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Summary: John Pomfret's singular history with China shaped this excellent book
Comment: John Pomfret didn't just write this superb book: he lived it. The author's singular history beginning with his cultural and linguistic immersion in China in the early eighties has resulted in a compelling, informative, can't-miss read. I think the Wall Street Journal's review of the book summed up my feelings perfectly: "At a time when so many books about China are written from a distance -- their authors having spent only a short time in the country, if any time at all -- thank goodness for 'Chinese Lessons.'"
Pomfret deftly interweaves his personal history with that of his classmates - the wonderfully named Daybreak Song, Book Idiot Zhou, Big Bluffer Ye and Little Guan. These four - along with the author - are the 'Five Classmates' of the book's subtitle. A set of excellent photos - most taken by Pomfret himself - add richness and depth to the tale. A picture of then-AP reporter Pomfret behind 1989 student uprising leaders Wang Dan and Wu'er Kaixi stands as a testament to Pomfret's place near the epicenter of that story. His proximity to the protagonists would seem almost Zelig-like were it not the real thing.
The book's narrative thread connects the dots between three time periods: the classmates time together in university; the the student uprising culminating in the events of Tiananmen Square in 1989; and a 20th reunion of the classmates in Nanjing in 2002. In revealing the personal histories of his classmates, Pomfret lets us see the impact that the Cultural Revolution had on each of their families. It put China into upheaval for years. The reverberations still linger.
As a revolution of an entirely different nature, Pomfret discusses the country's headlong rush into its unique brand of capitalism over the last 15 years. His take on that transformation is summed up nicely by a paragraph about Daybreak Song, who has lived out the post-Tiananmen years in exile in Italy:
"Living in Italy all these years had preserved Song's idealism, the infectious, blind hope that made China so vibrant in the 1980s. Absent during the Tiananmen crackdown and China's transformation in the 1990s into a society of cash and kicks, Song maintained his innocence about the corruption, the swindles, and the general disintegration of whatever remained of traditional values."
That gives you a good take of Pomfret's assessment of the past 15 years. Despite that opinion, this is a man who cares deeply for China and its people. This outstanding book serves as a testament to the depth of those feelings and the experiences that shaped them.
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Summary: What happened AFTER the Cultural Revolution?
Comment: Chinese Lessons scratched a persistent itch for me: How in the world did the participants and victims of the Cultural Revolution move beyond it?
Several books by victims have graphically illustrated what it was like to be a victim of this horrifying period in Chinese history. (Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng and Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong, two very different but equally powerful memoirs, are my favorites to date.) But this is the first I've read that includes the other side and explores the aftermath.
What was it like to be a perpetrator, a Red Guard, and what kinds of lives did they (and the survivors) build when the government once again shifted and Cultural Revolution rather suddenly ground to a halt? How did they get from "there" to the often cut-throat capitalism-with-Chinese-characteristics of today's China?
The individual stories of John Pomfret's classmates (and his own) bring the ensuing three decades to life in a readable and thought-full way, while taken as a whole, the book's overarching viewpoint that the Communist party is still committed to doing anything necessary to remain in power(mainly, suppression of people, ideas, and its own failures) gives credence to his conclusion that the Chinese system today is on shaky ground (all those peasants who haven't gotten a piece of the pie yet!) and the biggest story of the 21st century could be China's failure rather than its success.
Personally, I hope that doesn't happen, as I've been there and share Pomfret's fascination with the sheer dogged determination of the people to not just survive, but thrive. Still, I can't deny his thesis.
Last words: Very readable, couldn't put it down once I started reading, learned a lot, highly recommended.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Chinese Lessons
Comment: This book was suggested reading for a trip I am taking to China in November. I am very glad I bought the book and read it. There was a lot of history and real people's experiences. I had so little idea of what it was like to live through the Cultural Revolution and in the snitch society created by Mao. I would recommend this book to anyone.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Chinese Lessons
Comment: I needed this book for a college class. I was able to buy it on line for a savings of about 40% even after shipping charges. The book arrived in good shape and in plenty of time for my class.
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Summary: Very Good Book For Understanding Today's Chinese
Comment: Though it is going to sound like a newspaper movie ad, I cannot resist quoting the tag lines from others who have already reviewed this book:
1. "Masterful account of modern China"
2. "Superb"
3. "A book you can't put down"
4. "An exceptional book, exceptionally written"
5. "Extraordinary"
6. "I laughed, I cried" Okay, so I made up the last one.
The book beautifully (and usually depressingly) describes how China's past so heavily influences its present. I felt I knew everyone in the book because they were composites of the real life Chinese with whom I deal in my work as a lawyer dealing with China. It was a joy to read and it increased my understanding of China. To understand today's China, one must know at least the basics of China's modern history and, perhaps even more importantly, how that history has affected today's Chinese. This book definitely aids in that understanding.
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