Beijing, Ep. 3

September 11, 2013 — The third time was, indeed, the charm, as Literary Death Match returned to our Peking home at Bookworm Beijing to put on a fun-stravaganza that ended with the delightful Leslie Ann Murray beating out co-finalist Anthony Tao in a Literary Pictionary finale that ended by a closer-than-it-appears score of 14-2, winning Murray the LDM Beijing, Ep. 3 crown. 

But well before the chisel-tipped Sharpie was brought to the fore, the night began on a solemn note, as Leslie Ann Murray reeled off a dazzling tale about child soldiers and rape that had the crowd stunned. Tom Carter, (expat journalist and editor of "Unsavory Elements") followed, firing off off a detail-laden piece from his book Unsavory Elements about a boy's night out that had a group of ex-pats going to a Chinese brothel. 

Then the mic was handed over to the night's trio of all-star judges: Alice Xin Liu, editor of Pathlight literary magazine; Vicky Mohieddeen, founder/director of Electric Shadows; Sherwin Jiang, stand-up comedian. 

The trio lauded both writers — Murray for tackling such a difficult subject with such beautiful prose; Carter for using such concise language — before huddling. With a difficult choice to be made, it was Murray who was announced as the night's first finalist. 

After a slew of halftime beverages, Round 2 began with Anthony Tao (poet and the editor of Beijing Cream) who performed a blazingly good poem about things that taste like purple, which was ultimately an ode to baijiu. Finally, the night finished on a brilliant note with Stanley Chan, a sci-fi writer of three novels and dozens of short stories in Chinese, delivering a tactile-rich excerpt from a sci-fi story about a man with locked-in syndrome who ends up communicating with worms. 

Again the judges were called upon, with Jiang praising Tao's exploration of the baijiu hangover, while Lin couldn't say much about Chan's story beyond that she loved it endlessly. The trio huddled and confronted with an impossible decision, decided it would be Tao who would go on to be the night's second finalist. 

Then up stepped LDM creator Adrian Todd Zuniga, who announced that the night's finale would be Literary Pictionary, and he invited audience members center-stage to draw the titles of international best-sellers, while both finalists (and their crowd-halves) were tasked with guessing the book. An fierce battle ensued, but Team Murray was in charge early as she took a commanding 8-2 lead going into the final round. Team Tao had to guess first just to force sudden death, but it wasn't to be. Murray shouted "Lolita!", winning her the LDM Beijing, Ep. 3 medal, and literary immortality to go with it. 

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