Characters
JIANG CHENG 蒋丞
“Returned” by his adoptive parents, he moves to the Steelworks in the middle of his eleventh-grade school year to live with his birth father and attend Fourth High.
GU FEI 顾飞
Jiang Cheng’s new deskmate and infamous in the neighborhood for his ruthlessness. He lives with his mother and little sister, and also attends Fourth High.
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FAMILY
GU MIAO 顾淼: Gu Fei’s younger sister. Loves to skateboard; only speaks to Gu Fei.
GU FEI’S MOTHER: Harbors a naive dream of finding true love.
LI BAOGUO 李保国: Jiang Cheng’s birth father, a noisy, alcoholic gambler.
LI HUI 李辉: Jiang Cheng’s older brother.
LI QIAN 李倩: Jiang Cheng’s older sister.
SHEN YIQING 沈一清: Jiang Cheng’s former adoptive mother.
PAN ZHI 潘智: Jiang Cheng’s best friend.
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STEELWORKS
DING ZHUXIN 丁竹心: Gu Fei’s childhood friend and former neighbor.
LI YAN 李炎: Gu Fei’s friend.
FRESH OUT OF JAIL 不是好鸟: Four of Gu Fei’s friends—Liu Fan 刘帆, Luo Yu 罗宇, Zhao Yihui 赵一辉, and Chen Jie 陈杰. They are older than him and aren’t currently in school.
MONKEY: A street thug who leads a gang in their neighborhood.
JIANG BIN 江滨: Also known as “Wild Boar Head,” Monkey’s delinquent younger cousin.
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SCHOOL
LAO-XU 老徐: Xu Qicai 徐齐才—, Class Eight’s homeroom teacher and Chinese teacher.
LAO-LU 老鲁: Class Eight’s English teacher.
WANG XU 王旭: Also known as Wang Jiuri 王九日, Jiang Cheng and Gu Fei’s classmate and friend.
LU XIAOBIN 卢晓斌: One of the Class Eight basketball players. Tall and broad.
GUO XU 郭旭: One of the Class Eight basketball players.
ZHOU JING 周敬: Jiang Cheng and Gu Fei’s classmate who sits at the desk in front of them.
YI JING 易静: The class president.
Diminutives, Nicknames, and Name Tags:
-GE/GEGE: Used to refer to older boys or men in an informal way. Literally means “older brother.”
-JIE/JIEJIE: Used to refer to older girls or women in an informal way. Literally means “older sister.”
LAO-: Usually added as a prefix to a surname as a familiar way of referring to someone older. (e.g. Lao-Xu)
ER-: Added as a prefix to a second child’s name (e.g., Er-Miao).
-ER: Added as a suffix to turn a name into a familiar diminutive (e.g., Cheng-er).
DA-: Added as a prefix to a name as a sign of respect, especially for someone older (e.g., Da-Fei).
-ZONG: Usually used as a suffix for CEOs or people of high rank. Students attach it to the end of a surname to refer casually to a teacher, indicative of their rapport (e.g., Xu-zong).
NAME-DOUBLING: A cute way to nickname someone, adults often use this with very young children (e.g., Chengcheng).
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Glossary
MAINLAND CHINESE SCHOOL SYSTEM
SCHOOL YEARS AND EXAMS: Most Chinese students go through six years of elementary school (小学), followed by three years of middle school (初中) and three years of high school (高中). At the end of middle school, all students who wish to proceed to regular high schools will take the standardized high school entrance exams (zhongkao, 中考). The first nine years from grade one to grade nine are mandatory education. After grade nine, those who don’t make it into the regular high schools will either start working or enter a vocational or trade school, or a technical college. Students at the end of regular high school will then take the university entrance exams (gaokao, 高考) for admission to domestic universities. The gaokao is widely considered the single most important event in a young Chinese person’s life and their best opportunity at crossing the class divide.
HIGH SCHOOL STREAMING: In most regular high schools, classes are sorted first by streams (STEM or humanities), then by academic performance. This sorting usually happens before the first or second year of high school, after which the students largely stay with the same class throughout their high school years. Each class has a homeroom teacher who is responsible for that class, in addition to their usual teaching duties, and will stay with the same class of students, progressing through the years until the students graduate.
SCHOOL SESSIONS, CLASSES, AND PERIODS: A school day typically runs from early morning until noon, with a two hour break for lunch and midday naps, then continues from afternoon to evening. In addition to lessons, there are daily periods set aside for quiet study called “self-study” periods. The average public school class is made up of anywhere from forty to sixty students. As a result, teachers standing in the front of the classroom often use a microphone to project their voice, as they sometimes find it difficult to be heard, especially from the back rows.
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NORTHEAST CHINA (DONGBEI)
INDUSTRIALIZATION: The northeast was once considered China’s industrial hub. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, economic changes—namely the privatization and consolidation of state-owned enterprises—led to a collapse of the manufacturing sector all over the country, especially the three provinces in the northeast. Many cities were devastated by massive layoffs, affecting millions of workers. Run Wild takes place in a bleak, post-industrialized city, living in the aftermath of this economic transition. In its heyday, there would’ve been a full community centered around factories similar to the Steelworks, with dedicated housing, childcare, healthcare, and social spaces, all in service of the factories and their workers. Now, the same neighborhood is populated by impoverished families struggling to eke out a living—including people like Li Baoguo, who turn to drinking and gambling to while away their time.
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GENERAL TERMS
BREAKFAST STALLS: Although some families will get up and make breakfast, most working people and people without kids will often get their breakfast from a congregation of breakfast stalls, often readily available in residential areas but only during limited hours of the early morning. There are a wide variety of foods found at the breakfast stalls: dumplings, soup dumplings, tofu pudding, fried dough fritters, fried pancakes, braised beef, soy milk, vermicelli, congee, and more. A common combination is a doughy or crispy food like a fried dough fritter paired with a liquid like soy milk or congee.
FACE: Mianzi (面子), generally translated as “face,” is an important concept in Chinese society. It is a metaphor for a person’s reputation and can be extended to further descriptive metaphors. For example, “having face” refers to having a good reputation, and “losing face” refers to having one’s reputation hurt. Meanwhile, “giving face” means deferring to someone else to help improve their reputation, while “not wanting face” implies that a person is acting so poorly or shamelessly that they clearly don’t care about their reputation at all. “Thin face” refers to someone easily embarrassed or prone to offense at perceived slights. Conversely, “thick face” refers to someone not easily embarrassed and immune to insults.