What We've Been Reading

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

As we wrapped up on our time in China, I focused on the last few China books I'd left sitting unread. Shanghai Girls was a classic example of a book I should have read long ago. My book club in Shanghai read it together, but I skipped that month. Friend and family in the states recommended it to me, after having read Snowflower and the Secret Fan, also by Lisa See. Once I finally made time for the book, I breezed through it. See writes a compelling story, which carries two sisters through an amazing number of changes in lifestyle, landscape and self-image. I've always enjoyed author Amy Tan's writing, because she writes about Chinese women talking to their American daughters. In so doing, she explains the recent history of China in ways that I can understand and relate to. I always find the most extraordinary piece of Tan's stories to be the expansive change her characters undergo. As with many Americans who arrived as refugees, or simply escaped dangerous conditions, characters from this book lived in a world where they were well taken care of and had few worries; they then underwent unimaginable experiences before arriving to live in the U.S., shop at the same grocery store as me, and raise daughters who drink too much Coca-Cola. It reminds me that everyone I meet has a hidden story. And that recent Chinese history is awful. And that people are capable of horrible things, but that life is also redemptive. As a friend recently reminded me, this too shall pass. See tells a good story, and I recommend it for all of my readers.


Country Driving by Peter Hessler

Peter Hessler is one of the best modern writers on China. He left the place a year or two before we did, but his books neatly bookmarked our tour. I read his River Town when we first arrived in China. The book was actually published around the year 2000, but Hessler very neatly described my experience - of being lost by the culture, lost by the noise, lost by the language, lost by the characters of China. Except that by the end of the book, he could read characters and had become amazingly adept at speaking the language. Still, I identified. So when Oracle Bones came out the following year, I ate it up. It wasn't so good - a mishmash of freelance journalist's projects and friends which never fully gelled. Based on the second book, I hesitated to pick up Country Driving when it came out this year, neatly bookending our time in China. Nothing to fear - Hessler's strength in telling people's stories in China shines in this book. Once again, Hessler describes China as few foreigners can - telling very personal stories, and this time from off the beaten track. He paints a vivid and accurate picture of the China that we left behind this year.


Wild Grass: Three Stories of Change in Modern China by Ian Johnson

I love how good reads begins their synopsis of this books: "In Wild Grass, Pulitzer Prize—winning journalist Ian Johnson tells the stories of three ordinary Chinese citizens moved to extraordinary acts of courage." In the engaging style of a skilled journalist, Johnson delved into the stories of a legal clerk in the countryside who filed a class-action suit on behalf of overtaxed farmers and learned the limits of the Chinese legal system; a young architect who defended not only the dispossessed homeowners but also the disappearing architecture of Beijing; and an average elderly woman who ended up beaten to death in police custody for her faith in falun gong. After living in and reading about China for the past three and a half years, I still found the well-researched stories in this book telling me things about the country that I was naive to. But beyond telling stories which the world needs to hear, Johnson smoothly and professionally weaves in his reaction to each individual - his skepticism at times, and his frustration. A great read for a thinker, but a simple read for anyone.

And that completes my China list, until we get to the books concerning adoption - but I'm saving those for later. Anyone with recommendations for books on the mid-Atlantic and northern Virginia, I'm all ears. Although you'd better come quick - we'll know our next post by the end of the summer, and then I'll once again focus all reading attentions outside of this country.