Another China Book
I still have not reached complete fatigue with reading China books. I may have thought, at least for a while, that I had pretty much finished reading memoirs from China, until I read Al Paul's Big in China. But there are still people writing fascinating books about China, and so I have yet to reach the end of my attention span.
Recently I have read a newly published book titled Chinese Characters: Profiles of Fast-Changing Lives in Fast-Changing Land. It's a different take on the China Book in that it is a compilation of fifteen different writers' submissions. Some of the contributors are familiar names to me, like authors whose books I've bought and enjoyed like Peter Hessler and Leslie T. Chang, and journalists whose work I've mostly read online or in print media, like Xujun Eberlein and Evan Osnos. Because of the unique interests and points-of-view of the writers, the book gives a larger albeit less focused picture of life in contemporary China than it would had it just been authored by one person.
I appreciated all fifteen profiles, and there are a few that really appealed to me. After the jump a few words on those and notes from the book launch event I attended at the Bookworm.
Ian Johnson's chapter is about his seeking Taoist holiness in Shanxi when he encounters instead a rather enterprising monk. Within minutes of meeting Johnson and quizzing him on basic Taoist knowledge, the monk begins to pitch a proposal to Johnson looking for funds for a temple. Johnson's reading of this was very funny at the Bookworm. The rest delves into history of Taoism, the Cultural Revolution, and the commercial, rather then the spiritual, angle local officials often approach their regions' temples.
I had read Evan Osnos' chapter when it appeared in his space at The New Yorker, "Letter from China". Even on this second read I still found it surprising. The political philosophy of Leo Strauss has also found a receptive audience in China, though the shape of that movement is different from the neocon phenomenon in the US. Instead of the idea of the universality of the (Western) classics, the Chinese Straussians look more inward to their own classics. These make for different agenda.
They touched on the genesis of the book. One of the editors, Jeffrey Wasserstrom wanting to expand the outside world's perceptions of China by focusing on individual stories. Both Johnson and Larson read from their chapters. Johnson, who wrote about a Taoist in Shanxi, said that Beijing is not a good place to view China, particularly in light of his own interest in religion in China. I found this interesting because often Beijing is the preferred vantage point of many news agencies and freelancers. Larson's chapter dealt with an environmental activist, but she also noted that some of the other chapters also showed this same "Rise of the Individual." The idea that an individual campaigner can affect change is unique to contemporary times.
In the crowd it seemed as though there were a lot of young journalists, writers, and Fulbright academics (I overheard some people introducing themselves around me), and many of the questions reflected that crowd. A lot of foreigners come to China with the aspiration to publish a China book. In the discussion, Peter Hessler's name was brought up, as it should be, and the panelists pointed out that what made his books successful was that they were all good books. As a consumer of China Books, I would add, too, that Hessler would have written outstanding books based on whatever experiences he had wherever the Peace Corps would have sent him. He was a talented writer before he came to China.
Several of the other profiles were also memorable. Alec Ash's story following a young Tibetan man trying to negotiate the world took some unexpected turns, as does Ananth Krishnan's about a Uyghur university student. Xujun Eberlein's narrative style really stands out as unique among the other writers, and while there is a personal aspect to her profile, she does not delve into true memoir. Chang's piece "Gilded Age, Gilded Cage" had a special appeal to me as it it follows a little girl through several years of school, and one line in particular stood out as representative of many children's lives probably everywhere: "The effort to shape Bella is full of contradictions."
Last Wednesday, the Bookworm hosted an event for some of the Beijing-based contributors to promote Chinese Characters. I have to admit the biggest draw for me was the opportunity to see Evan Osnos, who was then unable to attend. Ian Johnson and Christina Larson were there, and Jeremy Goldkorn moderated their discussion.
They touched on the genesis of the book. One of the editors, Jeffrey Wasserstrom wanting to expand the outside world's perceptions of China by focusing on individual stories. Both Johnson and Larson read from their chapters. Johnson, who wrote about a Taoist in Shanxi, said that Beijing is not a good place to view China, particularly in light of his own interest in religion in China. I found this interesting because often Beijing is the preferred vantage point of many news agencies and freelancers. Larson's chapter dealt with an environmental activist, but she also noted that some of the other chapters also showed this same "Rise of the Individual." The idea that an individual campaigner can affect change is unique to contemporary times.
In the crowd it seemed as though there were a lot of young journalists, writers, and Fulbright academics (I overheard some people introducing themselves around me), and many of the questions reflected that crowd. A lot of foreigners come to China with the aspiration to publish a China book. In the discussion, Peter Hessler's name was brought up, as it should be, and the panelists pointed out that what made his books successful was that they were all good books. As a consumer of China Books, I would add, too, that Hessler would have written outstanding books based on whatever experiences he had wherever the Peace Corps would have sent him. He was a talented writer before he came to China.
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