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River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (P.S.)
by: Peter Hessler

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 910
EAN: 9780060855024
ISBN: 0060855029
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 432
Publication Date: May 01, 2006
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: April 25, 2006
Sales Rank: 14810
Studio: Harper Perennial

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Product Description:

A New York Times Notable Book

Winner of the Kiriyama Book Prize

In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the complex processes of understanding that take place when one is immersed in a radically different society.

Poignant, thoughtful, funny, and enormously compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be.

Amazon.com Review:
In 1996, 26-year-old Peter Hessler arrived in Fuling, a town on China's Yangtze River, to begin a two-year Peace Corps stint as a teacher at the local college. Along with fellow teacher Adam Meier, the two are the first foreigners to be in this part of the Sichuan province for 50 years. Expecting a calm couple of years, Hessler at first does not realize the social, cultural, and personal implications of being thrust into a such radically different society. In River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, Hessler tells of his experience with the citizens of Fuling, the political and historical climate, and the feel of the city itself.

'Few passengers disembark at Fuling ... and so Fuling appears like a break in a dream--the quiet river, the cabins full of travelers drifting off to sleep, the lights of the city rising from the blackness of the Yangtze,' says Hessler. A poor city by Chinese standards, the students at the college are mainly from small villages and are considered very lucky to be continuing their education. As an English teacher, Hessler is delighted with his students' fresh reactions to classic literature. One student says of Hamlet, 'I don't admire him and I dislike him. I think he is too sensitive and conservative and selfish.' Hessler marvels,

You couldn't have said something like that at Oxford. You couldn't simply say: I don't like Hamlet because I think he's a lousy person. Everything had to be more clever than that ... you had to dismantle it ... not just the play itself but everything that had ever been written about it.

Over the course of two years, Hessler and Meier learn more they ever guessed about the lives, dreams, and expectations of the Fuling people.

Hessler's writing is lovely. His observations are evocative, insightful, and often poignant--and just as often, funny. It's a pleasure to read of his (mis)adventures. Hessler returned to the U.S. with a new perspective on modern China and its people. After reading River Town, you'll have one, too. --Dana Van Nest

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- beautifully written
This is a wonderful book. The book follows Peter Hessler through his two years teaching English in a small teaching college in a small town in China. It's interesting to read as Peter gets more and more comfortable with the environment and language. In fact, one of the things that's so special about this book is that the author and location essentially stay the same throughout. The book's movement comes through layering and rediscovery as the author becomes more-and-more familiar with the people, language, and culture. I tend to find books like this (i.e. authors immersed in a new culture) somewhat unsatisfying since I think they often become either comedies with eccentric characters or they become more about self-exploration than anything else. This book has neither of these failings. It's simply an account of the author's experiences, impressions, and limitations as he becomes more-and-more a part of the ... Read More

Rating:

- Peter Hessler chronicles growth and change in China (and himself)
China is indeed currently undergoing the largest, fastest modernization and transformation of a major country in human history. The scale of change in all areas (buildings, infrastructure, geography, economics, social, cultural) is vast. Yet the current transformation is but one in a series of major historical changes in the past century, as China has gone from empirical rule through civil war to the expulsion of foreign colonial influences, to the excesses of communism including the Cultural Revolution, to the current transformation, officially called "Reform and Opening".

What does this change look like on the "ground level" of average Chinese citizens, and how do they feel about it? What tensions and conflicts arise as the Chinese people are forced to (again) change their attitudes, behaviors and values? What beliefs and practices persist through the change? What might all this change lead to for ... Read More

Rating:

- China, both Complex and Fascinating
I picked up this book whilst on a business trip in China. It tells the tale of a 26yr old American Graduate (Peter Hessler) heading to rural China for 2yrs to help teach English. His portrayal of China is beautiful, complex and fascinating. You learn a little of how the people are influenced by the communist regime, their lifestyles, attitudes to the western world and of course their inner beauty. You can almost inhale the Chinese environment as he navigates you from industrial China with it's bellowing smog to the natural beauty of the rugged landscapes. Where this book wins for me is it's portrayal of the Chinese people, warm, curious and captivating. If you have a passing interest in Chinese culture, then you should read this. A very easy and enjoyable read.

Rating:

- The Adventure of an American in China

Peter Hessler is today a well known American correspondent and free lance journalist living in Beijing. He has written two books and many articles on modern China and can be defined ad an "Old China hand", an honorary title given to Chinese speaking foreigners who truly understand the country, which even in this era of globalization knows how to keep many of its secrets.
River Town was published in 2001, after a two year experience (1996-1998) as a Peace Corps English teacher in Sichuanese Fuling, a city on the Yangtze River that has since been transformed by the Three Gorges Dam activated in 2003.
The book is a Bildungsroman or better "Bildungsmemoir" centered on the relationship that builds up between a man and a country. Even though many other have lived through similar experiences, no one has attempted the same type of identification and empathic comprehension of the impacted culture or ... Read More

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