Candy: China Uncensored.

“So many young people are getting lost…I want to show them how freedom is exciting but also dangerous” –Mian Mian

Mian Mian, the bold author of the novel, Candy achieves this as she pulls us into the main character, Hong’s whirlwind of a life. Hong’s story brings the reader into her crazy world of drugs, sex, prostitution, gambling and various other vices. Candy is the perfect novel to introduce the reality of the rapid changes occurring in cities in China due to the open market reform. The novel is set mostly in two places: Shanghai and Shenzhen, a village that transforms into a thriving economic city. The proclamation of Shenzhen as a Special Economic Zone by Deng XiaoPing allowed for modern developments and a detachment from political control. Candy reflects the excitement of new possibilities, both good and bad, that are introduced to China’s youth as a result of the open market reform.

The most striking way in which Mian Mian presents the scene of the rapid transformation of China is through the explicit descriptions of sexual encounters that Hong experiences and the detailed descriptions of Hong’s heroin addiction. Her first experiences sex when she engages in a self-destructive relationship with a young man named Saining. Although Saining is emotionally abusive toward Hong, she cannot escape because she believes that she loves him. She then follows Saining’s lead and becomes addicted to heroin. Both of these portrayals show Hong’s movement away from conservative Chinese values. Instead, Hong breaks free from the traditional constraints of society and what society defines as moral and experiments within the world of sex and drugs. Hong’s actions paint a realistic picture of the temptations available for the youth at the time. Her gradual deterioration, however, as she goes in and out of rehab and her numerous suicide attempts shows the consequences that come along with the freedom that has reached Shenzhen.

Another way in which Mian Mian depicts the chaos and confusion of the time is through Hong’s constant search for the meaning of love, truth and stability. Throughout the entire novel, Hong questions each of her relationships with the opposite sex and she wonders whether or not love exists. The female friends Hong encounters, like Qi and Kitten are untrustworthy and deceitful. She tries to find pleasure in sex and later in heroin. She tries to stop her heroin addiction several times and eventually finds joy in writing. The lifestyle of Hong in and of itself is spontaneous and chaotic, but Mian Mian’s writing style supports the confusion Hong suffers and Hong’s search for stability. Despite the orderly way in which Mian Mian attempts to organize the book with the alphapet and numbers, the actual content of the novel is jumbled and incoherent. Rather than writing about Hong’s life in a linear way, Mian Mian writes it in a more jagged fashion. Hong’s story does not flow smoothly, but rather jumps from story to story. This “structure” mirrors the chaos of life in modern China. Hong’s story is made up of random pieces and towards the end of the novel Mian Mian even changes perspectives, and begins writing from the perspective of other characters, such as Saining. Chaos and uncertainty seem to be a result of the freedom presented to the younger generation because there is no longer a structured path that they must follow. For example, with this freedom Hong chooses to drop out of school, but as a result she does not know what to do with her life and ends up feeling lost with an uncertain future. Both the structure and the plot of the work reflect the confusion that came with the freedom presented by the open door policy.

Mian Mian’s work did an amazing job of showing the influences of westernization and the transformation of society in China. She presents the new lifestyles in a realistic and engaging manner, which is probably what attracted so many readers. Candy proves to be an excellent marker for Chinese pop culture because it paints such an accurate picture of the transformations in China.