I DELIVER PARCELS IN BEIJING: One Man's Quest to Speak the Truth about the Global Gig Economy, deeply saddening, all too common story

I DELIVER PARCELS IN BEIJING: One Man's Quest to Speak the Truth about the Global Gig Economy
HU ANYAN (tr. Jack Hargreaves)
Astra House (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$15.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: In 2023, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing became the literary sensation of the year in China. Hu Anyan’s story, about short-term jobs in various anonymous megacities, hit a nerve with a generation of young people who feel at odds with an ever-growing pressure to perform and succeed.

Hu started posting essays about his experiences online during COVID lockdowns. His recollection of night shifts in a huge logistics center in the south of China went viral: his nights were so hot that he could drink three liters of water without taking a toilet break; his days were spent searching for affordable rooms with proper air-conditioning; and his few moments of leisure were consumed by calculations of the amount of alcohol needed to sleep but not feel drowsy a few hours later.

Hu Anyan tells us about brutal work, where there is no real future in sight. But Hu is armed with deadpan humor and a strong idea of self. He moves on when he feels stuck—from logistics in the south, to parcel delivery in Beijing, to other impossible jobs. Along the way, he turns to reading and writing for strength and companionship.

I Deliver Parcels in Beijing is an honest and startling first-person portrait of Hu Anyan's struggle against the dehumanizing nature of our contemporary global work system—and his discovery of the power of sharing a story.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I see why this was a literary sensation in China. It's a real telling-truth-to-power story of how labor exploitation functions; it's an honest appraisal of the personal costs of the gig economy in a country where that is fresh ground to be broken.

It isn't so new a topic here. We have many books about the gig economy and the evils of end-stage capitalism taking over our lives. But Author Hu is a man possessed of a self-deprecating streak, as well as personal humility, coupled with self-awareness. It makes his take on economic exploitation broadly relevant as well as personally centered. He is a worker, a man who feels the need to do the job he has taken to the best of his ability. Not for him the do-the-minimum slacking life! That has the downside of making him susceptible to manipulation by unscrupulous bosses whose desire to extract ever more labor from him he has trouble coming to terms with.

It's a struggle he becomes aware of as he realizes what this character trait he is lauded and exploited for is causing him real harm.

promotional art from the publisher

It's a sad truth that hustle culture is a sharp knife in the ribs of any kind of satisfying social life. Author Hu learns this early...and sadly often. It is mildly frustrating to follow the man as he grows into realizing he has only acquaintances instead of friends yet not see him really take steps to deepen his non-work connections with others. I can see the issue, of course; he's leading the same life as the people he meets.

Author Hu does say, as the end of the book approaches, that he is no longer the pushover he was. I wonder...I saw no sign of it because he told me this as a fact, in a kind of summing-up of his working (and only) life, and ended the story. He's quite young. It makes a kind of sense. It does make one want to yell, "AnYan! stop telling, start showing," until realization hits: He can't, there hasn't been time yet. It's a story in progress. I think it made the read more urgent for me after I really internalized that fact.

A book you might be tempted to read down, to think of as an incomplete memoir, that is really a call to Author Hu's age cohort to recognize and correct course on their own iterations of his behaviors. A very honest look at a very dark side of global labor exploitation that does so much to enable our spoiled, luxurious lifestyles.

Worth your time and treasure to get for your TBR.