Jonathan Tel skilfully avoids cliché with this collection of short stories about Beijing, instead choosing to examine the side of the capital the expat community rarely interacts with: the aspirational newly-married couple; the provincial teenager sent to work as an ayi for a wealthy family to pay her father’s debts; the university graduate shooting up the corporate ranks due to his family’s guanxi. Each vignette, regardless of tone, is imbued with a subtle and playful humour throughout, and also a sense of Chinese history and culture (Buddhist themes of fate can be identified in a few of the stories).

In the satirical ‘The Unofficial History of the Embroidered Couch’, Tel fiddles with the space/time continuum to pit a thoroughly modern businessman into a relationship (conducted entirely via text message) with a Ming dynasty maiden – arranged through a seemingly supernatural dating agency. After the initial excitement of courtship fades, the two are confronted by the fact that they have virtually nothing in common and descend into a slanging match of petty insults, all of which come surprisingly naturally to the ‘innocent’ from the Ming dynasty.

Through his sparse, minimal language Tel does, however, deal in matters of slightly more pathos. ‘The Three Lives of Little Yu’ chronicles the story of an infertile couple who, desperate to have a child, try and raise three different adopted girls over the course of 30 years. Tragedy awaits the first two girls, but the parents face the circumstances stoically, evoking some classic Chinese proverbs (“you cannot stop the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair”). Each of the girls is given the same name, Yu, and in an allusion to reincarnation seems to retain some of the same qualities engrained into the previous incarnations.

But Tel’s stories are at their best when dealing with the trivial and comedic (like the Gorillagram turned national hero in ‘Year of the Gorilla’), seemingly mundane aspects of Beijing life, which he paints in a peculiar and flattering manner, which makes this book an enjoyable, insightful read.