slices of China

Another book recommendation

I try varying topics from day to day as I get bored with repetition so you likely do as well. I am going to break that habit slightly today by noting the arrival of another volume from one of the most respected observers of China. I confess I don’t have my hands on Other Rivers yet but fully intend to read it immejiately (sic) as a British tele actor would likely would proclaim if covering the topic.

Peter Hessler went to China in the mid-1990s when our bilateral relationship still meant the Middle Kingdom welcomed Peace Corps volunteers. Sounds like a time that never existed to read the criticisms and fears of Americans and Chinese in 2024. Many Americans went to spread the gospel and/or English with the conviction we could Christianize the Middle Kingdom as part of an assumption we could make China like us, regardless of their starting position when we arrived or their nationalism and cultural. I don’t know Hessler’s motives but he was one of the many who put in time well inland from the coastal cities.

Hessler has written three non-faction accounts now of his experiences over multiple years in the country. He served in a decidedly ‘backward’ place at the Fuling Teacher’s College. River Town, the volume capturing that eye-opening experience in the underdeveloped interior constituting most the country as recently as thirty years ago, was profoundly important for anyone seeking to understand living conditions and aspirations much as Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth recounted in fiction that harsh existence almost a century earlier.

Hessler fulfilled his teaching obligation but wasn’t finished with bringing us stories about the transforming China both in his second volume, Oracle Bones, and in his stories for the New Yorker magazine. To this day, his description of getting a Chinese driver’s license is one of the most haunting tales that repeatedly came to mine as I travelled in someone else’s vehicle on trips to the country following the 2009 publication.

Hessler’s work is evocative of the average Chinese citizen rather than those with the highest quanxi, or relationships that often lead to incredible wealth and Party membership. His unique experience in the educational system, focused dramatically on memorization rather than inquiry, offers a counter narrative to the constant refrain that China will outpace us because they have such elaborate master plans (They may outpace us or not, and they may have great aspirations but we too get a vote on the future if we apply our energies appropriately. We are not helpless victims unless we so choose).

Hessler’s most recent contribution, Other Rivers, returns to Sichuan province where he was again writing instructor immediately before and as the Pandemic evolved. I look forward to reading about how Chinese citizens’ attitudes on America changed—if they have. I wonder about the physical condition of the countryside after yet another twenty-five years of industrial policy inflicting damage in order to assure growth to keep the people somewhat satisfied. I easterly anticipate hearing how the young, the age group who constitute the ‘laying down’ students of 2023 who could not find jobs last year upon graduating with degrees from Chinese universities, saw the future. I am confident, based on prior books, Hessler covers those topics.

It’s seductive to assume that the geopolitics inform us sufficiently to predict the future with China. I am not sure anyone knows the future well enough to proclaim much with fidelity but I certainly find myself drawn to the windows available instead into the people, their changes, and their continuities in life over the past several years, if not the whole of the CCP era (seventy-five years now). What troubles me is that I am not sure we are reading enough to provide the basis even to opine on the vast place. Applying our assumptions is so much easier. As you’ve seen me note, assumptions are the bedrock of strategy-making but need revalidation of their accuracy at every turn. That outcome of revalidating or not has major consequences.

I welcome any reviews of Hessler’s book if you’ve scrafed it up already. What fascinating reads would you recommend these days? Bring ‘em on, please.

I also hope you will chime in if you think of our relationship with China or any topic I offer differently than I present. Tell us why you see things with a different cast. I received two comments this past week that began with some hesitation about envisioning topics alternatively. Please do not avoid questioning my assumptions, arguments or interpretations; it’s always a writer’s obligation to prove her case with evidence. Others might not like the evidence but need to examine it. I do not pretend to have all of the answers as I most definitely do not: I am serious. I do, as I hope up you see, change my own thoughts upon reading your ideas as well.

Thank you for considering this column and any other you read. If you find it valuable, please feel free to circulate it. I am especially tickled when another writer recommends this column, whether it generates long term readership or a quick look. I am especially honored by those who commit financial resources to keep me reading these four daily newspapers among other things.

Be well and be safe.

Peter Hessler, Oracle Bones. New York: HarperCollins, 2009.

—-, Other Rivers. New York: HarperCollins, 2024.

—-, River Towns: Two Years on the Yangtze. New postscript. New York: HarperCollins, 2024. Ċ