China.
If
this novel sweeps readers along page after page it's because few
people really know the modern China, that from what is let known, it's
that it's going to reach long and far. Those who do know something
about this country, of it's vast population, and their wakening with lightning
speed of advancement in technology, never stop to be amazed by this
country's potent power shown in all aspects. One can no more identify
them with their fast increasing restaurants in the western world.
Now,
thanks to Chan Koonchung's novel we learn that there's a dark side of
China, surprising and contradictory. The book was not able to published
in China, but someone posted it in Internet. China has 550 million
Internet users, the authorities assigned to delete 'undesirable'
materials are powerless to stop the endless stream of eager users &
readers. If some text or a Blog is deleted, it immediately appears on
some web.
The
story is the author's original idea, full of denouncement and satire,
that in the year 2013, during which a whole month has suddenly &
mysteriously disappeared, leaving absolutely no trace of any kind; but a
small group of citizens won't conform to this strange amnesia. In some
determined moment, there are those who try to figure out whether it's
better for them to have a good hell or bad paradise.
The
big question is whether China can have a government under dictatorship
by the one & only political party. Whether it can delete a whole
month together with all the corresponding information. The Chinese in
China read this novel in secret, although it's read and diffused
internationally. The only thing everybody knows now is that China is as
mighty powerful as it's little known.
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