Flashback to Bacigalupi, who will forever be my favorite punching bag because he so perfectly encapsulates everything wrong about white people writing about my country (and about China, for that matter), which is to say: blisteringly, unforgivably, heinously racist. I’m in favor of having him quartered, by the way. Imagine! Being quartered by buffaloes. It’d be so authentic, don’t you think? Fitting as well, since we consider buffaloes especially stupid as animals go. The perfect analogy for white men.

Fast forward to more recently and let’s look at the 2011 James White Award shortlist. I have no idea how many of these authors are white, but I do know that out of six shortlisted stories there are two set in Thailand and China. You get one guess as to whether the stories were by Thai and Chinese authors respectively. (No.) Out of six nominees, at least four are white; the winner, Colum Paget, is a white man.

Sarah Stanton’s “Chrysanthemum” (haha oh the title). Now there’s not much to go on to be sure, because all that’s posted is a tiny little excerpt… but what is telling is that even this little excerpt packs enough offense in it to last a whole textbook on “yellow peril.”

In, out. In, out. Wa, ni tai hao le, you’re so good, you’re so big. Lift. Arch. Fall. Insert Coin.

That’s the first line. We have gratuitous Chinese. As far as I can tell, this is the perspective of some sort of sexbot. Why hello, Emiko the wind-up girl. We are sure trafficking in a lot of “Asian whore” stereotypes here, aren’t we?

Aren’t we.

Not so long ago, there were one hundred and nineteen men for every one hundred women in China; these days it is one woman to over one thousand and rising. The few women that remain become the wives of Party members, mistresses to the elite, absurd status symbols for those that can afford them.

Ahhhh. And now we come to the usual thing: the narrative in which futuristic THIRDWORLDIA OF SQUALOR AND POVERTY is always stuck in MORE SQUALOR AND POVERTY and HEY HOOKERS, HEY MISOGYNY.

Those things never happen in the west, d’you know. Ohhh, who wants to do the honors of pulling up human trafficking stats in the west? Who wanna? Sarah Stanton is, of course, an Aryan expat living in China and a professed Sinophile.

Now let’s take a look at Interzone editor Andy Cox’s comment on the other story.

Tori Truslow’s ‘Train in Vain’ is a compelling tale of exotic intrigue and intricate automata, told in breathlessly vivid and evocative prose.  There is no let up in narrative pace in this highly believable blend of fantasy and adventure.  There’s wit too, and a hint of darkness amid the exotic imagery.

In words so few, and already: “exotic” comes up twice. Andy Cox, I suspect, either loved or voted for the Hugo nomination of The Wind-Up Girl, which makes him worthless scum.

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