It is difficult to find a more quoted, defining and influential book about Republican Beijing than Laoshe's book Rickshaw Boy. This story of utter hopelessness at the bottom of Beijing society is embedded into the very idea of China before the Communist Liberation in 1949. 

​Rickshaw Boy is often viewed as a depiction of old Beijing, but the story is better understood as a portrait of the time when China was in limbo between dynasty and republic. We follow the rickshaw puller Xiangzi and his struggles to create a living for himself. Through Xiangzi, Laoshe masterfully gives a voice to the ordinary people. 

Rickshaws only existed in the streets of Beijing for a fairly limited time between 1900 and 1949, but they were vehicles of change as they sped up the pace of life and provided jobs for tenth of thousands of people that were struggling to provide for themselves - not unlike the Kuaidi couriers of today.

Rickshaw Boy was first published in 1937 and after it was translated to English, the book earned Laoshe an international breakthrough that would make him the most famous Chinese writer outside China in the 1940s.

Rickshaw Boy has been translated many times, but in our view Howard Goldblatt's translation is by far the best, capturing both Laoshe's quirky descriptions of old Beijing and empathy for people at the bottom of society.