Book Review
The Corpse Walker
5/5 stars
324 pages and 28 stories.
≈11 pages per story.
"The matter-of-fact descriptions of the horror stories of these common people are poetry."
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The book does not need to be read in order.

All of the interviews are unscripted, cleaned up for clarity, and very pithy.

I can't think of a book like this that has been written before, and that is because when people give books about historical events they often give huge panoramic views without actually talking to any real people. (The same theme as with talking heads on television.)

The second reason is that the people selected in this work are the marginal elements of society, and so often they don't have any authentic voice (as opposed to somebody that is using them as a mascot for his own purposes) because they tend to not be Men of Words. Many of these interviews were originally published in Chinese as part of "Interviews With People From The Bottom Rung of Society."

The interviewees are much older and their memories are mostly from the time of the Great Leap Forward [famine that killed 32 million people] and the Cultural Revolution [the country was terrorized by 14-year-olds for a 10-year period].
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The first overarching question that comes up is: WHY?

What is the point of all this misery and suffering?

The next overarching question that comes up is: HOW?

For people who lay claim to having the world's oldest civilization, how is it that they have come up with nothing better than the events described in this book?

There's so much anger toward Japanese people, but to be honest: Japanese have nothing on the brutality that Chinese people visited on each other both before and after the Japanese occupation.

Not by a damned sight.
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The brutality in these Chinese prisons were just unspeakable.

1. (xi) "At one point, his hands were tied behind his back for 23 days in solitary confinement until abscess is covered his armpits."

2..(p.268): "A new prisoner would have to go through various tortures designed by the guards and his fellow inmates to break him."

3. (p.236): "After they finally removed the shackles, my neck, wrist and ankles were abscessed.... It took another 4 months for the wounds to heal."

4. Government can stop issuing monthly retirement money. For one victim: It was reduced to ¥120/ month and then reduced again as further punishment to ¥50/month. Not even enough to buy rice.

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I will just give a couple of the most funny/disturbing quotes from each chapter in the order that I read them. (This doesn't do the book justice, and it really should be read if possible.)

∆The Mortician (p.176, 181): "Do you know why they wanted to eat human flesh? Many people were suffering from constipation after swallowing a combination of wild grass and white clay to appease gnawing hunger. Some herbal doctors told him that human flesh was an  effective relaxative. They wanted the relief badly" ///"This is China. You don't have much control when you are alive. When you die, you won't have control over your own obituary either."

∆The Falun Gong Practitioner (p.240): "After the camp authorities found out about it, they didn't even bother to send anyone to catch me. I figured they would just happy to get rid of me so they didn't have to bear any responsibility if I died."

∆The Human Trafficker (p.17): "When someone earns money without working hard, he begins to bullshit about the value of life."

∆The Corpse Walker (p.30): "People in the countryside believe that the fake money is used to bribe the corpse's guardian ghosts so they don't block the road to heaven."

∆The[falsely accused] Grave Robber (p.264): "The prison guard then told his lackeys to be careful during future tortures. We should focus on the areas we can cause pain and discomfort without killing the person. He then patted me on my shoulder. Thank God you didn't die in my hands."

∆The Sleepwalker (p.306): "Since we didn't get to eat meat, our only source of protein was placenta, which I picked up from my hospital. Locals didn't want to touch the stuff for superstitious reasons. We were quite lucky that we survived."

∆The Migrant Worker (p.309) Q: "If you were so poor, why did you keep having children?" A: "I am penniless. I have no luck with money at all. That's my fate. But my dick is not willing to accept fate. That stuff down there is the only hard spot in my body."

∆The Former Red Guard (p.197): "In those days, it was very common to see students beat their teachers to death. So, if an accused capitalist was tortured to death, nobody cared."

∆The Counterrevolutionary (p.207): "Protesting against the government was like throwing an egg against a big rock - - A futile attempt with a big personal loss."

∆The Safecracker (p.267): "I have cracked many safes and stolen millions of yuan. I'm waiting to be executed."

∆The Street Singer (p.293): "The Municipal Regulatory Agency are like state supported robbers. Vendors need to bribe them big time to get a permit. If you don't have a permit, they smash all your equipment during regular checkups."

∆The Composer(p.110): "I'm composing a series of elegies for the whole nation, for the millions of victims who died uncalled for deaths or suffered under Maoism."

∆The Leper [who actually was not one] (p.43,45): "Over the years, many healthy people have been sent to the hospital because fellow villagers suspected they had leprosy." AND Q: "I can't believe they set her on fire while she was still alive, didn't she react?" A:"She was blind and deaf. She hadn't eaten for days and she was probably already in a coma. Even if she had been awake, it would have only been a few seconds before she died."

∆The Public Restroom Manager (p.24): "One day the tube was blocked. When I went to investigate, I saw that a fetus had got stuck there...... The public toilet was like an abortion clinic, a dumping ground for dead fetuses. In China, life is cheap."

∆The Professional Mourner (p.4) Q:"How long can you wail? What was your record? A: 2 days and 2 nights."

∆The Illegal Border Crosser (p.251): "The pursuit of freedom is the hardest thing in this world. In China, if you are dying of hunger, nobody gives a damn. But when you try to move to a new place to find food for yourself and look for change of lifestyle, someone will immediately pounce and arrest you."

∆The Rightist (p.119): "You can't marry the Party or the People, can you? We used to hear phony stuff like 'So-and-so has been nurtured by the Party and the People.' What do the Party's breasts look like?"

∆The Peasant Emperor (p.50): "You should address me as Your Majesty."

∆The Village Teacher (p.169,171): "Since peasants seldom read novels, whatever you write about them, they won't know." AND "No shit. She has slept with hundreds of men and thinks she still has a fresh pussy."

∆The Tiananmen Father (p.227): "Despite the hectic situation at the crematorium, the government media still blasted out announcements denying that there had been any killings."

∆The Abbott (p.74,75): "Since my family was poor, my parents sent me to this Temple at the age of seven so I could get fed. So that was how I started out as a monk." AND "When you turn 100, and look back on the early part of your life, a couple of sentences are sufficient. Otherwise, I can go on for 3 days and 3 nights."

∆The Blind Erhu Player (p.278, 280) "When I turned seven, my parents couldn't stand the fact that all their children had been born blind. They both swallowed poison and commited suicide." AND "[Wasting] my life? I have never pondered these profound issues. For a blind person like me, every day is the same, unless I get sick or injure myself by bumping into a wall."

∆The Retired Official (p.126, 127, 133): "... revealed a terrible scandal involving cannibalism at the Fifth Production Division. That division encompassed 82 families with a population of 491. Between December 1959 and November 1960, peasants had killed and eaten 48 female children under the age of 7 which represented 90% of the female children in that age group. About 80% of the families were involved in cannibalism." AND "she was going to die of starvation anyway. It was better for us to sacrifice her to save the rest of the family. We just hope she would reincarnate into something else in the next life. It's too hard to be a human being." AND "We sent people to collect urine ..... Poured the urine into a big container and mixed it with garbage..... After a week, there would be a layer of green algae floating on top of the mess..... We'd scrape the thin layer out, added some water and sugar, and drink it. It didn't taste bad at all."

∆The Former Landowner (p.139,140, 142): "It was a change of dynasty and someone was bound to suffer." AND ".... Everyone in the village was in one way or another related by blood. We all share the same family name Zhou." AND "I'm turning 89 this year. I have long become tired of life. What can I do? The more I want to die, the further I am away from death. The pine coffin that lies in the main hall was made for me over 20 years ago."

∆The Yi District Chief's Wife: (p.150) "In those days, the work team acted like members of the triad. If they decided that someone deserved the death sentence, they simply called a public condemnation meeting and then had the person executed on the spot." AND "While I was away at the detention center, nobody was home taking care of my kids. My youngest daughter died of starvation. She was only 2 years old."

∆The Survivor: (p.324) "People in charge of cremation, they waited until there were 20 or 30 bodies. They then soaked them with gasoline and set them on fire. You could smell the burning flesh throughout the town. Since excavation work was done every day, so was cremation."

∆The Feng Shui Master (p.68): "If you get some herbs, you can mash them into a thick paste and smear them around your mouth, your ears, under your armpits, and around your asshole. It will prevent illness and drive away all sorts of bugs and evil spirits. Nowadays, I go days without eating. I simply sleep inside my tomb."

∆The Neighborhood Committee Director (p.183,189): "Times have changed. Everybody talks about money and nobody cares about Communism anymore." AND "Nobody wanted to hear me read the newspapers. Not only that, they even booed me off the podium several times. They converted the tea house into a mahjong parlor."

Verdict: Strongly recommended.