TICKET TO TOMORROW AND OTHER STORIES
An Wei, Chi Hui, Fei Dao, Han Zhiliao, Kang Fu, Li Angao, Ma Er, Qitongren, Tagexing, Wang Shuo, Zhao Ankang, Zhu Yue
It’s a not-so-distant era, when people pay top dollar to freeze themselves and hope to wake up in a more prosperous and ecological decade. Two friends take different paths to the future— but only one will make peace with the present. In other stories, the human race rebels against alien overlords who ban flying on Earth; a lost traveler is trapped in a deserted monastery haunted by swallows; and two men fight to survive a literary epidemic…this speculative fiction anthology includes work by twelve established and up-and-coming young Chinese writers, translated into English for the first time—a ride into a wild fantasy world.
Each winter, when the harsh winds whistle across the dusty plains, the people of Shaanxi province know it’s time to warm up with yangrou paomo, or flatbread in mutton soup.
Finely cooked with tender bread and rich (but not greasy) mutton fat, the fragrant and hearty dish has sated many a stomach on a winter’s day, including that of the well-known foodie and poet Su Dongpo (苏东坡). “Flatbread in mutton soup is foremost in my heart out of all Shaanxi dishes,” he wrote during his exile in the 11th century.
The dish is believed to have originated from the “mutton stew (羊羹)” served in royal households as early as the Western Zhou dynasty (1046 – 771 BCE), according to the Book of Rites. At that time, nobles began partaking of mutton soup as an imperial ritual. Traditional medicine expert Li Shizhen (李时珍) once noted that mutton is beneficial for regulating the qi inside the spleen and stomach, as well as expelling cold air from the body.
Yangrou paomo first took shape during the armed rebellion against the Tang dynasty (618 – 907) led by An Lushan (安禄山) and Shi Siming (史思明) from 755 to 763. To help quell the rebellion, the Tang brought in Tajik mercenaries, who were stationed in the capital, Chang’an (now Xi’an). These soldiers were fond of eating hard naan bread moistened with mutton soup, as Chang’an was located close to the pastures and mutton trading routes in China’s northwest. As the soldiers began to interact with the locals, their cooking methods were generally embraced by