Glasstile

Glasstile is a major novel by the writer Xue Yanping. It was first published by Chunfeng Literature and Art Publishing House in 2007, and in 2016 Beijing Times Chinese Press issued a new illustrated collector’s edition featuring more than thirty pencil sketches of hutong alleys. Set in the hutong neighborhoods around Dongsi in Beijing’s Dongcheng District, the novel spans from the early days of reform and opening up in the late 1970s to after 2000, using the rise and fall of several hutong families to unfold a panoramic portrait of everyday city life that critics have called a “ukiyo-e of the imperial capital.” The main storyline centers on the male protagonist, Lao Er (Jianjun), and two young women: he loves his classmate Wu Qiang, while his neighbor Daling is deeply devoted to him. After the resumption of the college entrance examination, Wu Qiang gets into university, while Daling, having become accidentally pregnant, loses her chance at further study and buries her feelings. Lao Er, having failed the exam, becomes a factory worker, is soon fired, goes into business elsewhere, loses money out of loyalty to his buddies, and hastily marries a woman he does not love. Daling starts as an ordinary employee at a snack shop, then goes into business for herself with a restaurant and gradually becomes a capable woman. Along this emotional line, the novel brings out the divisions among young people after the resumption of the college entrance exam and the different fates of people amid social transformation: those who rise and those who fall, the mediocre and the prominent, each rising and falling according to their own logic. The work received a nomination for the Outstanding Novel Award at the Fourth Lao She Literary Award; its preface, “Ukiyo-e of the Imperial Capital,” was written by the scholar Sun Yu.