The Windup Girl

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2009

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Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 4 Summary

Captain Jaidee Rojjanasukchai is a machete-wielding customs officer whose job it is to inspect imported goods so that Bangkok can avoid the infectious blister rust, a disease that kills the genetically-modified food that is now the world’s sustenance. Lieutenant Kanya Chirathivat counts bribe money used by foreign companies landing dirigibles at a coastal airfield, so that their imports will be accepted. One dirigible, with the name of Carlyle & Sons, flees as it is about to land because it knows it will be subject to inspection. Its owner, Richard Carlyle, is very corrupt; Jaidee describes him as a man “who speaks so casually about changing pollution credit systems, of removing quarantine inspections, of streamlining everything that has kept the [Thai] Kingdom alive as other countries have collapsed” (51). Instead of permitting the bribed imports to enter the country, Jaidee orders them burned, so that the companies with whom he and Kanya deal know their place. Besides, Jaidee says, the companies’ insurance companies will compensate the loss.

Jaidee arrives home late from work. His wife, Chaya, expresses concern for her safety, for she has lost fingers in a past conflict involving her husband. The couple has two children and live with Chaya’s mother. Their relationship is both intimate and distant, since Jaidee’s dangerous job worries her. Jaidee smells of smoke from the fires and the whiskey he has drunk on the way home. He revels in his masculinity and characterizes himself as a tiger and a “real” man. The chapter ends with Jaidee and Chaya going to bed to have sex.

Chapter 5 Summary

The next morning Anderson studies old, moldy books for clues about the genesis of the fruit ngaw. He grows angry thinking about the past Expansion, when citrus fruits such as lemons and oranges, now extinct, were so abundant that they were disposed of if even slightly bruised. Emiko and Gi Bu Sen, or Gibbons, whom Emiko has mentioned, occupy his thoughts. It seems that Gibbons is still alive, and Anderson searches for him even though he has supposedly died in a fire, though no autopsy had been performed. Gibbons had the reputation of being the a superb “generipper.” Anderson’s memory of Gibbons haunts him, as does the titillating and disturbing connection with Emiko he experienced the night before. Anderson continues to find remedies for the “assaults of blister rust, Nippon genehack weevil and cibiscosis” that plague the genetically-modified food (64).

Chapter 6 Summary

Hock Seng recalls his past grandeur as a sea trader who owned a fleet of clipper ships that exported tea to Europe and returned with hard-to-find cognac. Now, he extracts money and jewels from a hiding place in his bare flat located in the slums. He appreciates what little he does have, given the precarious social and political position he now inhabits. In a flashback, Hock remembers how he escaped the Green Headbands with one of his daughters, whom he refers to as “this useless daughter mouth” (73). His former employee, Hafiz, reluctantly helped him escape even though turning Hock in would have resulted in a plentiful bounty. After fleeing, he arrived at his destination without his daughter.

Back in the present, Hock goes to the sea wall to meet with Dog Fucker, the right-hand man of the powerful Dung Lord. Hock bribes Dog Fucker with the jewels and money he took from his hiding place and tells Dog Fucker that he wants to meet with Dung Lord. The meeting concludes with Hock feeling confident. However, he then learns from his fellow yellow card, Laughing Chan, about the destruction of goods orchestrated by Jaidee. Hock finds a newspaper, reads an account of it, and is discouraged and disturbed by the news.

Chapters 4-6 Analysis

The Thai Kingdom that survives, even though ravaged by global warming and threatened by the warm waters of the ocean, also subsists on dangerous political machinations and bribery. The genetically-modified food that is subject to blister rust and weevils, as well as the disease cibiscosis, contribute to the dangerous uncertainty of the kingdom’s inhabitants. Jaidee, known as the Tiger of Bangkok, appears at least nominally to work for the good of the country and land, despite that matters are often handled through bribes and insurance fraud. His position is as fraught as that of Hock Seng’s, who has known former glory as the head of the Three Prosperities Trading Company. Hock often contemplates his karma and his reincarnation. He believes he must have sinned greatly to have been reduced to a slum-dwelling yellow card who works for the “devil” foreigner Anderson.

Anderson, on the other hand, has managed a degree of success, but he has done so only by beating out is former competitor, Yates. Anderson’s memory of a spring gun seems to imply that Yates committed suicide, and, despite his success, Anderson’s situation has been fraught with business difficulties and a lack of money. His search in the old books provides a past image of the ngaw and this photograph leads Anderson to believe that the master generipper, Gibbons, may still be alive. Gibbons had instructed his children to ask for no autopsy, should he die, and this remembrance tips off Anderson to the possibility that Gibbons may have engineered a fake death. Anderson also thinks about his time spent with Emiko. Her memory both fascinates and bothers him, and he feels sympathy for her. He thinks that this may be the reason he told her about the villages occupied by her fellow New People in the North.