Han Song (韩松, born 1965) is a Chinese science fiction writer and a journalist at the Xinhua News Agency. All science fiction takes place in these four new worlds, and all creations and inventions are fragments of these four new worlds. Essentially, people seek four types of freedom while creating new aesthetics. Sir Arthur Charles, the British science fiction writer, said, "Why should people go to outer space? It's not just about mining on alien planets, but fundamentally to see how beautiful the universe is, and to inspire our desire for survival and potential." The best products are works of art, like Steve Jobs' iphone, and then comes technology. The premise of goodness is beauty. Therefore, having the ability to construct alternative worlds is crucial. It is said that some companies have already established a new profession or position called "worldview constructor". But the question is, can we create a fifth new world beyond these four worlds? What is it? Currently, there are no answers or clues. Every book and every genre has its own unique set of challenges that it presents. In some ways, I look at Han Song’s novel as just as much “experimental fiction” as “science fiction.” And in the past, I have translated other more experimental works and fiction with flourishes of magic realism, most notably Wu He’s masterful stream-of-consciousness novel Remains of Life. In some ways, Hospital reminded me a lot of the process of translating Remains of Life, because they are both wild, unbridled works that feel like explosions of creativity and unfiltered imagination.

After observing those elderly patients for a while, I had a much better idea of what was going on. Reflecting on the fact that this was my first visit to C City’s hospital, I decided I should commemorate the moment, so I pulled out my cell phone and took a photo, thinking that it might turn out to be a useful source of inspiration for a future songwriting project.While reading, I also really wished I was more familiar with Chinese culture and Buddhism. These two themes played a big part in the book, and I feel like I didn’t quite have the understanding to fully appreciate the references. It’s clearly written for a Chinese audience.

In such a new era, it is necessary to pay attention to the logic of science fiction. This is because, when technology and the future become keywords, focusing solely on the logic of Wu Xia /martial arts is no longer enough, since that was the theme of the agricultural era. I hope they read it as science fiction, but it is science fiction with a uniquely East Asian perspective, which is different from traditional science fiction. The problems it raises are the same issues faced by English-speaking readers. For example, how to treat our incurable diseases and how to brace for death or immortality. Should we obey the rules of the hospital or resist them?The first is to create new concepts. The inventions and creations in our modern life originated from science fiction concepts. Science fiction predicted the existence of mobile phones, the internet, artificial intelligence, and autonomous vehicles. The concept of the Metaverse was first proposed in science fiction novels. The concept of post-human also comes from science fiction, which refers to the integration of humans and machines, or genetic engineering to modify humans. Mobile phones have become a new organ of the human body, like the eyes, trachea, and liver, that cannot be separated for a moment. Genetic technology can modify human bodies, enabling people to live longer and even become supermen/superwomen. New concepts derived from relativity and quantum mechanics have become tools that lead or shape the future. As a scholar of Chinese literature, what are your thoughts or observations about science fiction (or genre fiction in general) in China? In the past year, many unbelievable things have happened. For instance, a flood in the subway of a provincial capital city killed many people, a marathon resulted in a group of people freezing to death, over a billion people had never seen drone-enabled live-streaming broadcast of elephants entering a city, millions of people experienced power rationing for the first time, and someone sold over ten billion yuan worth of goods in one night through online live streaming. E-sports seems to be replacing sports events and movies and becoming a new species.