The End: All Of Your Beijing Short Stories Compiled

Our Beijing Stories shorter-than-short fiction contest is now closed. The winners will be announced in the near future but while we await the results from our friends at The Bookworm Literary Festival we've put together all of the entries for your enjoyment. Thanks to everyone who submitted a story (on Weibo, Twitter, our blogs here and here or even Beijing Cream). Here are the fruits of your labor:

@IesGlobal

• He landed, felt stranded, but found his way, the same day. Ate baozi (not jiaozi), met a laowai, then said "bye-bye"
• A budding Beijinger belatedly arrives, boisterous and bedazzled, into a busily bustling Beijing; he's Bagou bound. Blimey...

Sinocism's Bill Bishop (@Niubi on Twitter)

• 11pm. haircut. no scissors. police. squatting in room w 19 other men. wife. lawyer. ex wife.

Wall Street Journal editor Carlos Tejada (@CRTejada on Twitter)

• Audi A6, fender nudging my bike? Keying is inevitable, comrade, like your mistress's photos on Weibo.
• He lights fireworks, squints at flare. Haze obscures Beijing's beckoning lights. He thinks, "Whoa. Metaphor"
• February explosions. Fireworks, and gutter oil.

Miodrag

• You guys looted it, he spat. We were weak then. No, said I, I am Serbian. Where the US bombed your embassy. A cuckoo sang over Yuanmingyuan.

Boss-Town

• Dirt clung to their fingernails and wouldn't wash off; still they tunneled each day without fail, through clumps of soil and crowds men.
• In the distance it echoes and approaches, contagious noise that lights the sky, waging war against “Nian,” the beast of peace and rest.
• Splintered chopsticks cracked the flesh; it hissed and bled grease and reused oil. And there it died on his plate.
• Amid the forced proximity he became a hostage to her eyes. Then another stop, another crowd piled on and he lost sight of hers.
• Flies orbit an incandescent sun and crash and call the dusty shell for bulbs their grave. Therein foreshadowed the expats' fate.
• Eggs hit the wok and explode into yellows and whites, roadside breakfast outside the abortion clinic.

@richard76uk

• City full of excitement, fun, opportunities, full of cultural values, city of sin and city where west meet east.

Helga Tiger

• I walk past Lao She’s memorial, Mei Lanfang’s house, Qi Baishi’s museum. Everyone has lived here some time or other. Nobody dies in Beijing.
• I Am Jack's Black Lungs
  I Am Jack's Reduced Personal Space
  I Am Jack's Spit On The Ground
  I Am Jack's Excited Taste Buds

orangeleg

• A spaceship from the future lands in Beijing. Inside is someone who looks Chinese. But he speaks with no words and proffers only one message before he dies: "Less more need..."
• A Beijing horse walks into a bar, sees the bartender is a donkey who is about to pull out a shotgun. Runs out and dials McDonkey SWAT.

MichaelNesbittHaggarty

• As the old woman from Gaomiaocun sat in the spring sun looking into the baby's blue eyes, she realized that events of 50 years were both profound & an exercise in futility.

@LuHai_Liang (Disclosure: Luhai is interning for the Beijinger and is not eligible to win this contest)

• An Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman walk into a bar. Then a Welshman hurriedly runs in and says stop the joke, you've forgotten me! The rest of the participants glare at him before all involved dissolve into a giant, quivering question mark.
  

• Pulp Joke-tion: A horse walks into a bar, but before he has a chance to utter a word, the barman pulls out a shotgun and shoots him in the face.

@林卓枢

• 11:30am. Central, Hong Kong. Top of tower. Mountains visible. IM Pei eye level. Slurp water. Swivel chair. Deep breath. Door opening. Pause. "I've been expecting you." chair swivel. "get out of my office." back to hostel
• Hong Kong. 10am. Coffee shop. Suits. Construction. Calming tea. Marc Jacobs. Old hands. Hair gel. Slumping shoulders. One smile. Chinese man.
• 10pm. 12 beds and three on the floor. 500rmb/month. Cockroach on wall. Spider in toilet bowl. Puce smudge. Empty lemon air freshener. Dinner is ready. Mi fan x5. Lay down. Look up. Think of cockroach. Hear a scream. a woman. It's dark. Time to sleep.

@ginger_煎饺

• In 2012 I moved into hutong, and then a rat, a dog, two squirrels, and a family of bugs moved in with me, most of them uninvited. Now that the drum tower area is going to be demolished I feel sad. It was the quietest and happiest days of my life.

@Jonathan_Heeter

• Absinthe, Korean Girlz, Broken Sandals, guitar, old Yugongyishan, Makisupa Policeman. Good times in pre Olympic Beijing.

@sashaastiadi

• Never whine in China. When your apartment's heater is not warm enough just sit naked and blast your hair dryer like a boss.

mjoz

• The 104 chugged, exhaled to a steamy halt in front of me. I'll just walk. So what if I'm in heels; I'd have to cross the footbridge anyway.

tonydice

• Longtime laowai’s leaving, his party's all rum 'n fun – till someone calls the cops. Surprise! Now it's three new leaving-parties to enjoy.

Musemommie

• Dirty air, toothless stare, dusty street, walking feet, loud laughter, pedal faster, crash land, kickstand, up 3 flights, smile, she’s a glow, Mom made it to the show.

Ralmuski

• Big Bird flies over Beijing, duck!

@Rob马晓冬

• Wake up. Bargain at a Zoo. Swim in a cube. Shout in a bird’s nest. Enter a forbidden place. Work in giant trousers. Comment on smog or lack of. Drink heavily like expat should. Talk to Golden Ferrets. Sleep. Normal day.

@COSMOPOLITAX

• Precisely on a Beijing evening out, a girl from Western Europe that names herself @COSMOPOLITAX entered the wondrous world of #Weibo# where found adventure and danger to help others get a glimpse of what's actually going on in this crazy world. 63k followers support her today

stonesappear

• Smiling split-pants contemplates the iPad’s glow. Adjacent: an empty wheelchair.

@shannonfagan

• Walking my way to the office, because my bicycle broke in half. Right down the middle. ?!?! @thebeijinger : Unicycle For Sale. Half-Off.

@peteydavis

• 5 years and I keep making the same mistake- Note to self: check sound acoustics of apartment complex's before rental

brackishwater

• I walked in. Everyone looked. I wasn’t from the WSJ. They went back to discussing their novels. Lion’s den of affected twaddle.

demoncratic

• The old Tibetan monk lays down in the dust, it had stood for a thousand years, but now it too was dust, Why? Why? he asks. The sun sets

Chackie Jan

• The fat old douche brushed a speck of dust off his worn-out jeans and continued to teach, neatly hiding his boner under the school desk.

Xi Bolai

• Dust fades, horns screech. A child squats and releases his lunch (he ate baozi, not jiaozi) all over the filthy pavement. I love this city.

Missing Demonoid

• Wearily, the migrant worker wiped his leathery hands on filth-encrusted work pants. No money. No life. No wife. No memory. What was it for lunch again – baozi? Or jiaozi?

Emma Brewer

• The “Beijing Foreign Experts Consortium for Summarizing Greatness of Beijing Culture Experiences and China City Elegance in International Forum” Now Begins!

Meike Lorenz

• He took a deep breath of fresh air through his nose. Wrong beginning.
  Pollution. Mask. He inhaled the pollution through his mask, coughing.
• Dancing, kissing, friday night. I could be your new chinese teacher.
  Number? No. Another foreign girl leaving Beijing.

Rosalyn Shih

• Dui bu qi, Beijing; you're unapologetic.

Elizabeth Ashforth

• The cockroach I killed today had a brother. He was quicker, and evaded my frantic attempts to end his days. Behind my fridge he awaits.
• He thought the water man was coming at 10. Waited all day with only left over jiaozi to sustain him. As predicted the water man came at 4.

RP26

• knowing the evening commute home on the beijing subway there is no innocence from these homeward bound masses the innocence is left in places not in this car it is somewhere swirlin' in the wonderless bizarre
• one fleeting moment it's a thirst for the city, coming from where I often cannot find. For some it's such an easy stay that I call it a pity, but maybe I'm jaded by time
• The way I look at Beijing is just the way I look at myself in the mirror in the morning. Some days I like what I see, others I want to go back to bed. Other days I take drugs.

infernal_affair

• acid snow, Shangyuan

  past, two and a half weeks left

  on visa: Beijing

  For the record frantically trying to get the visa in question renewed/extended!

webdude

• The alien was thrilled with his sapphire blue skin, glowing after 2 weeks in BJ for spring holiday. He thought, "There's no tan like a Tiantan!"
• News Release: BJ city gov't. to import additional millions of biofilters to clean BJ's air. The units average 160 cm tall and 54 kg. As the filters clog or wear out, new ones will be imported from nearby provinces.

mctyree

• "Next time a student punches me in the balls, I'm going to line up all the other kids in the class and have them take turns punching him in the balls."

  "Haha, hope his parents don't want grandchildren."

  "You mean grandCHILD.."

  "Haha, I mean grandSON"

  "Rather, you hope his parents weren't looking forward to eating their granddaughter."

  "..."

  "... when did we become this racist?"

So there you go. Winners of the contest to be announced shortly.

Photo: SpyFu University