Fiction Fans
We Read Books and Other Words, Too. Join two casual readers as they completely ignore their academic backgrounds and talk about the books they loved, and sometimes the ones they didn’t. Includes segments like “Journey to the Center of the Discworld,” “Words are Weird,” and “Pet Peeves.” Ever wonder why someone would read bad fanfiction? They talk about that too.
Fiction Fans
Editor Interview: Sinophagia edited and translated by Xueting Ni
Your hosts are joined by Xueting Ni to talk about her experience translating and editing Sinophagia, a collection of Chinese horror short stories. They discuss both cultural and personal horror. At the end, Sara and Lilly go over their favorite stories in the collection.
You can find Xueting on twitter here: https://twitter.com/xuetingni
And more from her here: http://snowpavilion.co.uk/
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Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:
- Darkest Child by Kevin MacLeod
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily.
Sara:And I'm Sarah, and I'm so delighted to welcome Xueting Ni back to the podcast this time to talk about her new collection of translated and edited works of Chinese horror, Sinophagia.
Xueting:lovely to be back.
Lilly:We are so excited to talk about this book that I started before we started recording. Oops! But if we can hold on for just a couple minutes, we have some off topic questions. First being, what's something great that happened recently?
Xueting:well, my book launched earlier this week and that was very exciting. We had a lecture with the Miskatonic Institute of Horror here in London which opened their autumn season and it all went very well. It was well attended. The audience enjoyed it. They had fun pretending to be hopping zombies at the end. So yeah, that's definitely a good thing that's happened recently.
Sara:Yeah, congratulations on the, on the very successful book launch and the awesome collection.
Xueting:Thank you. Thank you.
Lilly:Sarah, how about you? What's something great that happened?
Sara:I think my good thing is that I had a potted rose that was very unhappy and brown and clearly dying. So I cut it back and gave it some, like, liquid fertilizer and and it looks like there are some new leaves coming up. So, fingers crossed that I didn't actually kill it.
Lilly:Congratulations. That's wonderful.
Xueting:sounds like you, you put the right thing to it.
Sara:Yeah, I'm,
Xueting:Good, good luck.
Sara:I'm, I'm hoping so. It's a really pretty rose. I, I mean, I, I kill as many plants as I don't. But I'm, I'm really hoping that I'm not killing this one.
Lilly:Fingers crossed.
Xueting:about you, Lily?
Lilly:Thank you. I. recently tried cooking a meal like how you're actually supposed to, where you prep all of the ingredients first instead of frantically trying to do half of it while the other half is cooking. It turns out that is easier.
Xueting:But it's definitely easier. Yeah.
Lilly:yeah, and was not actually that much slower. So I guess everyone's saying to do that since forever was right all along and I should have listened.
Xueting:It depends on what kind of cuisine. Me with I'm used to Asian and Chinese cooking. There's a lot of prepping and the cooking is just really quick. It's almost like an add on. The prepping is the one that takes longest. And I sometimes rush it. But it always turns out better if I prep everything and neatly arrange it all first.
Lilly:and then, it does make twice as many dishes when I have all the little bowls of all of the chopped things. But if I cook, I'm not the one who does the dishes, so that's fine. Heh heh heh
Xueting:I love that.
Lilly:heh. Heh heh heh
Xueting:That part. Yeah, that's good. That's a good part.
Lilly:What is everyone drinking this afternoon or evening? I have lemon ginger tea, which is very spicy and warm, which is good because I'm cold. Cool.
Sara:tea, but mine is some kind of Welsh black tea. I can't be more specific than that because the packaging is all in Welsh, so I don't know.
Xueting:Oh, that sounds interesting. I'd love to try.
Sara:Yeah, it's, it's nice. It's a friend got it for me from like, they have a store that sells it. Yeah.
Xueting:I'm drinking white tea. I usually go for a oolong tea or a black tea during the day in this season. But since this is the evening, and I want something that gives me a small lift But it doesn't stop me from sleeping it's white tea which is the lightest and it's nice and fragrant and light,
Sara:That sounds lovely.
Xueting:but warming as well. I know, we all need to be warm.
Lilly:know, we are getting into fall which is fun, but does mean it's just gonna be getting colder and colder and colder and colder and colder. But it's the perfect weather for reading scary stories. And that's all I've been doing recently. We read some Clive Barker for the podcast, so that's what I've read recently. We've been reading his short stories, his horror short stories. Sarah, have you read anything not podcast related recently?
Sara:I've not read anything not podcast related. Most of my reading lately has been for the podcast, which has been, it's been good stuff. So
Lilly:Yeah.
Sara:not a complaint.
Lilly:Xueting, how about you? Have you read anything good lately?
Xueting:I've been doing a lot of academic reading and research because I've been finishing my dissertation which is on wuxia, so some research and wuxia novels. it's one of my favorite genres, so it's, it's great. It's not for pleasure, but, you know, still, it's nice. And then a lot of horror research and some Classical horror texts. So, yeah, it's been interesting reading and good reading. I'm looking forward to reading for pleasure.
Lilly:Yeah. Well, I enjoyed Sinophagia so much, but I am also a horror fan. I know, Sarah, you can appreciate the art, but perhaps are not indulging yourself as much when we read scary stuff.
Sara:I'm, I'm a little bit of a wuss. So horror is not really my genre. But I did actually enjoy all of the stories in this collection. Although some of them were, were a little scary for me.
Xueting:that's really, really brave of you. Thank you for reading them all, even though horror is not your usual genre. That's, I'm really impressed. I hope you saw the content warning beforehand,
Sara:I did and, and I really appreciated having that because I find for me personally it really knowing what's coming to a certain extent really helps me enjoy the story more when it comes to something in like the horror or suspense genre. It,
Xueting:oh I
Sara:kind of alleviates that worry that. Something terrible is just around the bend because now I know what the terrible thing is. Oh,
Xueting:I put that in then. I got the inspiration from one of the talks I went to at FantasyCon a few years ago about horror and publishing horror, writing horror stories and putting together books, yeah, like horror and trauma. I'm really glad I put that in. I mean, I, speaking to some other friends who are various degrees of neuro spicy and have had, certain PTSD conditions, they have said they like horror, but they need to consume it in certain ways, like, i. e. they need to know happens Beforehand and then they can enjoy it more. So, yeah, I'm glad. Thank you for reading it and um, I'm hearing some strange noises. something like a groaning ghost.
Lilly:Oh no! You
Sara:possible that that is my pug snoring.
Xueting:Oh, that, that does sound like something. Something. Snoring,
Sara:they're very loud.
Lilly:And so, these ghosts are probably not going to try to possess us, but they will be here with us while we're recording.
Xueting:which is great. Very topical. And then I think. I think they're on the post on your logo, aren't they, the Pugs? They're on your FictionFans webpage. It's them.
Lilly:Yes. But we were talking about you know, everyone has different horror thresholds and I am on one end of that spectrum and Sarah is very far on the other end of that spectrum. Xueting, where do you think you are? Are you more of the like, I want to know what's going to happen before it happens? Or do you like jumping in blind?
Xueting:For me I, I do have some you know, neurospiciness and some trauma related perspective, so therefore, gory and slashy, I don't mind. It doesn't matter to me how bloody, you know, it is. But, but I find Creeping stories, creepy stories really work very well with me, sometimes maybe too well. And I think that things that go for the terror element, like the jumping out, and things like that, I probably would only enjoy that in certain circumstances. Yeah, probably knowing that it will come, I've never really approached it like that, but I guess I think knowing that it's going to come out, jump out would help too. So maybe somewhere along that spectrum rather than at the end, which the two of you seem to be one is at one end, the other one is at the other end.
Sara:Yes, we're definitely on opposite ends of the spectrum here, Lily and I. You have An introduction to this collection, where you talk a little bit about your process of putting it together, and you mentioned that it was initially difficult to find works for this anthology because some of the authors were reluctant to be categorized as have their stories be categorized as horror. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Xueting:Yep, so there was a flourishing renaissance in horror in the early 2000s but unfortunately there were some incidents that happened actually around the time of the, Death Note incidents here on the other side of the world due to some, some kind of copycat killings and people that died as a result of trying to reenact things in these, And also, there was that, but there was also the exploitation of the genre because it was profitable, lot of kind of quite trashy and shoddy works came out, published illegally, films made illegally and stuff like that. So it gave the genre a really bad name and so the government decided to ban horror rather than to educate people. So then this went on for about a decade now and really discouraged some writers from composing in this genre. The filmmakers carried on for a few years and then eventually had to stop when the funding began to decline. But this is yet another reason why I wanted to publish this anthology because I think there are some really excellent works that were written in contemporary horror during the renaissance that people should read and horror is a very popular genre in the, anglophone world.
Lilly:You. Mention using the word, I apologize in advance, gong zhuan, in an attempt to invite a more nuanced approach to the genre. Can you tell us a little bit more about, what that genre definition would be and why you decided to use it?
Xueting:So there are several words for horror. We have the which is a traditional sense of ho a sense of tales of the supernatural, records of the strange. And then we have the, we have K, which is, which comes from more, you know, horror in the west and is unfortunately associated with the term for terrorism. So, not so helpful when we're defining this genre. And then we have, then we have jingsong, which is literally shock and fright. So kind of points to the quite a narrow, narrow part of the genre, the, the, the the jumping scares and the, you know, the more slasher element of it. And then we have Xuanyi, which is doubt and suspense, so more, or doubt, suspense, dark mystery. So, which is why I've suggested a combination of Kongxuan, a combination from two of the terms. Which kind of includes two ends of two sides of how the Chinese perceive horror. One is this really kind of, you know, Oh, now that, now that it's stopped, I, I, I feel weird.
Sara:I was, I was, I was thinking maybe if I, if I muted myself it would be less distracting, but
Xueting:No, no, it's okay. It's up to you. It's up to you. so, so, So one, two sides of how the Chinese perceive horror. One is kind of the, the more kind, one is the slasher and the you know, torture gore type thing that they see as horror. And then the other side, which is their more traditional storytelling, is creepy and you know, atmospheric Tales of the Strange, where The ghosts and spirits are representing all kinds of things like human fears or human psyche or, you know, they're interacting with the world. So I'm really hoping to bring to, so this is, this term really kind of puts them on the same level and kind of hopefully makes them more socially acceptable as a, as, as a form of literature.
Sara:How did you decide what pieces you wanted to include in this collection?
Xueting:How did I decide? So, because this is a vanguard. Collection, probably the first one of its kind of Chinese contemporary horror fiction in the collection. So I wanted to include some of the established names, so like, Cai Jun and Hong Liangzi. These are kind of the masters of horror in China, but I also had quite a broad definition of the genre, so I wanted to include some newer voices, and then also some people who, show a wider spectrum of works, therefore, writers who perhaps work across different genres of SFF.
Lilly:It came up a few times in your editorial notes how fan communities have really been a huge part of the modern horror genre in China, and that just seems like such a cool community what a wonderful place to be, and I'm glad they, they have peers and aren't just completely ostracized.
Xueting:Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the positive results that came out of the censorship is that. A lot of the genre didn't die and a lot of the writers began to write online and they published in a slightly altered format. And they could see the fans that were interacting directly, the readers, and they could see enthusiasm. Their stories are shared and discussed thousands and thousands of times. So, yeah, I think that the Fan interaction really helped to keep the genre going, to keep horror going. And also, as with all literature published online, there is a direct interaction between the fans and the authors, and so that's immediate affirmation, direct affirmation that people like their stuff, so that's really great. And I was really glad to include. Some of these pieces in the collection, for example, the story called Those Who Walk At Night Walk With Ghosts. That's one that was published on Lotus Pod, on tianya. com, the Lotus Pod Ghost Talk, I think. And he's one of the xuecongge, he's one of the most acclaimed You know, modern tellers of the Tales of the Strange who publish this online. And then another one is the one called Yin Yang Pot by Chuan Ge. That was published online and it was so popular that it was made into a game, a little indie game. And in fact the writer said he had to contact them, the company, that made the game to claim his copyright. That's right. So, yeah, the things just spread on, sprawling on the internet.
Sara:It reminded me a little bit of fan fiction communities, except obviously this is original work that's, that's being published. Which like Lily said, I thought, I thought that was a beautiful thing.
Xueting:yeah, it is a really beautiful thing.
Lilly:Okay, so this is a horror collection. I have to ask, is there one story that scared you the most out of this collection of work?
Xueting:I think they all work different ways. It creeped me out in different ways, like, The Girl in the Rain is very much got me in the moments of you know, I get up in the middle of the night to have a drink and I look over my shoulder or, you know, when I'm out at night and it's a quiet street I kind of think I sense something moving somewhere, I'm not quite sure. It got me in that way, especially the ending. And then there was some Really quite uncomfortable translating, like, Forbidden Rooms and Tina Ghost Wedding. Because I think they are meant to make the reader feel uncomfortable, I mean, one's a survival horror, for example, and the other two, I kind of had some quite, relatable experiences in the, not so great experiences in childhood And also when I was translating Tino, I unfortunately contracted COVID but I had a schedule to keep. So the next day after I, I tested positive and I just went to sleep and the next day I got up and I was doing it in bed. So I don't know, maybe that, experience added a horrific. element to my translation. And then for Forbidden Rooms, because it's a survival horror, locked room kind of, story, so you feel very claustrophobic, you feel suffocated, and I think that's what the author, intends, and translating it was like that I needed to keep in mind to convey this feeling, but also I needed to understand that no matter how repetitive or how suffocating it is, every word, every nuance probably really counts in the perception of the story, and I think that that's been one of the most popular ones. People are really enjoying that psycho horror of that one. and the death of Nala was really disturbing as well, which is why I put it at the end, of course, so that people can't just throw the book out the window, or they can throw the book out the window at the but it stays with them, the creepiness stays with them.
Lilly:Oh my gosh, that one was so upsetting and then somehow it got worse.
Xueting:Oh,
Lilly:I had to put it down and go pet my cats halfway through that story because I was like, oh no.
Xueting:I'm so sorry, but I'm really glad at the same time.
Lilly:Yeah, no, that's great. That's perfect. I love it. It is interesting, like you mentioned, how horror can affect you very differently based on, you know, personal life experiences and also just where you are in the moment that you're reading it. while I was reading this this collection, at one point it was a sunny afternoon and whichever story I happened to read at that time I think, like, didn't get me quite as hard just because of the, the experiences around it. then the ones I was reading at night were the ones that I feel like just happened to linger more. And that's, has nothing to do with the stories, but just where I was at as a reader.
Xueting:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Have you tried reading the ones you read on a sunny day at night and see if they're creepier? And also translating it, I feel, like, does put, me into this because I'm dealing with the material really closely and intensely, it puts me into a very jumpy kind of iffy mindset. In a way, but, yeah. necessary part of going through that.
Sara:I prefer to read horror on a sunny afternoon. It makes it easier for me to get through it.
Xueting:yes, I can see, I can tell that, I can imagine, yeah,
Sara:So, you talk a little bit about this in some of your editorial notes as well, but there's a strong recurring theme of capitalism being at the heart of or the root of many of these stories. Can you tell us a little bit about this trend?
Xueting:I think that with China where it is now, is really starting to make its mark, even though it's supposed to be a communist country. But, you know, capitalism is starting to make its mark in all kinds of society in terms of the consumerism. And in terms of kind of the kind of model life that you're meant to have, you know, the house, you know, the mortgaged house and the cars and, kind of where your children went to school, you know, social status earning a certain amount makes you more eligible for marriage, things like that. And I think writers are really feeling how this is straining on society because when, once you get to a certain level, it reaches a saturation stage in people, There is a kind of sub genre that grows out of horror or science fiction that deals with this toxicity, it gets very toxic of capitalism. so I think this is why you get the dystopian and you get the horror, you get the sci fi horror, for example, the waking dream. So it manifests itself in different facets. So mainly this falls into the category of social horror, which is really on the rise in China at the moment because there are so many issues that have come out of the rapid development. And so this manifests itself in different ways. One is, you know, in the pressurized working environment. and I think you'll find a lot of this echoing the social debates in China or like things you see in the news. you may have heard about the pressures of the tech industry in China, and that's what the Waking Dream is about. That branch of capitalism there and the, super demand for technology. And then these competing companies and pressurized work environments. And then the other branches, you know, people that get left behind in the margins, in the, in the gaps, like forbidden rooms, for example, you know, children of divorced parents who are left with their grandparents. And then the grandparents, both generations are. Then grossly neglected because the middle generation are kind of struggling to keep their jobs, you know, they're too busy working, then because Society is overcompetitive then you have people who become very cold towards each other I think that's what know forbidden rooms is about too. You have a society where people Don't really care about one another enough to, support each other like a society should. So, there's that. then there's people who can't really afford things in this world. Like ancient glory, that story. Have you heard of ancient glory? Also some strange things happening because people are trying to still do what they do. Observe their, Customs and traditions that mean something to them but they can't afford it and therefore do this strange thing with suburban built flats so many branches of capitalism Happening can be eels of capitalism being explored there. You you could put it that way or You know, the social horror in that way.
Sara:Yeah, I, I work in tech, so the waking dream really struck me like there, there, I felt like there was that added layer of, yeah, I can, I can imagine this happening and being in this industry and so that, that added to the horror of it.
Xueting:Yeah, I think that was another one that really, I felt really disturbed by. Yeah. I'm really glad that you can relate to it as a person, as someone who works in tech. That was another story that really disturbed me. It didn't really terrify me, but it really disturbed me. If we were to have this situation, then there would be no getting away, because we're kind of in there, in our consciousness the corporations kind of controlling that. yeah, and that's kind of an interesting blend between science fiction and horror.
Lilly:Yeah, horror is a fascinating genre in that it sort of spans many other genres, right? There's the sci fi, there's the fantasy, there's the folklore, there's the thriller, but all of them sort of can fit under the horror umbrella.
Xueting:exactly. Yeah, there is the folk horrors, as you say, and there is the sci fi and there's the urban legends. And I think that's the broad view I wanted to take for this collection. I think there's a bit of everything in Sinophagia. a lot of the permutations in Sinophagia.
Sara:So you have a previous volume of short fiction Sinopticon that you put together and translated and edited. Were there any lessons that you learned from the process of doing that volume that you were able to apply to Sinophagia?
Xueting:Knowing that it was a lot of work helped because Sinophagia was even more work. But being prepared for that helps and also herding cats. I mean, Lily you have cats, I have cats too, and they, you know, when you're trying to get them to do what you want them to do, they never do. And With authors, especially a dozen of them is like that too, and they're agents or getting them to supply certain things at a certain point and do that the same way, and the contracts, sign the contracts and paperwork and things like that, it was quite a really good experience. And then there are things that what I learned from Sinopticon and More so in Sinophagia is that I can, just kind of trust my, my judgment on things really. And to know that I do have the control over the content, even though the agents or authors might say to me, this one is really popular with Chinese audiences, or we think that Westerners will like this one. To know that I can say to them, actually that view of gender isn't going to fly with Anglophone audiences. Or, you know, this ending is a bit, This seems like somewhat a forced happy ending, yeah? And then they say, oh yeah, this is because it was done for Chinese New Year and we actually had a more creepy ending. So things like that I can, you know, trust my judgment and give the, input this into the process and you get the. most excellent collection that I can and work with a range of companies and agents and authors. actually, Synophasia was a lot harder than Synopticon because of the different stages of the genres, because horror at the moment is about where sci Sci fi was 10 years ago. It's, now very much supported and horror is not, not yet. And we're still pushing for it to be validated as a quality literary genre you know, film and storytelling form and genre. So, as I said in the introduction, I really struggled with finding material first because, and that's another thing I learned. when the agents and the writers were telling me, why do you want to publish horror? I have some really lovely romances you can publish or a fantasy. why do you want to publish horror? Nobody wants to write it. and I, you know, just had to. look the country really needs this genre right now. There are some really great works that were written recently. And actually this is a really valuable storytelling form and type of fiction and in the West, it's a lot more valued. I think that English readers would really appreciate it. And, that might really help domestically people to appreciate it more. So I really had to stick to my guns and opinions and I'm really glad it worked out. So some lessons and some, things I learned from Zynopticon and some more lessons. I
Sara:do you think there will be a Sinophagia volume two at some point?
Xueting:hope so. I really hope
Sara:I would read it. I'm not a horror reader, but I would read it.
Xueting:Well, thank you. Thank you. That is high praise. I'll make sure the content warning is in there so you know what's happening.
Sara:Yes.
Lilly:While you were working on these two different collections, did you notice any particular differences between translating science fiction versus horror?
Xueting:Yes, in the way that I needed to look into, I needed to have physics textbooks and biology and chemistry, science textbooks with me for science fiction. I needed to research maybe something else for horror mythology. Like our conversation Lily, earlier on I needed maybe a book on mythology but actually with horror, I find that, you know, with science fiction, what I needed to research was science, the actual science and theories, and then maybe a bit of mythology because it's Chinese science fiction and that's a trend at the moment. But with horror, it could be anything because it kind of seeps into so many aspects of life. I mean, for example, I was researching cosmology like the I Ching and things. And then also weapons and modern history, but also modern history, but also, what was it, anatomy. And all kinds of things labor laws as well so depending on what the, what the story is. I think there's a similarity between science fiction and horror in that they both require the reader to suspend their disbelief in different ways, but And particularly for a short story collection, how I need to make sure I bring the reader in, into that space straight away. The space where they can suspend their disbelief and crossing to that culture as well as that different diegetic space. Of course there are different spaces with sci fi and horror. With science fiction, it's more like a rational way of thinking, I mean, there's, there's emotion, you know, there's emotional responses as well, the story of course, but it's a more rational way of looking at things that horror is kind of the opposite in a way, you know, irrational kind of sense of dread, But anyway, I feel like I need to get the reader into this, transport them into this space very quickly
Lilly:Absolutely. I was saying earlier that I was so glad that I had read your work on Chinese mythology because it gave me some context, some cultural context for things that come up in some of these short stories specifically the importance of mountains. It was something that I definitely noticed and had not known before. And I, I probably could have read Sinophagia. I'm sure I could have read it without that background information and still enjoyed it immensely. But it definitely added, I think, to my experience. So, any listeners should go read all of these books and not just one of them. ha, ha, ha,
Xueting:Thank you Lily, you're really the ideal reader. You're really, I mean, I've had, I've had some great reviews for Sinopticon. and there was only one who said, I can't relate to any of this. And, yeah. And even with the notes, and you have actually related it to, my other book. So that's, that's brilliant. that's fantastic. I'm sure that in some other cultures, it is also a mysterious place or a mystical place or an ominous place. And Yeah, it's definitely, for Chinese horror, it seems like the further into the mountains you go, the weirder it gets and my authors, they are from parts of China, but they tend to, many of them are from kind of the mountainous regions, and they set their stories there, like the central large mountain range. Of Hobe and, and then Western you know, Nan and then wan. And then there are some mountains along the coast. All of these are featured in the book. They kind of represent different aspects of our perceptions of the mountains. But definitely that's where the cre corlies are.
Lilly:Yeah, Sometimes literal creepy crawlies
Xueting:Yes, yes, in Records of Xiangxi, where it's set in western Hunan, where you have the Zhangjiajie Mountains those really, I don't know if you've seen pictures of it, it's kind of these huge, kind of plinth like mountain, mountain tops, above the clouds and mist, and they're often the home of demons in Chinese fantasy, and So that's where it's set. And in Western China, there are hundreds of kind of ethnic groups that live there and some of them keep, the ancient customs of you know, folk traditions of witchcraft and, you know, things like that. And the Chinese are really fascinated. This is, this really fascinates the Han Chinese. So that story really taps into that. As, as you say, real real creepy crawlies. so then, then you have some other stories that deal with mountains as something that cuts them off from the outside or that sense of xenophobia in Tinan, where the villagers kind of alienate themselves and the mountains are like an impasse and, and, and Then you have like mountains that remember history in those who walk at night. So they represent different things, but definitely the ominous,
Lilly:You mentioned this a little bit earlier, but how did you decide what order to present these works in?
Xueting:that comes down to the um, post it's a highlighters really. So, write them on a sticker, and I kind of, highlight them in different colors according to the tone. And subject matter and then I kind of arranged and rearranged them. so Death of Nala, I was really, really disturbed me and my editor was even more disturbed by it. So we thought definitely that one at the end. And then I wanted to begin with a nice kind of I don't know if nice is the word, a traditional, more traditional story, still contemporary, but. Traditional Chinese horror telling, so, then Hong Nanzi was the perfect writer for that. She's been working in the genre for ages, through the censorship, and she's just really great at horror storytelling. and college horror is a very big sub genre in China, so that one first, and then everything in between is I wanted to vary the tone. for the readers and perhaps and then draw them in with the shorter stories and then kind of build up to the ending. With the science fiction, I felt like I needed to follow on from arranging all the following on from the previous story. But with horror, you can really play with kind of the offsets, you know, and the yeah. disjointedness of it. So Sometimes the element of surprise is a good thing. So definitely everything in the middle varied the tone and, and subject as much as possible.
Sara:Were there any stories that you wanted to include, but that you had to cut for whatever reason?
Xueting:Well, yes, there I'd read a lot of things that came in over the few months, including whole books really quickly, like, you know, so, so, ooh, I lost my thread there. So, Hong Nangzi, Hong Nangzi was the writer who's This agent sent me the, her entire book and I really love this collection. It's basically an emporium of horror tales based on this lost city and strange objects. I love the whole thing. I wanted to translate the whole thing, but of course I could only pick one of them. So, but you know, I would, I'm Looking to do that, given the opportunity, maybe later. And then, there was Chi Hui who had she sent in one of her longer stories and I really love that story, it's kind of a serial killer, murder, mystery, horror, combined with science fiction, and like, psycho horror. I really loved it, but I realized it was, it was like a, an earlier form of a much longer story. So I had to pick another piece to hold and hold that one back for the, in order to find an opportunity to publish the full work, which I really hope to do as well. So yeah, there were, there were some that I couldn't include.
Sara:Well, I hope that you do get the opportunity to publish both of those at some point, because they do both sound excellent.
Xueting:Thank you. Me too. Thank you. I really hope I find the opportunity. to do that.
Lilly:Well, I think that wraps it up for our questions. Xueting, thank you so much for joining us. It is always a delight to read. You're excellently curated collections of works, and then also to get to discuss them with you always a pleasure. Can you tell our listeners if you have any projects they should keep an eye out for?
Xueting:So Sinophagia is currently on book tour at the moment. I'm doing a series of signings and panels and Q& A. So, you can keep an eye on those in the coming, for the rest of the month in the, in October. I do have some on the pipeline. I'm working on a book on wuxia storytelling culture and some more translations. I would say keep in touch and watch this space.
Sara:And where can our listeners find you on the internet so that they can keep in touch and, and can keep up with what you've got going out, going on?
Xueting:So I'm on Blue Sky and Twitter, I'm still gonna call it Twitter, and then on Insta as well. So I'm shutting the x u e t i n g n i that's my Twitter handle, and then jetting me at bluesky. social. And then on Instagram, I'm snowpavilion, as in the weather and then the, the architecture. Yeah, it's always a pleasure to chat to both of you, Lily and Sarah.
Sara:Yeah, it's, it's always a delight to have you on. So thank you so much for, for coming back on to talk about Sinophagia with us.
Xueting:Thank you. Thank you. It's a real pleasure.
Sara:So Xueting asked us to talk about some of our favorite stories in this collection. So without further ado, Lily, what were some of your favorite stories?
Lilly:So I think my favorite overall story was the ghost wedding. Although I do think I found it more tragic than scary. That's the one about a woman who had been trafficked into a rural village and escaped, but her daughter grew up there and didn't really understand what her mother had gone through and ends up trying to return but passing away. And then the mother having to sort of deal with returning to the village that has really only brought misery to her life.
Sara:Yeah, that one was excellent. One, it was one of the stories that doesn't have very much of a supernatural presence to it. Everything is just like the horror comes from the human actions. And I guess maybe the inherent Uneasiness of a concept of a ghost wedding maybe, but yeah, that, that one was tragic.
Lilly:just the slow reveal of what the main character had gone through in her life was, yeah, heartbreaking. I will say, Xueting in her email mentioned that Oh, maybe you weren't scared because you have a higher threshold for horror. And that is not what I would say is my experience with horror. It's, I don't enjoy it because it doesn't scare me, I enjoy being scared. You know what I mean? So,
Sara:I think that's the difference between us is I don't enjoy being scared.
Lilly:yes. When I, when I say I have a high tolerance, it's not that it, yeah, I'm therefore not freaked out. So the one that did make me actually literally jump was Night Climb. I loved that one. I had to read it twice, just because the end was so sudden, and it was a shorter piece, so it was very easy to go back and like, what just happened?
Sara:It's, it's funny you say that that one made you jump. It's also one of my favorites. Because I would, like, I wouldn't really call it that scary. I mean, uneasy, definitely. And the ending is unsettling. But, it didn't. It didn't make me jump.
Lilly:I'm very easily startled. And it, I had an actual physical startle reaction to the end of that story. Forbidden Rooms was probably the one that I was most engaged with slash stressed out by. It's the one that had me on the edge of my seat, that I was probably the most invested in what the characters were going through in that moment. It was also one of the more immediate stories. A lot of these works had a feel of, like, telling a story of something that happened previously. Whereas Forbidden Rooms felt much more in the moment. I don't remember what tense it was written in, but that's not the point, you know what I mean.
Sara:Yeah, I think some of the other stories have more of a framework that puts distance around them. Like there's one that is essentially a historian writing about past events that happened in this one location. And so that adds distance, but Forbidden Rooms is quite immediate.
Lilly:Oh, and, probably, I mean, I didn't think of this, it was probably the one that was most relatable for me personally, having never lived in rural China. A lot of those were very good, but don't speak to, like, experiences I have had. Whereas living in an apartment and hearing your neighbors, and my husband and I have had the conversation of when do you call the cops? You know, so like that trying to decide how involved you should be in your neighbor's lives. And so I think in that way it made me feel much more, not invested because that sounds awful, but it was, I was very personally relatable, relating to that story.
Sara:Yeah, it makes, it makes you feel more placed into the story.
Lilly:That could happen to me. I'm probably not going to get human trafficked, but forbidden rooms could happen to me.
Sara:Yeah, I, I think Forbidden Rooms was one of the best stories in the collection. But I also, Hated it, not in the sense that it was bad, because I think it, it was one of the best One of the best stories in the collection, but it made me so anxious which means that it was doing what the author intended. Like, it was, it was excellent. It was great. And I, it's probably the story that stayed with me the most after the collection, but also it made me anxious and I hated it.
Lilly:It, it was very upsetting. It has to do with child death, which is, I mean, I think probably is upsetting to most people. But also, technically isn't horror, all horror upsetting to most people, but you know what I mean. Similarly, I think the most upsetting story was the death of Nala. Because, not only is that about child death, it's a postpartum mother trying to deal with the fact that one of her children killed her other one. Which is, like, a lot. And it starts with, like, very sad cat death, and then somehow gets worse?
Sara:Yeah, that, that one was also very upsetting.
Lilly:That one was hard for me to read, which I think therefore makes it the one that was the most horrifying to me.
Sara:yeah, I, I had a lot of trouble reading that one too.
Lilly:I would re read Forbidden Rooms. I don't know if I could re read The Death of Nala. Yeah, and
Sara:reread Forbidden Rooms, I'm not going to but I probably could, I, yeah, I don't think I could reread The Death of Nala because it was, it was, it's a hard read. I mean, it's a good story. But it's, yeah.
Lilly:so on the metric of which one affected me the most, that one gets the crown.
Sara:I also really enjoyed the yin yang pot. Not because I found it, I mean it is, it is scary, but I think what's scary about it is the way, the, the callousness of the main character and how he's willing to completely just use this poor underclassman who likes him to bring back his dead father. But I really appreciated the karma at the end of the book or at the end of the story where his body gets used not by the girlfriend, by someone else. And I found that little twist to be very enjoyable, because he deserves it. He's an asshole, and he deserves it.
Lilly:Yeah, it left me feeling, I mean, still sad for the girl he basically sacrificed. Because she doesn't really get a comeuppance in that she is still stuck in the past. I mean, she's basically dead, right? Her body has been possessed. However, he at least, there's some, some justice against him.
Sara:Yeah. Yeah. I
Lilly:me hungry, and I did immediately change all of our plans and demand that we go out for hot pot the next day.
Sara:It it had a lot of food in it, which may also be why I enjoyed it,
Lilly:yeah.
Sara:because it it made me hungry as well.
Lilly:And then I spent the entire time at dinner explaining to my husband. why we shouldn't be eating, like, sharing sides of the hot pot. And he was like, huh, sure. And I was like, no, you don't get it. If I was a ghost, I could possess you now. And he was like, you're not a ghost. And I was like, but if I was!
Sara:There's something that you haven't told him.
Lilly:I really enjoyed that one, but it was not the scariest for me. I loved it too. And,
Sara:it was not, it was not particularly scary, which probably is why it ranks high on my list of favorite stories in the collection.
Lilly:and because of the comeuppance, it leaves you feeling victorious in a way that a lot of these stories don't.
Sara:Yeah, I mean, a lot of these stories are kind of downers. But this one is not. Although, it is, like you say, it is, it is still sad for the girl who gets possessed because she doesn't, she doesn't get any kind of comeuppance.
Lilly:Yeah.
Sara:She is just possessed.
Lilly:Well, did you have one that freaked you out the most? Was it the death of Nala because of the very graphic cat death?
Sara:Yeah, yeah, that, that one did freak me out because of that, but luckily there are content warnings for this book which helped a lot.
Lilly:Yeah, I did not read the content warnings, so
Sara:I did read the content warnings but I did not remember all of the content warnings, I will admit. But it does have them and I appreciate that. And it helped, it helped for the stories that I did actually remember them in.
Lilly:it's good. For me, it's almost, oh, there are content warnings? Okay, like that's just the existence of them is all I need to know.
Sara:Yeah, I, I feel mostly the same way. I like having them explicitly laid out. For those times when I do actually really want to know what's going on, which helps me with scary stories, but sometimes just knowing that there are content warnings is enough.
Lilly:Yeah, I think for me it's knowing that I'm going into an experience that is going to be intense in some way. Okay. Okay. Okay. I can like, okay, prepare myself. If I went into something thinking it was a fluffy rom com, and then suddenly it was horror, I think I would be more upset. But just the label horror itself tells me a lot, you know? The author is trying to freak me out somehow.
Sara:Yeah. Yeah, that's true. But a story that scared me the most I don't know, I almost think that that would be the girl in the rain, because it has that kind of urban legend feel to it, and I just find those scary.
Lilly:I loved the mon what was the name of the one that was like the historical piece? Stories of something. I don't remember. I really like monster stories. I don't know if that
Sara:records of Shang Chi,
Lilly:yes, thank you. That piece didn't work perfectly for me, but the monster was very cool. And I know intellectually that monsters count as horror, but they are so just like fascinating and badass. that I spend my time appreciating that aspect of the story. And so, like, monsters have, like, they don't, they don't scare me but I love them a lot. And that was a very cool monster. It
Sara:scared me. I found that monster scary.
Lilly:was creepy. It was creepy as heck. But also very cool.
Sara:It was, I'm not sure I would go so far as to call it cool. It was interesting. Very creepy. I think, I think too creepy for me to call it cool.
Lilly:Fair enough.
Sara:Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.
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Lilly:We also have a Patreon, where you can support us and find our show notes and a lot of other nonsense. Bye!
Sara:for listening, and may your villains always be defeated. Bye!