Folding Beijing

In Folding Beijing , economist and science fiction author Hao Jingfang imagines a future in which Beijing is split into three distinct social classes: First, Second, and Third Space. The three Spaces are physically divided, with each occupying part of the city. As if to divide the society even further, citizens from different Spaces never have to see each other. To achieve this strange feature, the cycle of day and night has been altered. The forty-eight hour day is split so that each Space gets a certain amount of time on the surface: twenty-four for First Space, sixteen for Second Space, and eight for Third Space. When a Space is not on the surface, it lies beneath the ground.

When a Space’s allotted time on the surface comes to a close, its citizens are put into a deep sleep. The city then folds like a Transformer — not into a vehicle, but into giant, compact blocks. Then, like Korah in the Bible, everything in that part of the city is swallowed by the ground beneath.

Meanwhile, the opposite is happening in another part of the city. Extricating itself from beneath the ground, another Space comes to life. Its compactly stored structures blossom into their usual shapes and sizes. When one Space folds into the ground and the other unfolds onto the earth, time on the surface comes to a close for one and begins for another.

The majority of citizens — fifty million out of the seventy-five million — live in Third Space. Among them is the main character, Lao Dao, who is a waste worker. With the First Spacers enjoying luxuries such as self-driving cars and police-helping robots, there is no doubt that automating many of the Third Space jobs would be technically feasible. And yet these jobs remain fulfilled by those like Lao Dao — workers who would be jobless otherwise. Keeping the jobs unautomated allows the Third Spacers to eke out a living and spares those in authority from dealing with the underlying problems. To the elite living in First Space, Third Spacers are useless to the economy; they exist only to exist. In a way, this metamorphosis of Beijing seems to be an eerie reflection of an observation made by Karl Marx: “The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.”