2025-12-29

Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor sucks.

I had avoided writing this blog for quite a while, because I thought I needed to focus my attention onto things that make me happy instead. Positivity instead of negativity, right? That's why I wrote the review on A Perfect Spy. My words were,

I'm only even writing this post to get my mind off of that terrible book written by a certain ZXR, which honestly I should do more of. Positivity instead of negativity!

But it had still stuck in my head, and I feel like it's a sign for me. To write this blog post. So here we go. Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Zhao Xiran.

Why I shouldn't be reviewing this book

It's a middle-grade book and I've grown way past that. It's not something I should be reading at this time and age. In addition, I went into this book fully intending to hate it — I was hate-reading from the very start. And it did not contradict my expectations.

So yes, this would be neither a professional nor a constructive review. I'm just blabbering about how much I hate the book. From memory, too, so inaccuracies may occur.

Why I'm reviewing it anyways

To put it very simply: I would be really, really sad if this is some anglophone kid's first introduction to Chinese culture.

And from the looks of some reviews regarding this book, it had done exactly that. And to no fewer than one Chinese kid too.

Granted, I'm born and raised in China so I've always took my culture for granted. I don't know the struggles of someone born distant from it and want to reconnect, and I won't pretend to. But that demographic isn't the book's only target audience; and it certainly doesn't stop me from pointing out all the things I hated about this book on my own blog.

And yeah, despite my saying this book is a terrible introduction to Chinese culture, I don't actually have recommendations on what could be a good introduction.

In essence, I'm just hoping that by finishing this blog post, I can get this book out of my mind. There will be spoilers.

The actual review

First off. The kids recite Li Bai's moonlight poem and says "it's a banger" at the end. I've never felt more cringe. No sane Chinese kid would say it's a banger. Seriously.

Cultural depiction

The author described "kūnpéng" as a creature that can change between a bird and a whale at will, but "kūnpéng" is not a real thing; it's a name mashup. Kūn is a fish, not whale (do people back then even know what whales are?), and péng is a bird. Kūn turned into a bird and never turned back into a fish, so I don't think it can. While I wouldn't have a problem if the author pulled out kūn and had the kids ride on it (provided they said "fish" instead of "whale"), I did have a problem of them constantly referring to it as a whale, and as "kūnpéng."

And Mazu is a goddess commonly worshipped in the southeastern part of China, notably in Fujian and Taiwan. A lot fewer people would worship her in the northern sea, where the main characters were when they prayed to her. I could've suspended my disbeliefs if the author made a note of that in the book, but they didn't, making it sound like Mazu is universally worshipped in China, like a goddess over all the oceans.

And while at first she was simply an ocean goddess, she had grown to be deified into a general goddess, and people would pray to her over everything, not just smooth sailing. I once actually saw an internet post of someone wanting to give her some milk tea, and repeatedly threw the cresent-moon shaped things (jiaobu, which is basically you ask Mazu a question and throw these things and determine the answer based on the positions they landed in) at every single detail, like the size of the cup, how much sugar, how much boba… and the comment section was full of people telling her Mazu was probably tired of her and just wanted a random cup to get it over with.

Those are the two inaccuracies that bugged me. And then there's the constantly comparing figures to pop culture, almost setting western culture as a frame-of-reference for Chinese culture. Maybe some kids would know these people, but I don't know what any of these people are save for Sherlock Holmes and I can tell you Di Renjie is like Sherlock the way James Bond is like Kim Philby. Uh, maybe that was a bad comparison I pulled out my ass but my point is, Di Renjie is vaguely a detective in popular depiction, and that concludes his similarity with Sherlock. And I suppose kids ten years into the future won't know what these pop culture figures are either.

Dead people… genius move, actually

One thing that bugged me a lot was how I feel like the author, despite being genuinely interested in Chinese culture and mythology, only has a surface understanding of these topics. Like they got it all from Wikipedia, and mashed everything they thought was cool together.

Like, I don't know why they chose two Tang Dynasty emperors to go with Qin Shi Huang, aside from that they like them. Why do they even fit, considering they lived nearly a thousand years apart?

And that brings us to the system of dead spirits that the author created. It was such an evil genius.

Basically, in the realm of dead people, the dead people just hang around each other all day and do whatever they like, like watch over living people or something. Qin Shi Huang was good friends with IIRC Napoleon, George Washington, that sort, and no doubt he would've met the two Tang Dynasty emperors, as they're all dead after all.

By having every dead person do basically whatever they want with other dead people, the author sets the stage for literally any sort of crossover. They don't have to bother with what attitudes the people from different eras would have towards each other, what differences in viewpoints and beliefs they have; because all these years spent playing together in the dead people realm had assimilated them into however the author wants them to act — however the author interprets them.

And this is genius. It opens up the world to so many possibilities. It puts the entire history of mankind at the author's disposal. And I hate it. Because with all the free will the author granted themselves, they made the emperors act like silly children.

And this is where I got the feeling that the author is merely writing RPF with their favorite historical figures. Well, actually, every historical novel is essentially RPF anyways, but this one really sent me. The author was latching onto not the actual figure and their experiences and conditions given the era they were from, but their idea of a character that they assigned to this figure. At one point, the interpretation turns into speculation and the character is removed far enough from the original figure that it becomes entirely the author's own creation, loosely inspired by this random real guy that happened to exist in history. If you didn't know about this guy beforehand, this book would plant in your head someone unrelated to him while making you connect that character to his name.

Another thing about this framework was that, according to the characters in the book, popular depictions of historical events and figures could shape the spirits towards that belief. Like Wu Zetian thinking she might've had really killed her own daughter or something, despite a lack of real historical evidence proving it happened. This means that Zhu Yuanzhang may actually have a mango head, and George Washington may have actually cut down that cherry tree. This gives even more leeway in the author's depiction of these figures, as they can also reference popular, though false, versions of beliefs. Really, it's a perfect stage for RPF.

Minority representation

Melissa the Miao girl. Upon her first introduction, she was described as having silver all over her. Silver bracelets, silver necklaces, silver Iron Man suit and whatnot. At first I just took it as a character trait, you know, fashionable or something. And then it's revealed that she's Miao. And then I have a problem. Why would you make a Miao character and have a huge part of her appearance be silver? I actually don't have enough depictions of Miao characters in media to really say it, but I'm still gonna say it, it feels stereotypical. I know silver is a huge part of Miao culture, but I assure you people don't go outside every day with a bunch of silver directly on them. Especially considering Miao is literally the ethnic group with the most variation and diversity in clothing and you're still latching on the silver.

The author also made it a pretty big deal that Melissa told him she wasn't Han, but like at that point he had only talked to 2 people, so what did he expect?

Middle-grade stuff

Zack and his friends just walked into the museum, took the measuring thingy right out its case, and laid his bare hands on them. And framed two hapless motorbike guys for it. Well actually they hacked into the museum, which was how they got in, but did they disable the security cameras too? Can't remember honestly. And towards the end, they just… walked into Qin Shi Huang's grave. This is so easy girl.

Well, for any other middle-grade book I would've suspended my disbeliefs — they did encounter plenty of troubles both near the museum and inside the grave — but for this one in particular, it spent nearly the entire book fearmongering about how tyrannical the Chinese government is. Yet no law enforcement was at the literal grave of Qin Shi Huang preventing them from going in? This is a common pattern in bad writing; you see it in Hazbin Hotel's Alastor too, that authors would tell you something is powerful and whatnot, and never show you that so you're just supposed to trust them in a way that makes Vox happy. And well, I'm not trusting here.

Also when Zack first met Simon at school, he was weary of him because he might be a Mainlander, and might therefore not be against the government — oh, how it brings terror for Zack! He needs to conduct a purity test for Simon to make sure he's not one of those bad Chinese people! Granted, this was towards the start of the book, so it could very well be pre-character-development Zack talking, but since this topic was not brought up again and per the author's style, it's hard not to think that was a bit of the author's personal opinion too.

The big thing

Did Zack actually connect to his heritage?

It's supposed to be a character arc for him. But what does it entail? Reading Wikipedia? His powers literally got stronger in real time as he read Wikipedia. His powers are directly connected to how much he knows about Chinese culture. But what can Wikipedia really tell you? Sure, Wikipedia is informative. But anyone can read it. There are western scholars who know more about Chinese culture than I do — does that make them more Chinese than I?

Other sources of information include Melissa and Simon, who tell him stories. But these stories can easily be read on Wikipedia too. And lastly, touching stuff important to Qin Shi Huang, like that measuring thing from the museum, also strengthens his connection and grows his power. But all of these things could've been done in the US. Even touching the museum stuff, I'm sure there are plenty of artifacts, stolen or otherwise, in US museums and there's gotta be at least one that has some connection to Qin Shi Huang, right?

There was no point in setting the book in China if Zack never talks to other Chinese people, save for Melissa and Simon, and that businessman guy at the end; but of all these three people, he still interacts with the spirits possessing them more. Of course, he doesn't speak Chinese, but c'mon he has these high-tech glasses, why can't the glasses do translation? He could've talked to historians specializing in Qin Dynasty history, for example; or craftsmen, chefs, old people doing taiji in the park, old people doing calligraphy on the ground with water, old people picking cicada shells from trees, anyone. Chinese culture isn't just a bunch of often genocidal emperors, empresses, and deities that may or may not exist and the stuff they may or may not have done. It lies with the people, in the gracious hosts jumping to refill your cup, in the patrons fighting over the bill, in the batch of peasants struggling to make the coffin spin, in the shitton of the stupidest puns. Yet he spends the whole book interacting with mythological beings and dead spirits, but never talking to real, living people. His "connection" was just memorizing facts, it seems, rather than understanding.

Finally, the henchwoman was literally named Dumbbell. This is certainly a choice. Even criminal aliases couldn't be fucking Dumbbell now could it.

Wow, two thousand words. Another time I broke the thousand mark was when complaining about my dormmate. Negativity demon, or negativity muse huh?

I've still yet to decide whether to embrace negativity or reject it. Basically I'm asking, if something's bugging my mind, do I write about it here and let it out? Or do I write about something happier to distract myself? I mean, I did try that in the first place but it failed to distract me. Well. That would be something to ponder.