In a Chinese City

With simple text and large, colorful photographs, this book describes a typical school day for Ren Yikang, a seven-year-old girl who lives in the city of Changzhi in the Shanxi Province of northern China. The photos are especially effective for portraying ordinary things that children would wonder about their counterparts' lives in China. We see what kind of food Yikang eats, what kind of clothes she wears (a sharp blue, white & red uniform at school), how the school day is structured, and how she and her parents spend their time when they get home from work and school. Some of the images show the striking differences between Chinese and American children's lives: photos of the children mopping the school's floors at the beginning of the day; children practicing their mathematics, each with an abacus at their desk. Other images are familiar: Yikang playing on her father's computer, watching the Olympics on TV, reading books with her mother before bedtime. Other favorites of mine are photos of Yikang eating milk and crackers for breakfast, an art teacher using computer images to teach about the human body in motion, and two girls snacking on sunflower seeds straight from the flower. The photos are cropped wide enough so that we can see the everyday details of Yikang's life: how the bathroom and living room are furnished, what the food looks like, the items for sale at the local market. The text is a perfect accompaniment to the photos, explanatory, but not long-winded. At the end of the book, the author includes a "More About China" section, very briefly touching on China's past, natural resources, religion, people, and language. The book also contains a glossary of Chinese words, a brief index, and an even briefer bibliography of other sources.Another good resource on family life in China is the videotape Families of China, a 30-minute look at the daily lives of two children, one in the city, and one in the country.