Wei Yahua

Wei Yahua. "Wo Jueding yu Jiqiren Qizi Lihun" ("I Decide to Divorce My Robot Wife"). Beijing Wenxue January 1981; fixup 1981. Sequel: "Wenrou zhi Xiang de Meng" ("Dream of a Soft Country.") Yanhe May-July 1982; collected 1999."[1]

The robots here are what we'd call "androids" — cf. the source of the word "robot," R. U. R. — and are used to represent women in allegories on gender in China of the period. Note use for satiric and political purposes of Asimov's Laws of Robotics.[2][3]

These stories are discussed — along with "A Special Case" (1980) — in their historical contexts and in some detail in Jonathan Clements's "Flesh and Metal: Marriage and Female Emancipation in the Science Fiction of Wei Yahua," Foundation # 65 (Autumn 1995): pp. 61- 79. Clement notes the courtroom drama in the work of Wei Yahua; for that aspect, cf. and contrast Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Measure of a Man"; Futurama: "Overclockwise"; and Asimov's The Bicentennial Man.

RDE, Initial Compiler, 28Feb19