Success Somewhere Else: Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw

We hear a lot of things about China, from its oppressive government to how it's going to take over the world (wouldn't count on that). But there is another way to understand what's happening in China, and that is to read the stories of people who actually live there. Oppressive the government may be, but it is one of the more economically prosperous countries in the Asian continent. Tash Aw's place story Five Star Billionaire accounts for a more nuanced perspective on the way life is in modern China, especially city life.

The five characters who come to Shanghai, China's largest city and the most populous city in the world, each want a chance to succeed in ways familiar to Western audiences. The Chinese economy is fully capitalist, and the protagonists' goals start out, at least, as purely material. But committing oneself to the capitalist agenda casts out the virtues of humanity that these characters, one by one, realize they have lost, perhaps irrevocably. In this entangled narrative, Aw shows us that capitalist ideology has the same effect here, to the detriment of the environment and humanity, in the most effective way possible: through small, individual stories.

The tale starts out strong, with an immersive introduction to Phoebe, one of two heroines in the book...though none of the characters can hardly described as heroic. She's an illegal immigrant but desperate to achieve materialistic and romantic success, expressed beautifully in a scene with a wealthy-looking young couple. This first chapter, which weaved in backstory with a wonderfully immersive scene, hooked me immediately.

The other characters, however, had less gripping introductions, Aw dropping the backstory almost all at once for the rest--most notably, Justin and Gary. Justin is the heir and proprietor to the massive family business of LKH Holdings, but we come in just before the moment of collapse. Gary ends up having a similar breakdown and drastic change of fortune, except he's a famous pop star, having won the genetic and marketable talent lottery, who ends up resenting his own fans and hating fame. The other female protagonist, Yinghui, is a successful businesswoman, but is feeling the stigma of being a "leftover" woman. Her introductory chapter is also excellent.

There is a fifth protagonist, who reveals his backstory slowly, recounting moments in his youth and more recent history to give us hints of his true motivations for success, remaining an ever-mysterious figure even as he enters the narratives of the other characters. And the reason why he is so successful may surprise you.

Naturally, as a lot of these novels go, the characters' lives each intertwine at one point or another. In a few cases, it's unknowingly, but we, the reader, are clued in. Seeing how these characters' lives connect is part of the fun in reading, so I won't reveal to much plot, but they all have a few things in common: they all are not native Chinese (all except Gary are from Malaysia), they all have achieved financial success (except for Phoebe, who manages to get there through deception), and they all are lacking in the personal life department, as none of them are married or have steady relationships. In the end, they all feel empty inside, as it turns out that financial success alone does not complete one's life.

The characters are also very calculated in their interactions with most of the people they meet, figuring out how they could use the other person and how the other person could use them. Often, the characters lie their way into success and out of sticky situations, and when they're finally honest with someone else, they get burned in the end. The culture of Shanghai seems to compel them to act this way, and the characters fail hard before they learn from their mistakes and move on to find true happiness.

The plot may appear cliched, but the different setting and culture gives the story a freshness that it may not have in a Western setting. Setting is important in this story, as well, and it is richly depicted in the prose description and characters' colored points of view. However, the women characters became engaged in stereotypically feminine behaviors that does not occur likewise for the male characters and I can't help but cry bias. I got tired of Phoebe's relentless pursuit of men, when I wasn't all that clear on what it was that she really wanted, and Yinghui's growing interest in dating made me sigh and roll my eyes occasionally. Other than that, however, the narrative hardly annoyed me.

Overall, this story is an engrossing portrait of the capitalist dream in Shanghai, which will chew you up and spit you out just like in pretty much every major city in the world. You may be able to save face, but only if it's not too late. Four out of five stars.

Introducing a New Rating Rubric!

Before I post my next review, I'd like to take some time to explain a second dimension with which I will be rating books, movies, and the like. In case you haven't noticed by now, I'm pretty lefty, and I usually take a paragraph or two to point out any problematic content in the story in question. So, why not build upon that and add a handy rating system to gauge the severity of the oppressive content?

As my overall rating is based on five, and we all love multiples of five, this "Oppression Scale" will be based on 10. 1 means little to no oppressive content (which will be few, I'm sure) and a 10 will be OMG RACIST SEXIST CLASSIST HOMOPHOBIC BULLSHIT! Most likely, a "good" book will have a low oppression score, and a "bad" book will have a high oppression score. I predict that many will score around 3-7. Now, this score is obviously entirely subjective, as different people will be bothered by different content to varying degrees. And no, cliche's will not be counted--unless they're racist cliche's.

Let's take an example: The Hunger Games (book). It features a strong female character, a diversity of races (shown in a good light), and is critical of violence and reality TV. However, I don't think Collins goes far enough in portraying the horror of forced violence, and is inconsistent in Katniss's reactions to violence and death. Overall, these are pretty weak criticisms, so I'll rate it a 2. I don't think we need to be too concerned about this book.

As for an example on the other end of the spectrum: Fifty Shades of Grey. There is nothing redeemable about this book. Christian and Ana's relationship is abusive, yet the author tries to make it seem like an ideal romance. And given that so many women seem to think that this is OK, that makes it even worse. I haven't actually read the whole thing myself--I credit Jennfer Armintrout and her wonderful recaps for cluing me in on the details. And since I haven't read the whole thing, I'll just give it a 9: highly oppressive.

So, that's how it works! Look for it in coming reviews!

What's so girly about reading?

Welcome to the first relevant post.

The other day I came across this article on Salon.com, asking the question, "why men don't read books". While it makes an interesting point about the publishing industry, like how lately, it's been female-dominated, the article fails at answering the question it asked in the first place. And the question worth asking is more like, "Why are fewer men reading books?" But that doesn't make a very catchy headline.

As a writing student, I've noticed that the vast majority of my classmates are female. Most of my male peers aren't exactly big readers. I find it strange that there's been such a gender gap (which is about 20 percent) in reading and writing, especially since that even into the twenty-first century, many of the most important and influential writers have been male: Kurt Vonnegut, Malcolm Gladwell, Chuck Palahniuk, Raymond Carver, David Foster Wallace...I could go on and on. A shortage of male writers or male-oriented literature is not the issue. And if anything, the overall decline of reading is much more troubling.
So, why this gap?

Like a lot of formerly male-dominated fields (psychology and art, for example), reading and writing are increasingly seen as a "girl's activity". The problem with that is that anything that's "for girls/women" tends to be de-valued and considered to be not as "important" as what is "for men". Just look at the women's movement: women have only gotten the rights they deserve by fitting themselves into "man's world", and that's a big reason why there's still so much more left to do. Men who pursue these "girly" activities, like dance, housework, fashion, and now reading, can be perceived as effeminate by their (sexist, closed-minded, ignorant) peers. And being "effeminate" is much worse than being perceived as "boyish" or "masculine" in our society.

Then there's the whole myth of film and TV being more lucrative creative professions. This may be true to an extent, but like all other creative endeavors, chances are that you won't get hugely rich or famous, especially if you're a writer. Most of us are in it for the love of storytelling, not to make mad moolah.

So why are fewer men reading books - and especially fiction books? Possibly because they think that fewer men are reading (and writing) books. Self-fulfilling prophecy.