The Reunion: A New Science-Fiction Story About Surveillance in China
Technology is making people unhinged and violent. Can an algorithm stop them?
By Chen Qiufan | Translated by Emily Jin and Ken Liu
Though only 23 minutes on the high-speed rail from Shenzhen North to West Kowloon, the journey from the mainland to Hong Kong seems to transport me back half a century. The concrete jungle of my childhood memories hasn’t changed one bit. Time seems trapped in the amber of this city of seven million, while the Shenzhen Bay area that I departed has already arrived at the future ahead of schedule.
My classmate from a decade earlier, Dr. Ng Lok Tin of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, waits for me at the station exit. As though to highlight the discombobulation of modern China, he greets me in Cantonese though he’s a native of Shanghai; I, Hong Kong born, on the other hand, speak to him in Modern Standard Mandarin.
“Leung Wah Kiu, what’s this really about?” he asks me.
“A few days ago, two plainclothes officers approached me to ask if Professor Lau had been in touch and for the contact info of his relatives and friends in Hong Kong.”
