Synopsis "I Deliver Parcels in Beijing: On Making a Living"
A witty and humane account of one man, multiple jobs and what it means to live
In the twenty years following Hu Anyan’s high school graduation, he has held nineteen different jobs. He’s been a convenience store clerk, a bicycle salesman, a security guard and a delivery driver, among other things. He’s moved from city to city in China, moving away every time the work gets too intense or the bosses too bossy, making a home in rented rooms and carrying almost nothing with him except his copies of Chekhov and Carver.
I Deliver Parcels in Beijing is his account of his life as a low-wage worker in the anonymous mega-cities of modern China. From the psychology of the pecking order on a parcel-sorting factory floor to the perfect alcohol dose to get some daylight shut-eye before a punishing night shift, from the Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the hiring departments to the ideal layout of a delivery route, Hu’s sincere curiosity and deadpan humour highlight the human story behind the drudgery. Harnessing his love of literature, Hu begins to discover a new, freeing way of looking at and recording his world.
Quietly radical, brimming with humanity and humour, this book asks: what does work really mean? What should it mean? And do any of us really know how to live?
The break-out star of China’s new wave of working-class literature - The Times
Powerful... grim indictment of a terrible system, though Anyan finds humour and dignity in his bleakest moments - Books of the Year, Guardian
A fascinating insight into China's gig economy and the frustrations, fears and hopes of a rising generation that will shape the country's future - Books of the Year, Financial Times
Hypnotic . . . I Deliver Parcels in Beijing is quietly revolutionary simply because it treats the minutiae of work itself as important. The bureaucratic nightmare of trying to get a company to onboard a new employee; the propensity of electronic delivery bikes to break down; the discomfort of delivering packages in the freezing cold, but having to wear fingerless gloves to type on a phone screen—that these can be the topic of a book is almost revelatory - Washington Post
Hu Anyan's reflections touch on universal concerns. The language may be Chinese, but the exhaustion is global. Britain's work culture, long defined by quiet endurance, has slipped into its own paradox: a nation that works longer hours yet produces less, where the promise of flexibility too often disguises instability - New Statesman
Mr Hu’s straightforward prose and keen eye for detail capture the drudgery of gruelling low-wage work... Writing, Mr Hu insists, is an opposite pursuit, allowing him to express his individuality and depict that of other people. He has gone from shengchan, producing, to shenghuo, living - The Economist
An insightful, relatable, and often humorous account of working life in twenty-first-century China - Jacobin
An unforgettable portrayal of the gruelling realities of work in the gig economy... Despite documenting hardship and frustration, [it] is narrated in an intimate and witty style – for which English translator Jack Hargreaves deserves great credit... inspiring [and] open-hearted - Asia Times
Hu’s unsparing portrait of Chinese society - The Times
