The Way Spring Arrives was purchased virtually sight unseen. It wasn't until encountering the first essay about a third of the way through that I learned the anthology was an all-female production. (Yeah, I know, I didn't look at the cover.) In other words, it wasn't obvious the content was trying to be “woke”. This is a a good thing. Some of the essays included in the collection, they are another thing, but the stories themselves do not wear an obvious agenda on their sleeves.
The title to be taken literally, “The Stars We Raised” tells of people who raise stars like children. Some soft, some rough, and all cared for, traded, and coveted as if they were people-esque, there is one particular star which becomes a point of contention for a particular village, it's fate begging for a real-world social analog. A story told in classical form (or perhaps a retelling of a classic tale?), “The Tale of Wude's Heavenly Tribulation” by Count E is about Wude, the fox spirit, and his quest for spiritual expression and physical manifestation. Playing with the religion of Daoism (as opposed to the philosophy of), Count E spins a colorful tale with gods, demons, and lightning bolts in a manner visually reminiscent of art from Daoist temples.
More lark than story, “What Does the Fox Say?” by Xia Jia takes the sentence using all letters of the English alphabet (“The quick brown fox...”) and juggles it with other well known phrases from English legends, stories, and fairy tales. Not sure what Xia's “story” is doing in this anthology but it's here. A delicate bit of horror, “Blackbird” by Shen Dacheng is the story of one particular elderly woman living at a home for seniors. Called the “Blackbird” for the shadow which follows her and her unwillingness/inability to pass peacefully, the nurses on staff learn a thing or two about her true nature as events with other seniors transpire.
An interesting twist on the mysterious wonders of the cosmos, “The Restaurant at the End of Universe: Tai-Chi Mashed Taro” by Anna Wu compares and contrasts the Daoist aesthetes of yesteryear to the experiences of a family who own a restaurant at a remote waypoint in spacefare. The tone reflective of content, the story is not a banger, rather it's subtly nice—as I suppose serene beauty perhaps should be. “Baby, I Love You by Zhao Haihong” tells of a game developer tasked with creating a holo-game about raising a child. In order to do so, his boss pressures he and his wife to have a child of his own in order to make the game more believable. Zhao's story depends heavily on stereotype and is overt in its themes and character. Subtlety it does not have. Moving on, a story which appears classic but is in fact new (I think), “The Name of the Dragon” by Ling Chen uses ancient Chinese symbolism and power struggles to spotlight the subjectivity of semantics. While that may seem obvious, Chen nicely superimposes the story of warring dragons and kingdoms over the theme in engaging fashion.
Another story which plays with semantics is “To Procure Jade” by Gu Shi. And while the semantics are Chinese, enough information is provided to the reader to gather meaning. About a man who feels he was not born into his namesake, the reader hears the short tale of how he plays with the semiotics of his name to his own advantage. A science fiction love letter to the Chinese language, “A Brief History of Beinakan Disasters as Told in a Sinitic Language” by Nian Yu is an alien experience focusing on human capacities. A story that doesn't really know what it wants to be (hard sf? alien encounter? philological examination? apocalypse?), it meanders here and there trying to make its point about sinitic languages but in fashion that doesn't really hammer home the final nail.
An uncomfortable story, “Dragonslaying” by Shen Yingying tells of one sentient species control over another, a control exercised through the physical alteration of the subject species. Cutting off tails, the story explores the power dynamic between these two sides and the implications of such visceral subjugation. Parallels to Chinese foot binding or perhaps sex changes or something else? Half romance and half yin-yang, “The Portrait” by Chu Xidao tells of a man-woman dynamic through the eyes of an esteemed male painter and his female subject. While the import of the story is not subtle it remains perennial, and the character details tide the remainder over into enjoyable. Steadily maintaining the tone of a fable, “The Woman Carrying a Corpse” by Chi Hui tells of a woman walking a road, indeed, carrying a corpse. The corpse has multiple identities, and the variety of people she encounters—merchants, mad men, and beyond—are variegated. While well structured, the fable's moral is all too obvious. But I suppose that is in keeping with the meaning of “fable”.
About a fifth of the content in The Way Spring Arrives is non-fiction. Five in total, the anthology features essays which independently look at translation, linguistics, and gender, sometimes individually, sometimes in combination.
Readers who attend to hard left gender rhetoric may find something interesting in the essay “The Futures of Genders in Chinese Science Fiction” by Jing Tsu. Those who do not will likely be left behind at such statements as “marginalized genders”. Beyond such paradoxes, the essay parrots what one hears in woke media. The essay “Translation as Retelling: An Approach to Translating” by Yilin Wang goes into more depth, from a philological standpoint, regarding the relationship of gender to the Chinese language. While only touching the surface of many deeper topics, the essay is interesting in how it lays bare the structure of the two stories translated by Wang. The essay “Is There Such a Thing as Feminine Quietness? A Cognitive Linguistics” Emily Xueni Jin examines the decision by an unnamed translator to use the more effeminate version of the word “quiet” (for which there is no English equivalent) rather than the generic version of “quiet” in translating the live-action adaptation of Mulan. Jin builds a compelling case.
“Net Novels and the “She Era”: How Internet Novels Opened the Door for Female Readers and Writers in China” by Xueting Christine Ni provides a history of the underground stories that arose on the Chinese internet in spite of established publishing houses, and describes the cultural impact on women. While some of the connections made between gender and publishing may be tenuous, the overarching argument Ni builds is clear and concise. And the final essay does as its title indicates: “Writing and Translation: A Hundred Technical Tricks” by Rebecca F. Kuang. It gives readers an insider's view to the choices and dilemmas translators face, regardless of language. For anyone interested in linguistics or translating, Kuang offers a nice little morsel.
At the macro level, The Way Spring Arrives is an average collection of stories. There are couple which standout (“The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”, “The Name of the Dragon”, and “The Portrait”), but by and large there isn't anything of major impact, not to mention a couple of stories which are more awkward than anything. At the micro/niche level—where fantasy and science fiction exist these days, The Way Spring Arrives is a must-read for people interested in Chinese science fiction and fantasy. If the tip of the iceberg is the only thing such readers can get, it's best to get it. The reader will need to make up their own mind whether the non-fiction content has merit or not, but at a minimum the stories themselves offer content to be pored over, mostly from a uniquely Chinese perspective (”mostly” due to the fact some stories intentionally explore aspects of Chinese history, philology, and culture, while others would be at home in any culture or history). I don't know Li Bai, Du Fu, Zhuangzi, Laozi, or Tao Yuanming's opinions on the anthology (I think I could guess Lin Yutang's), but mine is generally positive.
And because I can't help myself, I will comment on the all-female nature of the anthology. In short there is no comment. To my ignorant, non-Chinese eyes, the authors' names are unisex, and therefore I did not subconsciously assign any presumptions to the stories themselves while reading. Even after learning it was an all-female production, nothing jumped out as wild or extreme. Respect, equality, freedom—the basic rights of any human were in the stories. Rather than a sociopolitical agenda, the majority of content focuses on plot, character, scene, imagination, etc. It's clear a couple of the stories have political aims, but the anthology is simply not propaganda. I therefore liken the politicized non-fiction content to the introduction of Jonathan Strahan's anthologies: talk-talk with little action to back it up. As with any decent anthology, these are proper stories, politics second if at all.
The following are the seventeen stories and five essays contained in The Way Spring Arrives:
The Stars We Raised by Xiu Xinyu
The Tale of Wude’s Heavenly Tribulation by Count E
What Does the Fox Say? by Xia Jia
Blackbird by Shen Dacheng
The Restaurant at the End of Universe: Tai-Chi Mashed Taro by Anna Wu
Essay: The Futures of Genders in Chinese Science Fiction by Jing Tsu
Baby, I Love You by Zhao Haihong
A Saccharophilic Earthworm by BaiFanRuShuang
The Alchemist of Lantian by BaiFanRuShuang
The Way Spring Arrives by Wang Nuonuo
Essay: Translation as Retelling: An Approach to Translating Gu Shi’s “To Procure Jade” and Ling Chen’s “The Name of the Dragon” by Yilin Wang
The Name of the Dragon by Ling Chen
To Procure Jade by Gu Shi
A Brief History of Beinakan Disasters as Told in a Sinitic Language by Nian Yu
Essay: Is There Such a Thing as Feminine Quietness? A Cognitive Linguistics Perspective by Emily Xueni Jin
Dragonslaying by Shen Yingying
New Year Painting, Ink and Color on Rice Paper, Zhaoqiao Village by Chen Qian
The Portrait by Chu Xidao
The Woman Carrying a Corpse by Chi Hui
The Mountain and the Secret of Their Names by Wang Nuonuo
Essay: Net Novels and the “She Era”: How Internet Novels Opened the Door for Female Readers and Writers in China by Xueting Christine Ni
Essay: Writing and Translation: A Hundred Technical Tricks by Rebecca F. Kuang
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