236 chapter six
15 kilos of old magazines 5 kilos of old wall calendars 20 kilos of waste paper
unit price for old magazines 0.20 yuan per kilo (same price for wall calendars and
waste paper)...
2 old mao suits 3 old zip-up jackets 1 pair of bell bottoms (frayed at the hem)
2 pairs of jeans (halfway worn) old socks (7 pairs) shorts singlets towels some
of each
1 guitar (as good as new broken strings brand name hongmian)
Suffice it to say that these objects and the accompanying commentary
are in tune with the rest of the room as it is depicted in the text.
The penchant for accumulation in «File 0» isn’t restricted to the
material world, as this passage shows:
turns into words-that-name function words syllables past tense word groups
passive voice
affixes turns into meaning significance definition denotation derivation
ambiguation
turns into interrogative sentences declarative sentences compound and complex
sentences......
is weaned at one goes to nursery at two goes to kindergarten at four becomes liter-
ate at six
first grade to sixth certified by teacher zhang seventh grade eighth grade ninth
grade certified by
teacher wang tenth grade eleventh grade certified by teacher li eventually he
graduates from university
Especially if considered alongside «Salute», the most striking thing
about the subject matter of «File 0» is its obsessive recording of things
that usually count as unspectacular, self-evident or trivial. These are
offered with reasonable coherence, fleshing out the skeleton of an
anonymous urban life in contemporary China that emerges from the
titles of the Books that are so expertly stored in the File Room. In its
apparent lack of ambition to describe anything “unusual,” this aspect
of the subject matter of «File 0» is best summed up as prosaic—or, of
course, as ironic.
On a higher level of abstraction «File 0» is about the phenomenon
of personal files (ҎџḷḜ) that institutions in the PRC keep on their
members, employees and so on, and that can determine how indi-
vidual lives take shape, in areas ranging from material circumstance