Wuhan Memories

 

There must be somewhere a book - or maybe two - about the representation of China in the French literature and/or everyday psyche. If the Middle East is usually represented as a geography where France can do its best by condescending helping those nations to shine culturally and politically, China is often regarded with awe and fear. Alain Peyrefitte, long-time confident of Charles de Gaulle and diplomat warned that the world will shake when China will wake up (the original title of his book was: Quand la Chine s´eveillera...le monde tremblera). I also remember a random Sci-Fi book I´ve found in our vast library by a French author whose name I never knew, which ends with an apocalyptic image of the end of times when a couple of Chinese - bluntly depicted as ´yellow´ - are the only survivors of a deadly war of the worlds. They were supposed to rebuild the new post-atomic or of any other deadly nature floods. 

Un hiver à Wuhan by Alexander Labruffe is shaken by apocalyptic blows by the very nature of the moments most of the events reflected are taking place: Wuhan shortly before the outburst of what we designate nowadays as Covid19 pandemic. As a cultural attaché he is shortly facing the realities of a dystopic world overwhelmed by pollution and permanent grotesque supervision of foreigners. The dispersed fragments of the reality are interferred with memories of another stay in the same place, 20 years ago, when Labruffe, a Chinese language graduate, worked there as a kind of technical supervisor for products supposed to be sent to Europe. 

The serious environmental problems, the hunt for foreigners to both control - including by scaring them with visits in the middle of the night for various ID checking (episodes that I´ve been several times told about by friends who worked and lived in China for various amounts of time) - but use as an important linguistic and relational tool (betting that a foreigner representing a Chinese company in the West will have a serious advantage in convincing the same West of the viability of the quality of the business offer). 

The serious problem is that those attempts are considered as clear proof of a threat coming from China, a conquest through all means. Meanwhile, let´s continue business as usual anyway and leave it to the scribblers the duty of amplifying the threats and complaining about the inevitable end of the world.

Un hiver à Wuhan is a short (kind of) diary but in full honesty, I did not feel impressed at all. Would have expected at least a bit more of sense of humour and maybe some genuine human stories, instead of the ´we´ vs. ´them´ kind of approach, vomited by fear from the top of the imaginary superiority ladder. 

Rating: 2 stars