Niche books and a question

I just feel like it, so this one is in English, also because I somehow doubt someone German in Germany did read "The Potato Eaters of Shanghai" and can discuss this book. Maybe also because I am flying high on an English comedy show I was part of last weekend. Also because some comedians love money more than integrity (Riyadh) and because of this fantastic masterpiece on the Rogansphre comics.

This is about niche books. The ones that you find randomly. I live in Leipzig - a boomtown in the east of Germany - and here are a lot of those public bookshelves or libraries. It became a hobby that I pick odd yet interesting books and read through them. It's paradise, really. As a child, as I don't come from money, books were my escape, books were my means of travel, and the best hobby. I believe every book has a worth. The simple act of reading is enough to justify any book, really. Even the Twilight books - nah, jokes: I read two or even three of those, and they were fun back then. I found classics, popular books and some random niche books (that I still found interesting). However, the real niche shows whenever I am forced to pick a book. So at the beginning of my read-more-again story I was looking for extreme horror and jumped into the extreme with "Cows". You can find my review and experience with the book in another English post from 2024. Again, that was a very niche book. Recently, something like this happened again. I have an audible subscription and what I do is, I pause it a lot. Every three months. Then I spent one of those tokens on a book.

It was one of those days when I reminisced about my twenties in Shanghai, and in those I usually try to find some sort of media to connect to. So I connected to this book. It sat around for a while. Just there in my library to be heard. And a couple of weeks ago I knew that I will not have a company car any more and my job at the last position was about to come to an end. So I made a trip. By myself (my wife was on a work trip and my child was taken care of by Grandma, which is rare). The stars aligned, and I found myself in my car (it was an Ioniq 5, so it was beautiful) with fantastic weather, with a long drive ahead (I decided to visit my cousins, uncle and aunt close to Munich), the road set to avoid Autobahn, and completely prepared: meaning I pooped before I left the flat, I had coffee and a mate in the car, and didn't need food for a while.

I press play on this book that smiles at me from the selection screen. The perfect time to think about life and listen to someone making up something from a place that is and was home. Enter "The Potato Eaters of Shanghai". I get lulled in. Joakim speaks slow and mentions a couple of landmarks that bring me right back. I dream myself back to Shanghai, while still driving, and think forward and backward in time. What do I want to do? Now with the freedom that is coming back and opening a window: what can I do that makes me happy, that helps however I decide to help with my time and skills. How was Shanghai? Why don't I work in a more international position?

I drive and listen. I set the speed of the narration to 1.5x and am happy with that choice. It forces me to not drift away in thoughts, and it also means that I will finish the book, arriving at my destination. And as I set the faster speed, the book becomes weirder. Drugs are introduced. Weird Swedish practices. Some political undertone. It was a wild ride - the book - the actual drive was beautiful and serene. I created this perfect liminal moment where I existed in-between spaces.

Shanghai will possibly not be a place where I live again. Things have changed. I have a family. A kid. I can't for the life of me figure out how I or someone pays for me and the family to move there and live there any more. I was young, free and in my twenties coming to Shanghai. I was different. Shanghai was different. A reason I made the jump was that I had close to no responsibilities (only the financial ones, and I was able to somehow make that work from day one). That book for that drive was a fever dream of a look at Shanghai and misfits and Swedes. To this day, I am in touch and connected to friends I made in Shanghai.

Now let's circle back to the book. Here is my review, that you can also find on my goodreads and connect to me there:

"This had Shanghai in the title and I lived there, so naturally I had to spend my audible coins on this. So I knew nothing about this book, apart from the title and the cover. I was intrigued. It also doesn't help that I have a friend with a similar name that I spent time with in Shanghai.

So the book. It's an adventure. It's surreal. If I should describe it, then it would be "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" mixed with esoteric (and fun) ideas, and China, communism, business and Xi Jinping. It's wild!

The audiobook is read by the author. I listened to it at 1.2 speed, as I was driving and need a tad more speed to have my attention there. Great experience.

Joakim is a Swede and his parents leave him in Shanghai, after they grew up in China. They have to leave because another type of foreigner is needed in the Xi Jinping era (actually fewer foreigners in general). Sprinkled throughout the book are actually little headlines I happened to follow: New Pork, the weird bus that hovers over traffic and drives above the cars, the pandemic and more. Joakim and friends try to build a company. After an alcohol binge in a bar with his best friend from Xinjiang, they get visited by a weird dude that invites them to take part in a once in a lifetime opportunity to "try out new forms of government"? Yeah, that was weird. Weirdness becomes the middle name of that book. The potato eaters, are swedes that grew potatoes in China, and they lived off of them for years. They also have rituals with a potato baby to ward off bad luck. Drugs are there and the swimmer below. Drug trips, deals and happenings are getting weirder and weirder. 

I don't know. I admire the creativity and weirdness that Joakim unashamed blasts through in this book. Not only that, but I saw Shanghai at times, I recognised places and smiled at the weirdness of the Swedes (and actually all foreigners in this book). It's a great move to project the weirdness we sometimes might feel living in China on our own culture. Aren't we all weird? 

This is not a contemporary story about a foreigner in Shanghai and potato eaters. It is a wild trip. Surreal. Odd. Fascinating. 

I had a blast!"

So why am I writing this? I just connected with some friends from back in the day again. On Instagram, where I find myself through comedy. I was about to post in the Shanghai Subreddit and ask about the book. If someone knows the author? If someone had a similar experience reading it? What your opinion on this book is? I was not allowed to post there. My karma is low. Whatever that means. It's my third or fourth Reddit account, as I used to forget my logins. Anyhow: do you know about the book? Have you read it? Have you been to Shanghai? Are you in contact with the author? Are you connected with me? Let's get in touch.

Let's help each other out. Stay connected. Stay happy and joyful with shared experiences in mind, and talk about the weird. The niche books. Our individual lives.

Honestly. It somehow seems that I am stuck in a niche. Shanghai and life there as a foreigner can't be such rare interest. I actively search for media like that and where Average Joe wrote his 300-page experience in China and has reviews and possibly the next trip paid for. Joakim Eriksson is a mystery. Let's not be strangers. Let's get in touch. Laugh, help, talk about or shared interest and experience. Read, have fun, and let's not forget our life there and the new ones we all lead.

So read that book and let me know what you think. If we have met in Shanghai or China in general, then let's stay in touch. Talk, be positive and build a community or grow it. I don't know where or how, but maybe we can start with that niche book.

I don't know if you know, but I like to end articles or blog posts with a song. And what can possibly represent what I wrote about here. Something that is weird, beautiful, interesting and bit me (some heavy music guy) and also niche: