“There was often sweat “it drips down my back within the first two hours of my shift and doesn’t stop dripping until the next morning,” writes Hu Anyan in the new English translation of his best-selling book I deliver parcels in Beijing. “I sweated so much I didn’t even have to pee once.” This passage came to mind as I read his book in Tianjin during one scorching, rotten Labubu summer, during which another unprecedented annual heatwave forced almost everyone inside – except the tireless couriers and delivery men whose services are in greater demand as temperatures soar.
Courtesy of Astra House
Hu’s writings first gained popularity in China five years ago, and he is now a prolific and established author in the country. While his other books like Life in low placesrather, they concern his inner life, I deliver parcels in Beijing is a focused, refreshing, concrete account of nearly a decade of work, set against the slowly simmering backdrop of China’s economic rise. In addition to working as a courier in Beijing, Hu also talks about his adventures in opening a compact snack shop, his time working as a salesman in a bicycle shop, and his low stint as a Taobao seller. Hu’s minimalist, hypnotic prose captures the perverse beauty of tireless perseverance in an increasingly uncertain economy.
When non-Chinese people read about it, it’s simple to imbue the place with an alien otherness, as if only Chinese people could work around the clock in mind-numbing conditions. Some of Hu’s previous work, such as running an online store in the “golden age of Taobao” and the frenetic energy of sorting parcels, particularly applies to the Chinese context of a rapidly growing economy. But other elements, such as punishing uncertainty, the way profit pressures disrupt professional relationships, or the mundane anxiety of work, will be familiar to American readers today. Hu’s direct writing style exposes how the difficult work of a logistics warehouse, whether in Luoheng or Emeryville, is similar: night shifts, after-work drinks, petty quarrels and factions, packing items into polypropylene bags.
Hu recently spoke to WIRED about his path to becoming an internationally recognized writer, Generation Z and tango (lying flat) culture, and his vision of work and freedom.
Has working as a courier given you the flexibility to make money while also being a writer?
Hu Anyan: My writing and logistical work didn’t happen at the same time. For example, when I was delivering packages in Beijing or sorting packages for the night shift in Guangdong, I didn’t write. I wasn’t even reading, and I had to unpack after work. In my book, when I talked about the period in which I read James Joyce Ulysses and Robert Musil A man without featuresit was actually a special occasion. At that time, our company was already in the phase of final preparations to cease operations, so every day at one or two in the afternoon we had already completed the delivery of all goods.