I Deliver Parcels in Beijing

A strangely compelling if rather disjointed story of modern life for a young person in today’s China.

The overwhelming impression I get is a strange mix of frenetic entrepreneurship and stifling bureaucracy, with periods of boredom and depression.

Our hero has a lot of jobs in very different industries but doesn’t seem to be able to stick to any of them for too long, despite demonstrating quite a wide range of skills and talents (although not salesmanship or negotiating skills it seems).

It is an honest account in that the author may well do himself down rather unjustly, he has clearly been good at some things.

My main complaint is that, despite reading it over a few days I lost track of where he was and when things were happening. The timeline seemed to jump around almost at random and the occasional extract from his journal didn’t really enlighten, although they were often quite elegant prose.

It didn’t really seem to have any conclusion or actual analysis of the state of China, it was just a factual account of experiences. Although this is what would make it a great subject for a book club — the very lack of analysis leaves it all for discussion by the readers.