"Notes of a Crocodile" by Qiu Miaojin

“Those wrenching eyes, which could lift up the entire skeleton of my being. How I longed for myself to be subsumed into the ocean of her eyes. How the desire, once awakened, would come to scald me at every turn. The strength in those eyes offered a bridge to the outside world. The scarlet mark of sin and my deep-seated fear of abandonment had given way to the ocean’s yearning.”

Themes: Performance (performing the ‘self’; performing gender); Yearning; Desire; Mental Health (guilt, self-hatred); Gender; Sexuality; Monster/Beast Metaphor; Death

Discussion Questions:

1. Why do you think the author never lets us know Lazi's real name? 

2. Why does Lazi move around so much? What does it do for the sense of place in the book?

3. On page 53, Lazi is discussing the guilt and fear she feels about her sexuality. At the bottom of the page, she writes, “To this day, I’ve never understood my fear. Where does it come from? I’d been keeping my deviant sexual desires in check for most of my adolescent and college years. I reassured myself that I’d done nothing wrong. It felt like the fear was coming from inside of me.” 

   1. How do you interpret these sentences? Is the fear coming from inside of her related to compulsory heterosexuality? What does it mean for the fear to come from inside of Lazi as opposed to outside? What role does interiority (her interior self, for instance) play in the book? 

4. Oftentimes, when Meng Sheng is mentioned, the concept of gender is invoked. What about him is symbolic of gender? What else does he represent in the book and/or to Lazi? 

5. How do the crocodile vignettes relate to/connect to the historical context of the story (Taipei in the late 1980s)? For instance, in an article by Taipei Times, it is written that “According to Wu Tsui-sung’s (吳翠松) study, Homosexuals in the News (報紙中的同志), from 1981 to 1985 they were mostly treated as deviants and criminals in the media.”

   1. Additionally, do you think the crocodile vignettes are written by Lazi (who wants to be a writer)? 

6. What does the crocodile represent? How do those sections relate to the rest of the book?

   1. In the crocodile vignette on page 152, the narrator writes the following: “The crocodile had a peculiar habit: It never looked at me unless it was wearing a human suit.” How do you interpret this? How does it relate to homosexuality and/or Lazi’s presentation/performance of herself? 

7. How does Lazi’s relationship with Xiao Fan differ from her relationship with Shui Ling? Has Lazi matured? 

8. Has Lazi truly experienced love? Why or why not?

9. Why do we end on the crocodile instead of on Lazi?

10. Does Lazi, as a character, really, meaningfully change by the end of the book? Why or why not?