Political novels popular as survival kits

Before Wu Xinmin, a 28-year-old Beijing chengguan officer goes to sleep at night, he reads a fiction story that he downloaded from the Internet on his MP4 player. It is called Director of Beijing Representative Office III.

It takes a lot of time to finish reading the 300-page work, which depicts a world of political struggles between city officials. Yet Wu said he is addicted: "It is such a vivid account of bureaucracy that I cannot help but continue to read it," he said. "I also discuss the characters on an online forum."

Wu is not the only fan of such literature.

Bureaucracy-themed fiction has emerged as a popular catchphrase for Wu and other Chinese civil servants. They now form the largest readership of the officialdom-themed genre, a recent survey said.

Though vaguely defined, this genre of books usually centers on one or some officials, depicting either good or inept governance of them. Their personal and bureaucratic relationships always weigh heavily in the plot.

Nearly 80 percent of 690 respondents in a survey conducted by Sina.com and Decision Making, an Anhui-based magazine, said they have read the books. More than one-third said they work as civil servants.

The second and third largest groups of readers are people who own businesses or work for government institutions, both accounting for 20 percent.

Bureaucracy-themed fiction first emerged in China in 1999 when author Wang Yuewen published Chinese Painting, a book providing an overview of the bureaucratic wrestling match through Zhu Huaijing, a fictional figure, and his ups-and-downs when he worked in a small city in South China. The genre has been gaining in popularity ever since.

More than 120 new titles came out from January to March last year. Only 118 new works were published in 2008, according to Hudong,com, China's largest online encyclopedia.

Major Web portals, like Sina and Sohu, have pages dedicated to the latest bureaucracy-themed fiction. Some books, like Wang Xiaofang's Director of Beijing Representative Office, which was published in 2007, are still on best-seller lists.

"It is exciting to read chapters concerning political fights and anti-corruption plots," said Wu. "But certainly the work about the dark side of bureaucracy teaches us lessons we should avoid."

Ding Dong, an online critic, said there are a couple of reasons to explain the sudden reading craze of the genre.

Most civil servants read the books for recreation, Ding said.

Yet they also read for serious reasons, to gain experience, to understand how to deal with what at times are complicated bureaucratic relationships for the future growth of their careers, Ding said.

Civil servant has become one of the most sought after jobs for Chinese young people due to its stability and benefits.

On Nov 30, 2009 almost 1 million people nationwide took the civil service entrance exam. They were competing for only 15,000 posts.

Xiao Xiong, a postgraduate from a local university in Beijing, took the test. He said he read the bureaucracy-themed fictions not only to relax but also to learn.

"These books help give me more of an inside look at bureaucratic life," he said.

Yet some book critics say it is important for readers to remember that the books, at the end of the day, are only fiction.

"The keen readers want to peep into the real face of the bureaucratic life by reading these books as 'textbooks'," Shan Shibing, a book critic, said.

"They are wrong in thinking that way."

(China Daily 01/11/2010 page28)