From deliveryman to tofu maker: The everyday poets of China
In the past, literary pursuits might have been the preserve of the elite. In modern-day Shanghai, however, the creation and appreciation of literature has been democratised, buoyed by the advent of social media. Lianhe Zaobao correspondent Li Kang explores Shanghai’s burgeoning literary scene.
(All photos by Li Kang unless otherwise stated.)
In front of display boards jam-packed with slips of paper, groups of young people gathered. Some scanned the rows of paper slips, others paused in their tracks, and a few squeezed through the crowd to paste new slips onto the boards.
On this late-autumn afternoon, young people in Shanghai had come together at Lu Xun Park to take part in an outdoor literature festival. The organisers provided paper and pens, and anyone could pick one up on the spot to write down their reflections on life.
In a city like Shanghai, where weekend events of every kind compete for attention, I had assumed a literary gathering like this would draw only a niche crowd. But when I arrived and saw the long line at the entrance, I stopped in my tracks. Have today’s young people rediscovered literature?
... the spotlight here was not on renowned scholars and celebrated authors, but on the “everyday writers” all around us.
Transforming everyday life into art
After wandering through the book fair and the interactive installations at the venue, I quickly found the answer. Unlike other literature festivals, the spotlight here was not on renowned scholars and celebrated authors, but on the “everyday writers” all around us.
A 70-year-old woman from Guangxi known as “Sister Xiao” (肖大妹) has spent half her life making tofu. Five years ago, she began writing down and illustrating her own life stories, and this time she set up her own “life exhibition” at the event. Another 70-year-old, Wang Yuzhen, a retired teacher from Hebei, wrote about her late husband a little over a year ago, and the story garnered wide attention. This year, she turned up with her first book hot off the press, and held an autograph session.
A young man from Chaoshan, A-Lin, who runs a wholesale business selling joss paper, had one of his metaphors about literature turned into a text installation that attracted many visitors to stop for photos. It read: “The relationship between life and literature is like the relationship between a highway and its green belt. Without the green belt, the highway can still function perfectly well. But with it, you can see the outline of light, the shadow of trees, the shape of the wind — and the world becomes just a little bit more lovable.”
The rise of ‘working-class’ literature
After China went online, the early 2000s saw a surge of online novels and grassroots literature. Representative writers of the time included Zheng Xiaoqiong, a poet who had worked on factory lines, offering readers a rare glimpse into the real lives of young female factory workers in Guangdong. In one such poem, he wrote, “A 14-year-old girl follows us, inheriting the exhaustion brought by this era on the assembly line.”
There was also Chen Nianxi, a miner-poet “killing the hours of middle age five thousand metres underground, blasting through layers of rock again and again”. His words led readers deep into the mines alongside him.
That same year, Hu Anyan, who had held 19 different jobs, released I Deliver Parcels in Beijing (《我在北京送快递》), which was named Douban’s “Book of the Year” and has since sold over two million copies.
In recent years, even more works have emerged depicting the lives of ordinary labourers. In 2023, deliveryman-poet Wang Jibing published two poetry collections — People in a Hurry (《赶时间的人》) and I Love This World in My Clumsy Way (《我笨拙地爱着这个世界》). That same year, Hu Anyan, who had held 19 different jobs, released I Deliver Parcels in Beijing (《我在北京送快递》), which was named Douban’s “Book of the Year” and has since sold over two million copies.
Last year, Spade (黑桃), a driver who moved from Henan to Shanghai, turned stories from cab rides into his book I Drive a Cab in Shanghai (《我在上海开出租》). And this September, Wang Wan, a food-delivery rider born in the 1990s, published her first book, Running Deliveries: The World of a Female Rider (《跑外卖：一个女骑手的世界》), which earned a high 8.6 rating on Douban.
Reading about Hu Anyan’s setbacks offers a kind of comfort, because readers themselves are also learning to navigate a slowing, shifting economy.
A response to wider socioeconomic forces
Why does “working-class literature” keep emerging? In its review of the English edition of I Deliver Parcels in Beijing, The Economist attributed the book’s resonance to economic forces — amid widespread corporate layoffs and pay cuts, more and more workers are pushed into the gig economy. Reading about Hu Anyan’s setbacks offers a kind of comfort, because readers themselves are also learning to navigate a slowing, shifting economy.
By the end of last year, there were over 240 million gig workers in China — a massive population that indeed forms the readership base for such works. But to explain this wave of writing solely through economics is clearly insufficient.
Some commentators argue that the rise of grassroots writing is “a literary phenomenon under construction”. With the popularity of social media and the momentum of non-fiction writing, ordinary people now have unprecedented means to spread their voices, allowing them to surface all at once.
There is truth to this view. Social media lowers the barriers to writing and allows “amateur literature” to spread quickly. Yet in an era dominated by short videos and micro-dramas, even the most powerful writing — and even the smartest algorithms — can hardly bring literature fully back to centre stage. There must be something else, something inherent and irreplaceable in literature itself.
“We all live in a world that is very isolated and dark… The meaning of writing is to let more people know that such a group once existed in this world — how they lived, and what made them joyful, angry, sorrowful.” — Chen Nianxi, Miner-Poet
At a forum held during the literature festival, the miner-poet Chen Nianxi reflected on the meaning of literature. Textbooks elevate literature to unreachable heights, he said, but its core function is simply to allow people of different groups and different fates to see one another. “We all live in a world that is very isolated and dark… The meaning of writing is to let more people know that such a group once existed in this world — how they lived, and what made them joyful, angry, sorrowful.”
The perennial relevance of literature
In the past few years, as China’s economic growth slowed and industries were repeatedly shaken, the rhythm of ordinary people’s lives was repeatedly disrupted. Many became metrics in a system, costs on a company spreadsheet or replaceable labour contracts in a city. Amid such an abstracted daily existence, reading about a specific person with a specific fate has become a way to “find oneself again”.
Now, consider China’s younger generation. They grew up in an era of material abundance, curious about the world yet also keen to search inward for meaning. They are willing to listen, and just as willing to express themselves through writing. That may be why the Xiaohongshu Lifewriting Festival is in its second year, with submissions doubling to nearly 40 million words.
All of this shows that literature has not disappeared. On the contrary, we may need it now more than ever. As I stood at the event, watching sunlight fall on a wall bearing a single sentence and young people queuing up to take photos with it, this thought became even clearer.
On the wall were the words: “All who have lost their way from literature will someday meet again in the spring.”
This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “把生活写成诗”.
