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Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip Kindle Edition
“Hessler has a marvelous sense of the intonations and gestures that give life to the moment.” —The New York Times Book Review
From Peter Hessler, the New York Times bestselling author of Oracle Bones and River Town, comes Country Driving, the third and final book in his award-winning China trilogy. Country Driving addresses the human side of the economic revolution in China, focusing on economics and development, and shows how the auto boom helps China shift from rural to urban, from farming to business.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarperCollins e-books
- Publication dateJanuary 21, 2010
- File size4897 KB
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From the Back Cover
From the bestselling author of Oracle Bones and River Town comes the final book in his award-winning trilogy, on the human side of the economic revolution in China.
In the summer of 2001, Peter Hessler, the longtime Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, acquired his Chinese driver's license. For the next seven years, he traveled the country, tracking how the automobile and improved roads were transforming China. Hessler writes movingly of the average people—farmers, migrant workers, entrepreneurs—who have reshaped the nation during one of the most critical periods in its modern history.
Country Driving begins with Hessler's 7,000-mile trip across northern China, following the Great Wall, from the East China Sea to the Tibetan plateau. He investigates a historically important rural region being abandoned, as young people migrate to jobs in the southeast. Next Hessler spends six years in Sancha, a small farming village in the mountains north of Beijing, which changes dramatically after the local road is paved and the capital's auto boom brings new tourism. Finally, he turns his attention to urban China, researching development over a period of more than two years in Lishui, a small southeastern city where officials hope that a new government-built expressway will transform a farm region into a major industrial center.
Peter Hessler, whom The Wall Street Journal calls "one of the Western world's most thoughtful writers on modern China," deftly illuminates the vast, shifting landscape of a traditionally rural nation that, having once built walls against foreigners, is now building roads and factory towns that look to the outside world.
About the Author
Peter Hessler is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he served as the Beijing correspondent from 2000 to 2007, and is also a contributing writer for National Geographic. He is the author of River Town, which won the Kiriyama Book Prize, and Oracle Bones, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. He won the 2008 National Magazine Award for excellence in reporting.
Product details
- ASIN : B0035D9UX2
- Publisher : HarperCollins e-books (January 21, 2010)
- Publication date : January 21, 2010
- Language : English
- File size : 4897 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 528 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #536,682 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #54 in Chinese Travel
- #152 in General China Travel Guides
- #274 in History of China
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Peter Hessler is a correspondent for the New Yorker and a contributor to National Geographic. He is the author of ORACLE BONES and RIVER TOWN, which won the 2001 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize. In 2011 he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation 'genius grant'. Born in Columbia, Missouri, he now lives in Cairo with his wife and daughters.
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book fascinating and engaging, offering an insightful look into everyday life in rural China. They praise the well-written narrative with its wit and empathy. The humor is described as funny and entertaining. Many readers describe the book as intellectually stimulating and a masterpiece of travelogue and cultural analysis. The author's compassion and authentic insights are appreciated. The book provides a clear view of modernization in China and rural areas. Overall, customers find the book a great read that is entertaining and informative.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers enjoy the book's insights into everyday life of rural people. They find it engaging and educational. The humor and surprises are praised as the best parts of the book.
"...into the lives of the common peasant people community is truly interesting experience and the story was told in such a way that you feel you were..." Read more
"...There are countless books on Chinese history, opinion pieces, books on the Tao, books on how Confucian thought has influenced Chinese society...." Read more
"...What makes Hessler's China books so enjoyable and educational to myself and (I believe) other Americans interested in learning more about the rapid..." Read more
"...This chapter handled the growth of manufacturing in Southern China, and raised such issues as migrant workers, corruption, quality control, and the..." Read more
Customers find the book's narrative engaging. They appreciate the author's detailed descriptions without judging Chinese politics or culture. The book provides insightful insights into personalities and culture in China during the 1990s. Readers describe the writing as witty and empathy-driven, offering an entertaining yet thought-provoking picture of life in the country and individuals.
"...for me both about the terrain and the poor condition of life and the simple and gentle peasant life he encountered but there are always the banquet..." Read more
"...Mountains of this stuff. This book shows, with incredible detail, the level to which the Chinese family supersedes all, and the oft-cited Guanxi..." Read more
"...His writing is most insightful when he is able to develop those relationships, because it provides an intimate portrait of how average Chinese..." Read more
"...This book is a work of autobiographical non-fiction recounting Hessler's time in China...." Read more
Customers enjoy the book's humor. They find the stories entertaining and insightful, providing a good way to learn more about China.
"...many cases befriends, and Hessler tells those stories with compassion, humor, and an understanding of how the stories fit into the bigger picture of..." Read more
"...I consider this the best part of the book with many funny stories and good humour and some information about Chinese regions you don't often come..." Read more
"...A great story, well written. The third part takes place in a development zone and describes building, staffing, and operation of a new factory...." Read more
"...Hessler's prose is beautiful, compelling, and humorous. The book is a delight and hard to put down...." Read more
Customers enjoy the book's journey and insightful analysis. They find it an enjoyable read with three novellas in one, exploring life in a small Chinese village. The book is described as a masterful travelogue and cultural analysis that blends personal experiences and insights into everyday life.
"...the terrain and the poor condition of life and the simple and gentle peasant life he encountered but there are always the banquet loving Communist..." Read more
"...This constitutes several individual trips in rented cars. Along the way he visits many small towns along the ancient Great Wall...." Read more
"...Country Driving" is a masterpiece of travelogue and cultural analysis...." Read more
""Country Driving" was a good read but I expected a fascinating book...." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's depth of view. They find it provides an interesting look into modernization in China and rural areas. The narratives provide clear, insightful pictures of rural places and people. Overall, readers describe the book as an eye-opener that provides a good overview of the country's current zeitgeist.
"...The book paints a really nice picture of the life of the average Chinese life outside of Beijing or Shanghai...." Read more
"...Mr. Hessler's narrative provides clear and insightful pictures of rural places and people...." Read more
"Wonderful. A grand tour of China on a curious man's budget. Eye-opening to say the least. Eye-popping even...." Read more
"...a non-judgmental attitude throughout the narratives and allows the reader a clear look at the country's current zeitgeist...." Read more
Customers find the book warm-hearted and endearing. They appreciate the author's compassion, humor, and understanding of Chinese life. The book is described as an intimate recollection of the author's time in rural villages. Readers are drawn in by the people, stories, and journey across China.
"...he meets and in many cases befriends, and Hessler tells those stories with compassion, humor, and an understanding of how the stories fit into the..." Read more
"...personal experiences with them made for a great read, and a pretty emotional experience. “..." Read more
"Peter Hessler writes an in-depth and very intimate recollection of his time in the rural villages and small boomtowns of China...." Read more
"...His interaction with the characters he wrote about is compassionate and engaging. This book Country Driving did not disappoint me...." Read more
Customers find the book's pacing engaging. They describe it as an entertaining and revealing look at China and its customs. The book is divided into three sections.
"...The book is in 3 sections. The first is he drives 7,000 miles tracing the Great Wall of China...." Read more
"...The book consists of three parts...." Read more
"A warm, revealing look at rural Chinese through the experiences of this author, who lived and traveled China for five years...." Read more
"...It is an interesting book, divided into three sections: driving the length of the Great Wall, living in a small Chinese village, and looking into a..." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the narrative length. Some find it compelling, with three stories and an episodic first part. Others feel it gets long and boring in the middle, with not enough depth.
"...disappointed by Oracle Bones, which I found to be too drawn out, often boring and had Hessler writing to much as a know-it-all...." Read more
"...as his ability to pack so much information into such a compelling narrative...." Read more
"...However, this was the weakest and least interesting part of the book. It lacked the people contact which made the rest of the book so interesting...." Read more
"...The first part is episodic and more like a log than a full account of contemporary life in China, but with Part Two the book turns into a real..." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2011Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip (P.S.)
This is the final portion of Peter Hessler's China trilogy, and clearly my most favorite volume and the assigning of a 5-Star rating is totally superfluous. I am speaking with thorough enthusiasm because, as a Chinese knocking on the 5th quarter of a century I must admit that I was actually learning things about parts of China and some Chinese people from this very observing American journalist at times. As in his earlier two volumes he often pounding on a situation with annoying resentment of what he sees or confronting with to the point a Chinese may read about the story feeling unfairly criticized, but Peter Hessler rarely failed to offer a more objective explanation or a comparison with a similar situation in America which is sometime worse than what he sees in China.
What is very relevant here is the common denominators are often quite the same and they are only differ in time when the same situation had happened 80 years ago in America and China is now duplicating the same "mistakes" today. The key point here is the natural or unavoidable phenomenon must occur as in the economical development. There is a strong similarity here in economical-social development as in biological development of various animals or plants in their growing process.
Decades before Peter Hessler was born we had experienced numerous highways of very poor quality, even in California, but beginning in the late 50s we saw improvement when Interstate Freeways were constructed throughout America and even that the old U.S. highways, such as Highway 99 in California we had to stop on traffic lights including once I drove through a red-light on Highway 99 near Fresno during the 1961 winter split-pea soup fog. It is now reconstructed to the Interstate Freeway quality without traffic lights. Peter was often complaining about the road quality without seeing the time-lag in the development. No doubt, there will be cases like this but what I was disappointed by Peter's oversight is his failure stating the long term effects when so much precious farm lands are converted to economic development zones in Zhejiang Province (as well as many other places in other provinces), not to mention miles of farmlands are converted to highway constructions.
During the early days in prior to the Interstate Freeway construction it was frequent to see highway often follow the topographical shape and slope like the hills or rivers but gradually we see Freeways simply paved over a hill despite of the steepness since cars are more powerful year after year. I remember commenting the unwillingness to compromise with natural topographical terrain in building the Interstate freeways as "typical American big ax unrelenting approach" to a problem.
Now, similar things are seen in China, and at times, in my view, far worse. There is an old Chinese saying that mountains and rivers are easy to change but not human personality indicating the profound difficulty in changing a person's habit or character but not that the Chinese in ancient time ever removed a mountain or a hill and that is why there are plenty the terraces rice fields on the sides of mountains and hills. When Peter visited one of the economic development zones in south east Zhejiang Province (which is to the south of Shanghai a few hundred miles) he was told by the person in charge who had been in the PLA tank division with a 5-year experience driving tanks, that they are simply removing the mountains and hills by brutal force with modern powerful machinery and dynamites blowing away all the hills! I did not believe in what I read but Peter returned to this topic later in the book saying that they are removing even more hills and mountains to provide spaces for economic development zones. They removed some dozens of hills! I couldn't help thinking if the powerful men in the government can now modify their personality and may be even a little bit of their political conviction?
Repeatedly, Peter mentioned the superhighway constructions in Zhejiang Province and the leveling of the terrains of the crop land converting them to economical development zones but failed to elaborate the tremendous size of the land conversion which is a serious loss to agricultural ability to provide basic food stuff to feed the 1.4 billion people and the reality of changing China from a grain exporting nation of some 8 million tons of grains to a net grain importing nation of 16 million tons in a short span of only couple years during the 1990s. .
Prior to Peter's coming to southeaster China he had ventured into inner Mongolia more or less parallel to the Great Walls and this is an area I had never seen with my own eyes. His description is an opener for me both about the terrain and the poor condition of life and the simple and gentle peasant life he encountered but there are always the banquet loving Communist cadets in the midst of nice common folks. I wish Peter had taken more effort telling people the eastward moving desert wind taking more and more of the historically low quality farmland year after year. All of this will have very serious negative impact to China's effort to feed the billion plus people of the country.
His moving into peasant territory north of Beijing was a delightful experience I can only admire from far away. How he was able to penetrate into the lives of the common peasant people community is truly interesting experience and the story was told in such a way that you feel you were there personally.
This is a book telling the economical development in China from very close distance at people level but unfortunately it failed to bring forward the tremendous demand what the country must eventually confront in not too distant future and the demand for automobiles and Western style of life and the growing obesity problem will exert enormous pressure on the government, but ultimately, on the people themselves. Peter, however, never failed to alert us that the Chinese males are endlessly smoking cigarettes.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2011Peter Hessler first visited China in 1996 with World Corps as a Volunteer, helping out in some of the poorest parts of the country. Years later, his experience in the area landed him work as a Journalist with the Wall Street Journal (among other publications), which seemed to keep him in China. When it comes to Zhongguotongs (Foreigners adept at all things China), he is one of the best and most famous. Not only does his rich understanding of China come through in this book, but his Mandarin is impeccable.
But first, the set up. A few years ago, Hessler decided to get out of Beijing for a while, so he rented a car (as per the rental company, he wasn't allowed to leave city limits). Hours later he was cruising well beyond the borders of Beijing, looking for parts of the Great Wall. On the way he met locals, Great Wall experts, amateur Historians, picks up hitchhikers, and got shaken down my more than a few Government officials (not because of the car, but because as a journalist, he's considered a troublemaker). All of the adventures are detailed here, and that's just the start. Interwoven in his misadventures are rich historical backgrounds on all things China.
After spending extended periods of time outside of Beijing, he decided to rent a house, something small and neat. As a writer, he was looking for someplace peaceful to get his work done. As his stay in the countryside progressed, he met his neighbours and became more and more involved in their daily lives. Armed with his linguistic mastery and astute Chinese sensitivity, he was permitted, even welcomed, into their lives. This book relates to the reader, some of the most intimate records of Mainland Chinese Country life. And since many of the country's people are moving into the city, it allows anyone living in China for the first time, a better understanding at the elusive `Chinese mind.' That, I believe, is the strongest part about this book.
There are countless books on Chinese history, opinion pieces, books on the Tao, books on how Confucian thought has influenced Chinese society. Mountains of this stuff. This book shows, with incredible detail, the level to which the Chinese family supersedes all, and the oft-cited Guanxi (Chinese for `Relationships') can lead one to greatness, or corruption.
Now previously I had theorized that Guanxi was how the Chinese `made up' for not having a strong legal system. I suppose I was half right. There are contracts all over China which are completely worthless. Ultimately Guanxi represents your personal recourse. Backing up those contracts is no one, certainly no court, but rather, the other people in the community who will support you. In a sense, you have to go out and get your jury.
Moreover, guanxi isn't just a form of currency, but a useful re-useable one. Chinese often buy big cartons of cigarettes and pass them to friends and business partners as gifts; you can imagine the cartons of cigarettes getting passed around the city, as one upstart has dinner with a client, who then passes it onto an official, who then passes it on to a good friend, who then tries to start up his own business, and uses it to get favours there. Sometimes, they don't even smoke these gifts, they just pass them around. Sometimes the `gift' is no gift at all, but a favor, or the patronage of someone's business. As you see, these are favors that everyone benefits from, in many ways.
At this point you must be thinking, it sounds like a madhouse, to be so desensitized to corruption. But don't forget, corruption aside, China can be a very strict and locked down place to live. The Guanxi, or palmgrease, is the wiggle room. It may be that the locals don't feel it the way outsiders do, because locals know how to bend the rules. So Guanxi is not only the legal system, and the system of currency, but the valve that makes life liveable. With connections.
Some of those with connections will rise; in fact, those same officials often started as little fish, growing their network to become big fish. To grow their connections even further, they join The Party, and before they know it, they're on the other team. That's one way to go from nothing, to being super famous in China-to leave your mark. And to some, that's the most important thing of all.
More Reviews like this on 21tiger
Top reviews from other countries
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ireneReviewed in Italy on July 8, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars divertente, intelligente e istruttivo
è un modo divertente per conoscere un paese di cui sappiamo troppo poco. è scritto in un inglese semplice e piacevole.
- A_HarfordReviewed in Canada on September 12, 2015
5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful and insightful read about the transformation of rural China
A delightful and captivating read. One the first third of the book is a road trip narrative. The second and third parts of the book follow several protagonists as the Chinese countryside is transformed into an industrial center. The books is fun to read, and provides insight into Chinese culture, local institutions and the influence of the Chinese communist party in rural China. Definitely recommended!
- HoldenmenschReviewed in Germany on January 19, 2016
5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining and informative!
I read the book at the end of a one month trip from Beijing to Yunnan province. I rediscovered aspects described in the book that I also experienced during my travels + I learned new stuff or could finally explain to me some Chinese behaviour ;)
Very recommendable!
- E WoodReviewed in the United Kingdom on September 30, 2012
5.0 out of 5 stars Country Driving - A Chinese Road Trip
As interesting and perceptive ingsight - well written and with sensitivity - but, as with all reviews of such nature, one has to draw on a variety of different writings to build a picture of the complex situations that face any country and, whilst the writing can be humorous at times, one needs to be careful not draw on all these perspectives in creating any opinion. Well worth reading. You will not be disappoitned and it is a captivating book - offering a variety of insights into the complexity of any developing situation - the dangers and the benefits. This book will certainly add to your understanding and should be appoached as the input of someone who has a creative understanding of China and repsect for its people.
- LongpanReviewed in France on February 5, 2012
5.0 out of 5 stars Masterpiece of journalism
Forget the first story, "the wall" which is just average. The 2 other ones, "the village" and "the factory" are just masterpiece of journalism. I have never read something like that before. I guess because to achieve this level of journalism, you need a lot of time, commitment, humility and of course excellent writing skills, things very rare to find in one single man (or you may have the skills but not the time). I would recommend this book both for those who want to learn about modern China, and to those who want to write investigation journalism.