{"id":320719,"date":"2025-10-21T08:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T08:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/320719\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T08:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T08:33:09","slug":"i-deliver-parcels-in-beijing-by-hu-anyan-review-startling-stories-of-chinas-new-precarity-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/320719\/","title":{"rendered":"I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan review \u2013 startling stories of China\u2019s new precarity | Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the early 2000s until the Covid lockdowns, Hu Anyan was\u00a0one of China\u2019s vast army of internal migrants, moving between cities in pursuit of work. He did 19 jobs \u2013 shop assistant, hotel waiter, petrol attendant and security guard, among other things \u2013 in six cities. Although all these jobs were atrociously paid, they still earned him more than the one he tried for two years in the middle of this period: writer. (An 8,000-word story earned him less than 300 yuan \u2013 about \u00a330.) Then, during Covid, he wrote a blog about his night shifts in a logistics warehouse, and it went viral. The blog expanded and became I Deliver Parcels in Beijing, which has sold nearly 2m copies in China<\/a> since being published in 2023, and now appears in Jack Hargreaves\u2019s English translation.<\/p>\n

The low-paid Chinese worker is at the mercy of an entirely unrestrained market. The jobs Hu does demand unpaid trial periods and have no base\u00a0pay, and he works mainly for commission or a handling fee, which his employers can reduce on a whim. Disgruntled employees pick on each other, because \u201cgoing after the powerful will only cost us in the end\u201d. Experienced hands refuse to help newbies, on the grounds that \u201cteaching the disciple might starve the master\u201d. The only power Hu has is to walk away. When his bosses learn that he has no children, that his parents have pensions and medical insurance and don\u2019t need his support, they worry that he will leave at a moment\u2019s notice (and are sometimes right).<\/p>\n

To his customers, Hu is just a blurred head on their video intercom<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The book\u2019s longest and most compelling section narrates Hu\u2019s time as a courier in Beijing, delivering parcels ordered online to workplaces or gated residential developments. On the busiest days, even with an unreliable battery-operated trike to get around, he walks 30,000 steps. He works out that he must earn 0.5 yuan a minute (about 5p) so as not to run his life at a\u00a0loss, which means completing a delivery every four minutes. The 20\u00a0minutes he takes for lunch costs 10\u00a0yuan. Urination costs 1 yuan \u2013 provided the toilet is free and he only takes two minutes \u2013 so he avoids drinking too much water on his shifts. Some neighbourhoods have especially troublesome and time-devouring customers: Hu spends on them the time he saves in the better neighbourhoods, like a subsidy.<\/p>\n

To his customers, Hu is just a blurred head on their video intercom staring awkwardly into the camera. Even the online shopping addicts among them have no clue about a courier\u2019s life, and neither know nor care that each failed delivery costs Hu at least 0.5 yuan. One frequent shopper, a tower crane driver, is always busy midair when Hu tries to deliver. Another tells him that \u201cthe customer is king\u201d and Hu replies, with rare defiance, that \u201cthere should only be one king. I have to serve hundreds every day.\u201d In China, though, the customer really is king. They can try on the clothes Hu has just delivered and then cancel the order on the spot, in which case he receives no commission and even has to repackage it all himself, eating up yet more time. He must pay compensation to dissatisfied customers. One fellow courier, after a customer complains about his attitude, is ordered to spend three days visiting neighbouring depots, reading aloud his own letter of self-abnegation.<\/p>\n

We learn little about Hu himself, other than that he is frugal \u2013 he doesn\u2019t smoke or drink, cycles everywhere, and gets his hair cut at five-yuan stalls by the roadside \u2013 and that his natural shyness sometimes spirals into social anxiety and paranoia. One\u00a0paranoid episode comes during a\u00a0two-year stretch working in a windowless mall in Nanning, when the only time he spends outdoors is on the walk to and from work, usually in the dark. The 2008 Beijing Olympics pass him by; only the\u00a0Wenchuan earthquake of that year, the tremors from which reach the mall from more than 900\u00a0miles\u00a0away, briefly registers.<\/p>\n

Although this book is full of illuminating and often startling detail, it is written in flat, one-note prose that\u00a0I\u00a0found uninviting. Its deadpan, faux-naif quality has echoes of Haruki Murakami, but without Murakami\u2019s surreal switchbacks or storytelling power. Hu manages transitions with phrases like \u201cBut I digress\u201d and \u201cAnother thing that happened\u201d, and his chapters and subheadings have austere titles like \u201cMy first job to my eighth\u201d and \u201cOther jobs I\u2019ve had\u201d. An avid reader of Chekhov, Salinger and Carver, he says little about how their work connects with his own life, other than that they are \u201cpowerfully resonant\u201d. There are few concessions to the non-Chinese reader. We learn about the big online shopping peaks created by \u201cSingles Day\u201d and \u201cDouble Twelve\u201d (12 December) that are the bane of a courier\u2019s life, but I had to look up what these festivals involved.<\/p>\n

For all this book\u2019s fascinating anthropological insights, I was left wondering if its bestselling success in\u00a0China was the result of an authorial tone, and a cultural context, that has\u00a0been lost in transit.<\/p>\n

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I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan is published by Allen Lane (\u00a320). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com<\/a>. Delivery charges may apply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the early 2000s until the Covid lockdowns, Hu Anyan was\u00a0one of China\u2019s vast army of internal migrants,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":320720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-320719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115411236004388739","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}