The Drink and Dream Teahouse - Tapa blanda

When Space Rocket Factory Number Two closes down in the small Chinese town of Shaoyang, it is the signal for the old culture to confront the new. Party Secretary Li cannot cope, and commits suicide, but not before daubing a series of slogans onto sheets of rice paper and hanging them outside his bedroom window (Our Leaders Are Drunk On The Taste Of Corruption reads one; The Party Officials Are Screwing Our Daughters, reads another).Those left behind have to clear up after him: Old Zhu has to keep Party Secretary Li¿s ashes in the bottom of his wardrobe. On the other side of the courtyard, their aria singing neighbour, Madame Fan is temporarily silenced by the tragedy. Meanwhile Old Zhu¿s son, Da Shan, has returned from the city and fallen in love with not one but two childhood sweethearts.

Justin Hill is the author of one previous work, A Bend in the Yellow River. Born in 1971, he worked with VSO and lived in China for many years.