I’ll Deliver Parcels to Beijing by Hu Anyan audiobook review – the unhappy life in China’s rich economy | Autobiography and memoir

HAnyan’s memoir of working in the Chinese economy began life as a blog before being turned into a bestseller that has sold nearly 2m copies in China. It describes the day-to-day experience of working in a number of unskilled jobs for ridiculously low wages and where there is no such thing as career advancement.

Hu is one of China’s 300 million so-called migrants, people who travel around the country in search of work. For more than 20 years, he worked 19 jobs in six cities, and most of them in bad conditions. He works as a security guard, hotel waiter, delivery driver, bicycle dealer, bicycle courier, fuel attendant at a depot where he is given only four days a month. There is a reason, he says, why many new recruits fail to pass the three-day test, which, of course, is unpaid.

Translated into English by Jack Hargreaves, Hu’s book presents the dehumanizing reality of long-term movement on only a few hours of sleep and often eight hours at a time. No wonder he starts to feel lonely and tired and resents customers who waste his time and what little money he earns.

The book is narrated by Winson Ting, whose delivery is difficult, perhaps on purpose. Indeed, it is consistent with Hu’s writings, which are typical of clinical practice in that they describe the instability and repetition of his experiences. I Deliver Parcels in Beijing is a horrendous case of the extraordinary system and terrible cost of our simple culture.

Available via Penguin Audio, 10hr 19min

Another listen

Maybe I’m surprised
John Harris, John Murray, 6hr 56min
The songwriter turned political reporter’s heartwarming story about his relationship with his autistic son and their love of music, from Funkadelic and the Smiths to Paul McCartney and Mott the Hoople. Illustrated by the author.

Creation Lake
Rachel Kushner, Vintage Digital, 11hr 9min
The author of Flamethrowers reads his Booker short about an American spy who joins an army in the south of France under the leadership of a magical leader, Bruno Lacombe, who chooses to live in a cave.