Travelers' Tales China: True Stories

Many people visiting China buy the requisite guidebooks but they don't even skim the surface of the Chinese experience or literature. The Traveler's Tales series of books does an amazing job compiling a wide variety of authors and stories into one manageable volume providing a great starting point for anyone wanting to begin to understand China. The editors also weave small quotes, sayings, proverbs, and snippets into boxes throughout the book to provide a leavening to the stories. Some stories are short, some are long and all of them are interesting. I find this book, and all of the Traveler's Tales Books, required reading whenever I visit a country and this book is no exception. The editors have done a great job bringing together stories from authors well-known and not-well-known. Some you will recognize like: Peter Hessler, Mark Salzman and others you will be reading for the first-time. Even you aren't planning a trip to China I can't imagine a better single book to provide some of the atmosphere of being in China. Brew yourself a pot of tea and settle in for a compelling series of stories that is easily digestible in small chunks or in one long sitting.

What is China? Reduced to facts and figures, China is amazing and overwhelming. 1.3 billion people live within its borders. Almost 4 million square miles in area. A history stretching back countless millennia. A modern history filled with catchphrases and people with instant recognition: Mao, Tiananmen, Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping. Its economic and political system defy conventional analysis--a totalitarian, self-proclaimed Communist state increasingly open to market capitalism. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of books have been written on China ... travelogues, fiction and non-fiction about its history, its culture both modern and ancient. Yet, despite all the numbers and facts, the "real" China seems quite distant. The question remains: What is China? Travelers' Tales China takes a different approach. Rather than tackling China at the macro-level (an impossible task), it attempts to portray China through a mosaic of stories, some quite mundane, some quite profound; all wonderfully written and vivid in their description and imagery. The writers' perspectives are ideal for the task: as travelers they are confronted by the perpetual travelers' paradox. As the outsider, they are distanced from their subject. Quite often, this detachment is self-imposed, other times it is brought upon by outside forces. However, this detachment is coupled with a curiosity, an eye for detail, a hunger for meaning extended to a degree that would not be sought had they insider status. Most books on China that I have seen are like a photograph taken on a day with a blinding sun. The subject is blanched by the extreme illumination, shadows are banished, yet the scene is still oddly unclear. Paraphrasing the Dao De Jing, the China that can be told of is not the true China. By attempting to consciously capture China in words, what comes into focus is not the subject but the author. In contrast, the Travelers' Tales is like the scene on its cover. By inviting shadows, allowing ambiguity, and eschewing overt commentary, the book does not describe China--it BECOMES China. Perhaps it is just the "Travelers' China," but even this is a better outcome than most other books I have seen.