Chinese Characters: Profiles of Fast-Changing Lives in a Fast-Changing LandAngilee Shah, Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom An artist paints landscapes of faraway places that she cannot identify in order to find her place in the global economy. A migrant worker sorts recyclables and thinks deeply about the soul of his country, while a Taoist mystic struggles to keep his traditions alive. An entrepreneur capitalizes on a growing car culture by trying to convince people not to buy cars. And a 90-year-old woman remembers how the oldest neighborhoods of her city used to be. These are the exciting and saddening, humorous and confusing stories of utterly ordinary people who are living through China's extraordinary transformations. The immense variety in the lives of these Chinese characters dispels any lingering sense that China has a monolithic population or is just a place where dissidents fight Communist Party loyalists and laborers create goods for millionaires. Chinese Characters is a collection, as Pankaj Mishra writes in his foreword, "to herald a new golden age of journalism about a ceaselessly fascinating country." Contributors include a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, a Macarthur Fellow, the China correspondent to a major Indian newspaper, and scholars whose depth of understanding is matched only by the humanity with which they treat their subjects. Their stories together create a multi-faceted portrait of a country in motion and an introduction to some of the best writing on China today. With contributions from: Alec Ash, James Carter, Leslie T. Chang, Xujun Eberlein, Harriet Evans, Anna Greenspan, Peter Hessler, Ian Johnson, Ananth Krishnan, Christina Larson, Michelle Dammon Loyalka, James Millward, Evan Osnos, Jeffrey Prescott, Megan Shank |
Contents
| 1 | |
Doubters and Believers | 13 |
Part Two Past and Present | 53 |
Hustlers and Entrepreneurs | 89 |
Rebels and Reformers | 131 |
Teachers and Pupils | 175 |
Afterword | 217 |
Notes and Readings | 223 |
List of Contributors | 227 |
Credits | 231 |
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Common terms and phrases
Alim American asked Beijing Bella Buddhist called Chen Chen Zhi China Chinese Chongqing Chongqing's Communist Party courtyard Cultural Revolution Dashanlanr decades environmental factory father foreign friends guitar Guoqing Temple Han Chinese Hong Kong kids later Liang Lishui live looked Mandarin Mao Zedong Mao's migrants monks months mother mountains moved Nationalist neighborhood never official Old Lady Gao Olympics painting parents People's play police political protest Province Qingdao recycling Red Guards religion seemed Shanghai Shihezi Shuangpengxi story street talk Tang Tanxu Taoist Tashi teacher teaching temple things thought Tiananmen Tibet Tibetan tion told Tongren University Urümqi Uyghur village visited Weifang Western workers World of Warcraft Xianfo Xiao Kou Xinjiang Yangtze Yong Young Gao Zhang Zhou Zhuangzi