About a year and a half ago, we published a story at Strange Horizons called “The Bright and Shining Parasites of Guiyu“. (Part One, Part Two.) It’s still one of my favorites–I know, I know, not supposed to have favorites, editorial mamas love all their children equally, but whatever, I really love this story. Wannabe b-boys from Jiangxi take IT jobs in Guiyu, hoping to earn enough money to go to Beijing and become hip-hop stars, but the IT jobs are really jobs picking through mountains of technology waste, and then things get weirder (and worse) from there.
The author of the story, Grady Hendrix recently posted on his blog about some issues he has with “The Bright and Shining Parasites of Guiyu”. The post is titled “Regretting Guiyu” and it’s worth a read. Grady’s concern is that he’s shortchanged the political aspects of his story–that he stopped short of showing how Americans, himself included, are deeply implicated in the horrible conditions that exist in places like Guiyu. His scary dystopian science-fiction scenario isn’t the future, it’s the present, and it’s a present that all of us in the over-technologized West have a part in shaping. I’m not sure that I agree with his critique of the story–I don’t at all think that it shies away from the ugly politics, although he’s right that it doesn’t specifically extend the supply chain out to American consumers. But I’m really glad to see him asking this kind of question.
To quote Grady: “When science fiction writers tell stories about generation ships, and moon bases, and rockets I always want to know: who built them? Was it a union shop? Because we have always journeyed into the future on a highway made of slaves.” I think we only strengthen ourselves, and our literature, if we stop hiding from that truth.
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As a side note: Grady Hendrix is also the author of ”Messengers from the Stars Will Come to Help Us Overcome The Obstacles That Hold Us Back From Achieving Our True Potential,” which I think puts him squarely in contention for the “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky” Prize for Awesome Long Titles. (Other contenders include, of course, “A Journal of Certain Events of Scientific Interest from the First Survey Voyage of the Southern Waters by HMS Ocelot, As Observed by Professor Thaddeus Boswell, DPhil, MSc” by Helen Keeble.
Posted Thursday, January 26th, 2012 at 5:00 pm. Filed under: personal.
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I may have more to say on this after I’ve had a chance to read the article, but for myself the source of all of that waste was always there in my mind as I read, and in some ways I think that any more explicit intrusion of the West into the story other than through its[*] toxic trash would have de-centered the protagonists.
[*]and it’s not *just* the toxic waste of the West, right? It’s the waste of every place that follows the green circuit-board road, and sourcing it to “American consumers” specifically seems to belittle the massive Chinese economy and the agency of Chinese leaders.
“[W]e have always journeyed into the future on a highway made of slaves.” (!)