I stayed at the Bookworm store to hear a panel of two local authors. They spoke about their recently published science fiction stories, and how they do and don't use the genre to comment on contemporary China.
I was particularly struck by how one author praised science fiction for being "pure," meaning that it is free from complications associated with writing about reality. She used the same word "pure" that described the tech nerd music in San Francisco. As if to drive the point home, the other author, a Google employee, quoted Steve Jobs' speech about "connecting the dots."
I connected the dots to San Francisco. Beijing made San Francisco look like even more of a paradise: the nerds I met there were totally optimistic about technology. Their music is just for fun. Hearing the writers in Beijing speak about cloning, they seemed much more anxious about the future.
Pictured: The audience for "The Future," a discussion about the latest issue of Pathlight
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