Stick Out Your Tongue: Stories

In rating Stick Out Your Tongue (Kindle Edition) at three stars, I am seeking to take the middle road rather than down star author Ma Jan. I had selected this book in an effort to hear from a Tibetan. My mistake, Ma Jan is a dissident Chinese writer and artist. He was in Tibet as part of a tour he was making, in part to avoid Chinese government officials including censors. This is a fictional version of a real journey he took across the remote parts of China, including Tibet. What are these five, relatively short stories?The Tibet of Stick Out Your Tongue is a population of the unsophisticated, uneducated, superstitious and impoverished. The land is bleak, threatening and inherently deadly. Women are the routine targets of lust, rape and incest. Across the stories the abuse of women and death are the most common themes. Poverty and strange beliefs the main plot drivers. Is this really Tibet? Is this a Tibet of the mind? At that a mind haunted by the real threat of the author’s native China.The quality of the writing is such that I cannot accept that this the only message that Ma Jan has motivating his art. I will be seeking more of his titles, perhaps beginning with his nonfictional account of his travels. Stick Out your Tongue is a fictionalization of his Tibetan tour. Maybe the rest of that 3 year odyssey will better inform me about the question I have unanswered by this read.

This slender volume is expansive in opening our minds about how we view Tibet. Like the author’s “China Dream,” this book deserves more than one reading. When I began the first story in “Stick Out Your Tongue,” I had dreams about it, more like nightmares, and wasn’t sure I wanted to continue with the book. However, Ma Jian’s writing is so descriptive, poetic, that I was compelled to complete it. I’m glad that I did. And, as before, the Afterword explains it all and will make a second reading of the book still more worthwhile.

English translation, a very short book (<100 pg) with only 5 short stories, it has some most queer stories you do not expected from Tibet (quoted: stories with multi-generational incest, sexual abuse and ritual rape). And no wonder it is censored by the Chinese government (because it is queer and it is about Tibet). Feel really bad about Chinese censorship, and sooner or later China will have an army of ignorant people... (and yes, who give a damn about Tibet people's suffering and their want of independency, right? No we don't, because we don't even know who the hell Tibet people are.)

The stories are rich in tastes of the rawness of a world very foreign to ours. My difficulty with this book is the strong undercurrent of incest. One or two stories with this theme would have been plenty to make the point, even if incest is that predominent there.

This book was dark and tragic. It was a collection of short stories dealing with incest, pedophilia and other tragic horrors for people living in Tibet. Every story was sexually related, grim, and I truly didn't get the point. I didn't find any of the stories poignant nor did I find anything about this work to be important. I had pre-ordered his latest book prior to reading this one. I cancelled the order.

gift - they were happy with it

Nyah.

It was not at all what I expected. Some Tibet history of interest, but not the explicit GORE.