Contemporary China Fictionalised – Te Pin Chen’s Land of Big Numbers

Posted: March 9th, 2021 | No Comments »

Not quite China Rhyming’s usual historical period but often harking back to the early part of the twenty first century, Te Pin Chen’s (former WSJ China correspondent) collection of short stories, Land of Big Numbers, bring to life many of the voiceless of recent Chinese history – migrant workers, back yard engineers, nail house residents, dissidents, emigres, stock market hopefuls, gig economy workers….Each one of the ten stories is fascinating….

A brother competes for gaming glory while his twin sister exposes the dark side of the Communist government on her underground blog; a worker at a government call centre is alarmed one day to find herself speaking to a former lover; a delicious new fruit arrives at the neighbourhood market and the locals find it starts to affect their lives in ways they could never have imagined; and a young woman’s dreams of making it big in Shanghai are stalled when she finds herself working as a florist.

These are just some of the myriad lives to be evoked in The Land of Big Numbers, a collection of stories which – sometimes playfully, sometimes darkly – draws back the curtain on the realities of modern China and unveils a cast of characters as rich and complicated as any in world literature. With virtuosic brilliance, Te-ping Chen sheds light on a country much talked about but little understood and announces the birth of a bright new star in the literary firmament. 

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