Author Jenny Zhang on Surreal Thai Drama, Syndromes, and a Century

This article is taken from AnOther Magazine Fall/Winter 2022 issue:

“Syndromes and a century is like a poem – the best poems break discordant images together. The film is set in two parts, the first in an airy rural hospital in Thailand, the second in a modern urban hospital with artificial lighting and menacing machinery that feels alienated from the human body. This juxtaposition of the old country with ultra-fast global capitalism is what I feel when I return to Shanghai, where I was born. There’s a sense in the film that science is its own kind of magic, but there are also ancient, age-old remedies that are dying out. These two ways of curing one’s ailments are still in play, as doctors prescribe pills but also talk to patients about their dreams. In one, a Buddhist monk dreams of being tortured by chickens. I had recurring migraines during the pandemic and it was impossible for me to get an appointment as the migraine pain increased. This film poses the idea that, yes, there is a physical element when one is sick, but often a spiritual and emotional element as well, and that this must be treated with the same rigour.

jenny zhang has a singular way of inflecting language, embracing misspellings and malapropisms, textual language and slang in raw, tacky poems of sentiment. The The Brooklyn-based writer has published two books of steadfast poetry, Dear Jenny, we are all found and my first birthday babyand the collection of non-fiction hags. His collection of short stories, sour heart, illuminates immigrant life in 1990s New York, as told by first-generation girls grappling with the bonds of family love, exile and otherness, as well as the thrills and the Cruelties of Youth – it won the Pen/Robert W Bingham Prize for First Fiction. Zhang is currently working on her first play and her first, as yet untitled, novel.

Hair: Matt Benns at CLM using KIEHL’S. Makeup: Ayaka Nihei. Photographic assistant: Glenn Lim. Printing: PhotoLab-NYC. Producer: Alec Charlip at Born Artists. Special thanks to Elsker Studio, Brooklyn, New York

This story features in the Fall/Winter 2022 issue of AnOther Magazine, which is now on sale worldwide. Buy a copy here.