Translator's Foreword
This started as a little project of mine to improve my English language skills. After reading China 2185 I was rather drawn to its aesthetics, and I noticed that only a few chapters had been translated into English, so I thought that I would like to fill in this blank in the translated anthology of Cixin Liu's works. In a world with advanced neural networks and much improved translation algorithms, I am not sure if my efforts are still relevant, especially since I have had no formal training in translation, and with all honesty, not a super skillful writer either. But I hope that my familiarity with Chinese culture, 1980s to 1990s will help me produce a somewhat readable translation.
China 2185 was Cixin Liu's first attempt at creating a long form science fiction. It tells the story of a large technological advance causing an immediate disaster, at a time when everyone was experiencing deeply ingrained societal problems and massively shifting social values. The entire story revolves around the female Chief Executive of the People's Republic of China, detailing her struggles with both her own personal life and leading the Chinese people through a demographic crisis. An unexpected advancement in artificial intelligence resulted in the minds of six people, including that of Mao Zedong, being uploaded to the computer, and following a plebiscite, the computer containing the minds of the six people was connected to the internet. This enabled one of the six minds to escape and wreak havoc, and the Chief Executive must lead an effort to contain the spread.
A couple literature analyses have been written for this work, and you may choose to read them by searching on Google, China 2185. Due to the limitations of the era when this work was written and the author's cultural background, Cixin Liu may express opinions that are considered out of fashion or offensive. The opinions expressed in this translation are that of Cixin Liu, and they do not represent the views of the translator.Â