Supernatural Bureaucracy
Bureaucracy is a subject near and dear to me. For a brief and fascinatingly bizarre piece on bureaucracy, check out Checkpoints by Ji Yun (1724-1805) Translated by Yi Izzy Yu and John Yu Branscum . The straightforward tone and approach to the supernatural consequences of missing paperwork after death is a great instance of the “strange story.”
These strange stories have quite a tradition in China. In “Strange Tales Indeed: A close look at Pu Songling’s short stories,” Carlos Ottery writes, “It turns out that years of education, coupled with a harsh spoonful of bitter failure and ample free time, are a recipe for authorial success. Chinese literature is so littered with failed mandarins that it sometimes feels like flunking the imperial exam is a pre-requisite.”
In the case of Ji Yun, such failure was not necessary. He had an impressive career and also produced strange stories.
The way in which life is made impossible by problems with paperwork has troubled me, in ways large and small, forever. With a full legal name too complicated (apparently) to say, file taxes online in the early days of online filing, or print in its entirety on a boarding pass, I have had many problems with paperwork, ranging from brief annoyances to multi-year battles with motor vehicle departments. I have at least one protracted discussion about my name and identity when I go vote. Every. Single. Time. I have been advised by the local board of elections not to attempt to do anything to “fix” this problem but to instead request that instead of attempting to check me in digitally, I should ask to be looked up manually. For the curious, this strategy does not work at neighborhood precincts. I could go on, but my tales of bureaucratic woe is far less entertaining than Ji Yun’s.
What he learns is that the way in which paperwork mediates and shapes and comes to constitute reality is so intractable that even death itself is no escape.
I’m in no way an expert on this subject but have tried to verify the linked items. I’m open to corrections!