The book Folding Beijing actually construct an entire new Beijing which has been folded into three physical Spaces, each of which is strictly allocated 48 hours for its people. People in the bottom third space, with the largest number of people, were allocated the least amount of time which is only eight hours. Most of them, engaged in garbage decomposition work, the main character Lao Dao is one of them. The book tells the story of Old Dao’s adventures in the first and second Spaces to raise education tuition for his adopted daughter Sugar Sugar. Thus, Lao Dao as a typical person in the Third Space also took us to see the difference between other Spaces in the future “Beijing”. The Second space has 25 million of white-collar workers to live in an orderly and fast-paced work, talking excitedly about their ideals in front of the garbage worker Lao Dao from the third space, hoping to enter the first space through efforts. The first space, which has the same area of other two spaces, has the smallest population, only 5 million people, just one-tenth of the third space. They are the powerful and wealthy class in Beijing, they make urban planning and laws, and they control the development order of the other two Spaces.
From my perspective, the most ironic of the folded Beijing is the setting of time in the book’s space reversal, which reflects the most serious problems in the entire world recent years. In a 48-hour cycle, the first space enjoys 24 hours, then the second space enjoys 16 hours, and finally the remaining 8 hours are given to the third space. That is to say, for the workers of the Third Space, they will never see the real sun, and the sunlight overhead is only an illusion created by the ruling class of the First Space with technical means. This is representing the life of people from the third space are totally ruined by the unfairness they face after born while the privileged class in the first space enjoy all the benefits. Meanwhile, the privileged class always use skills to give the possibility of imagination to the Third Space just like the illusion of sun given to the Third Space. This setting is similar to the reality in China right now, where rich people become more rich, poor people become poorer and believe that they can change their social class by making efforts as the benefits of reform and opening up policy declines and the damage of COVID-19 brings terrible blow to the country. Although the economy and job market is so depressive, many common people still believe that working hard will secure a good future, which encourages parents to put too much pressures on students to get a better grade. These actions are similar to Lao Dao’s decision of adventure in the first and second space to raise money for tuition of her daughter. However, these efforts will possibly become a waste of efforts with the large gap between the rich and the poor.
Different from other fiction, Folding Beijing frightens me without the monsters, robots or other creatures from other spaces but with the extreme prediction of the society in the future as the technology involves so fast in the past ten years. While AI and more advanced robot is able to substitute more labor, the structure of society can be transformed historically in near future. Many people may lose their jobs, which strengthens the conflicts between the rich and the poor and also gives relatively small amounts of opportunities in the new industry. Therefore, many people have to accept the jobs given in charity from the privileged class, which may live a life just as the people in the Third Space. The possibility of this makes me feel so hopeless that I even imagine how can life be if you job is given in charity from the society. This also leads me to think about the most popular AI named ChatGPT as it really can do a lot of things and even better than many office workers. How will the world change according to this technology in the future besides the conflicts between human and AI? Will it facilitate the conflicts between human and human in different social classes? This question inspires me a lot more to consider more when I choose to give up part of my data and benefit from AI.