The short story “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight” by Xia Jia was published for the first time in 2012 and translated to English by Ken Liu.
Ning is a child who is growing up under the strict protection of the Monk in Ghost Street, where he’s the only real person in the midst of a group of ghosts. The Carnival is an opportunity to discover more about himself and about the ghosts he lives with but what’s real?
Xia Jia got strongly inspired by the tradition of Chinese ghost stories to write “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight”. In fact, this story starts in a place inhabited by ghosts, or so it seems. The protagonist Ning, who tells the story in the first person, is an orphan who was adopted by them and the only living being in the street.
In the course of the story, Ning overhears two ghosts who are talking about him and this, along with other details, makes us realize that things are not as they seemed at first. Perhaps these creatures are not exactly ghosts but then what are they? And who really is Ning?
“A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight” is also a tale of the type based on a strong change of perspective that creates a surprise ending. What begins as a Chinese ghost story ends up being something that seems to belong to a very different genre.
In the end this is a kind of story where labels are limiting and you associate it to some tags just to frame it in some way. Given Xia Jia’s modern adaptation of traditional narrative elements, in my opinion the best thing is just focus on the story without thinking about genres and subgenres.
Probably “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight” can be fully appreciated only if you have some experience of Chinese stories but personally I’ve enjoyed it though I have a very limited knowledge of that topic. If you like stories that blend traditional and modern elements, this one is for you. If you like, you can buy it in an ebook anthology available on Amazon USA
