Besides western classic literature, now I think the love for sci-fi was also a key for me to be able to build critical thinking in my 20s.
From when I was 8 years old, I was reading this then famous magazine called "Science Fiction World", 80% of the pieces would be translations of short to medium-length stories by foreign writers, 20% would be original works by Chinese writers. I would always finish within 2 days each month when I got it and would tape those dreamy space pictures all over my wall.
However when I was in junior high and high, the school was tightening the control on students' reading lists at home, magazines like this were listed as "not favored and better restricted" (because people with too much imagination is difficult to rule), so my family forbade me to it.
I still secretly purchased it from a neighborhood bookstore and hid it under layers of textbooks while reading. After I went to college, suddenly one day I realized it was very difficult to find that magazine in any store, the publisher as well went through rounds of regulation and censorship. I don't know if they continue to publish this magazine anymore in China or not...
Found this book from that library that had a whole row of Chinese books. It was first published in 2018, a compilation of short to medium-length stories by one author. Between the lines, I was constantly looking for any clue to indicate that this author had independent thinking and would not be like the author of "The Three-body Problem" who was deeply poisoned by propaganda and stuck in the so-called metanarrative, using "the law of the jungle" instead of universal values as his measurement for everything in life (metanarrative宏大敘事和 the law of the jungle叢林法則 - brainwashing guidelines for Chinese intellectuals).
I almost was discouraged to dig into his stories because of the preface. It was written by some people who held some governmental title in some writers' association. The whole 4 paged preface was total bullshit, praising how writers should adopt metanarrative writing style and why metanarrative is the only meaningful writing style in science fiction. The only sentence he forgot to write is "Metanarrative is the one and only writing method for us comrades who still believe in the revolution!!" oh wait, maybe he did write that.
C'mon, we live in the postmodern world, only the totalitarian rulers are still forcing the grand narrative methodology into their people as part of the scheme for propaganda and brainwashing.
Although this writer did state in multiple stories that "I don't like Americans" and he denounced "American imperialism", I wonder if he just used this as a practical tactic to bypass censorship. No wonder the moron who wrote the preface did sincerely believe this writer was truly aligned with their ideology.
How hard it is to be a writer under an authoritarian regime right? Years of practice on how to cover up your true thoughts with propaganda doctrines, but still could let out a little ray of light, for the people who're longing for warmth.
I guess I received enough of such hidden rays from my years of reading, therefore at the end, my eyes were only filled with light.
The sad thing is as the control is tightening day by day, the young generations, where do they even find such stories to read?
"宇宙盡頭的書店" by 江波 "The Bookstore (more of a Library but I guess using the word 'Library' might trigger censorship on the story) at the Edge of the Universe" by Jiang Bo
One of his well-known pieces is called "The Dance of Shiva"
