Beijing: Drink at Dawn, Dance by Night

Name: Beijing: Drink at Dawn, Dance by Night
ISBN: 9787511340870

沈诗棋China Overseas Publishing House · ChinaJan 2016

2.8

Word count: 181K words
ISBN: 9787511340870

Report an error Find this book

Summary

From Taipei Nine to Five to Beijing: Drink at Dawn, Dance by Night — here young people's lives are more extreme, their desires denser, and their stories more thrilling. Rich second-generation girls, top socialites of the capital, princeling heirs, diamond bachelors: they get in and out of Ferraris and Maybachs, frequent luxury apartments and clubs like 'Heaven on Earth'... secret lovers, flirtations, theme parties... singing and dancing every night, desires running rampant. Each of them is extremely clever — so shrewd that they scheme even at love; yet once true love arrives, they immediately become innocent fools, collectively incapable of loving. This is twenty-first-century Beijing, where desire outweighs everything and true love is pitifully scarce. They enjoy such a life, yet all are too helpless to change it. Until an angelic girl suddenly breaks into their circle: love is her only faith, she is their alien. Fire and water cannot mix, yet they remain entangled. Will she be assimilated, or will she fight back against all odds? Beijing: Drink at Dawn, Dance by Night — our real and splendid urban love life!

Editor's review

Set against Beijing's urban nightlife, this book sketches a group of wealthy, calculating young people as they maneuver between desire and emotion. Shen Shiqi places label-defined figures—second-generation rich, socialites, second-generation officials—in luxury apartments, themed parties, and a whirl of luxury cars, presenting an extreme urban ecology of love and sex. The narrative tension comes from the intrusion of an "angel-like girl" who takes love as her faith, in sharp contrast to the "love incapacity" of those around her; the suspense of assimilation versus counterattack runs throughout. The book's value lies not in moral judgment but in preserving, through dense detail and fast pacing, a sample of urban youth's emotional state in a particular period. It reads well as genre fiction, and also serves as an observational text for readers interested in urban culture and generational attitudes toward love. As you read, watch for the reversals between characters' "cleverness" and "naivety"—that is the most meaningful part of the book.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers of urban romance genre fiction who want pace and plot momentum
Readers interested in the emotional lives and class realities of contemporary urban youth
Cultural observers who want to understand the literary depiction of Beijing nightlife around the 2010s
Readers looking for light but conversation-worthy commuting or bedtime reading

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer serious literature or language experimentation may find it shallow
Readers sensitive to lavish consumption and erotic description should choose carefully
Readers expecting deep social analysis rather than storytelling
Not recommended for minors

Reading tips

Read through the main storyline first, then return to the dialogue and note the turning points between "calculation" and "naivety."
Make a simple relationship chart of the main characters and refer to it while reading to avoid confusion.
When you reach party and consumption scenes, pause to consider why the author keeps piling on such details.
After finishing, compare it with similar urban romance works, especially in how they portray women.

About the publisher

China Overseas Publishing House China · Founded in 1988

China Overseas Publishing House focuses on philosophy, history, world classics and mystery and detective fiction, with a secondary interest in foreign literature and folk literature. Its catalogue of roughly 960 titles includes Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Jiang Tingfu's Modern Chinese History, Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, Arthur Conan Doyle's Complete Sherlock Holmes, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince, as well as Classic Collected Edition of Greek Myths and a beautifully illustrated edition of Zhuangzi, giving it a publishing profile centred on classic translations and traditional Chinese culture. Its authors and translators range from Wittgenstein, Jiang Tingfu, Mitchell, Conan Doyle and Saint-Exupéry to Huang Min, Fu Donghua and Liu Shijie. Public information about its editorial philosophy and series system is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a true story or a novel?

According to the materials, the book presents the love lives of young urbanites in Beijing in novel form; the characters and plot are literary creations, not reportage. Readers should treat it as a literary rendering of a particular urban way of life, not as a biography of real people or a sociological survey.

Will not having read Taipei 9 to 5 affect my reading?

The materials only compare this book with Taipei 9 to 5 and do not indicate any plot continuity between them. The characters and story here stand on their own, so not having read the earlier work should not affect comprehension; you can start directly with this book.

What kind of character is the "angel-like girl"?

According to the introduction, she is the only one who takes love as her faith, at once incompatible and entangled with the calculating crowd around her. Her appearance constitutes the book's main conflict; whether she is ultimately assimilated or fights back is not revealed in the introduction and must be discovered in reading.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

沈诗棋 Author · Chinese

Shen Shiqi is a Chinese author of youth literature. Public information about her is limited, and only one work can currently be confirmed: Beijing Chaojiu Wanwu (roughly, Beijing's Late-Night Drinking and Dancing). Judging from the title and its common classification, the book has a distinctly urban youthful flavor, and its subject matter likely revolves around the emotions, social life, and coming-of-age experiences of contemporary young people, though reliable public information about its specific plot and characters is not yet available for introduction. Based on the existing clues, Shen Shiqi's creative profile remains rather unclear, and readers know little about her life background, writing experience, or later works, which also limits any overall assessment of her to some extent. Nevertheless, on the strength of this single work, she has been placed within the tradition of youth literature, joining her contemporaries in paying attention to the living conditions and inner worlds of urban young people. For readers who wish to learn more about this author, further works and materials will need to be made public.