Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China
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- ISBN13: 9780060826598
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
A century ago, outsiders saw China as a place where nothing ever changes. Today the country has become one of the most dynamic regions on planet. In Prediction Bones, Peter Hessler explores the human side of China’s transformation, viewing modern-day China and its growing links to the Western world through the lives of a handful of ordinary people. In a narrative that kindly moves between the very ancient and the present, the East and the West, Hessler captures the soul of a country that is undergoing a momentous change before our eyes.
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I am a huge fan of modern day China and literature that delves into the people, places, and turmoil of current circumstances in the country. I reflect Hessler may be trying to give us a taste of the everyday people in China today, but he fails to engage the reader and keep our interest with this book. It is too choppy – with random incidents, rather than tales about real people – that were hard to connect and regularly bored me, as a replacement for of drawing me into their lives. I couldn’t connect with the characters and tell to them because there wasn’t time in the fleeting blurbs Hessler recorded, and reported in such a random style. I prefer more depth, as in his previous, River Town, or additional books on current Chinese experiences, like Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui, that get the the heart of one or two people’s lives in modern day China, than just a smattering here and there. The book is not place together clearly and is confusing. I am a fanatic of Asian Modern Lit, but I didn’t even end this one!!
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
Please don’t listen to reviewers who reflect that everything in print about Chinese society and culture has to be pleasant and nice. This is a top-notch book by a well-educated American man who feels at home living in China. He likes the country, but he does not kiss its ass.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
Peter Hessler is an brilliant writer but for some reason this book didn’t engage me the way River Town did. The one thing I will remember very distinctly from this book is that he writes of how pleased the people of China were by the 9/11 attacks. This I will not forget.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
Prediction Bones delivers with lives of everyday Chinese from 1998 to 2004, a small about the black market, religions, minorities, what’s acceptable and what’s not. Additional chapters reach back in history and archeology and give greater insight to how China evolved over the centuries. Peter Hessler, the leader and researcher, writes in an engaging simple form,
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
Peter Hessler originally came to China as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1996, and taught English. Since then he has remained, serving as a free-lance correspondent and writing three books, of which “Prediction Bones” is one. During this time Peter learned to speak and read Chinese, married a Chinese woman, and veteran life visiting and befriending locals. Much of the book is taken up with descriptions of ‘prediction bones’ (turtle undersides, oxen shoulder blades) dating from about 2,000 B.C. and largely establish near Anyang. They were heated to high temperatures – the resulting crack patterns supposedly foretold the outcome of vital ventures. The Chinese also wrote fleeting scripts on the bones with a bronze pin. Why Hessler devoted so much of the book to this topic is a mystery to me.
Hessler’s narrative starts just after the May, 1999 accidental NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing there Chinese. Intense protests rose across China, lasting about two weeks, and at least slyly encouraged by the government. When not writing about prediction bones, Hessler is usually writing about the lives of a number of his ex- English students. In the process it becomes clear that fraud is wide in China – animal food, education, job salaries, fake goods and documents, etc. Similarly, we also are reminded of America’s distasteful crime and violence, using guns.
Hessler took a trip to Dandong, on China’s border with North Korea to get a sense of what North Korea was like. From across the river it was clear that there were no lights in North Korea at night, armed soldiers patrolled the river’s edge, and the areas factories seemed abandoned.
‘Special Economic Zones’ (SEZ) were customary by Deng because China’s leaders didn’t want to test radical change (eg. selling state-owned enterprises, giving tax breaks) in huge cities like Beijing and Shanghai, where mistakes would be politically disastrous. Deng saw attracting Hong Kong and Taiwan investment into these zones as also being a way to bring them closer to the mainland; Chinese opponents saw the SEZ as a means to exploit Chinese labor.
Intellectuals had been purged and re-educated during Mao’s time because they were seen as having a trend to follow Capitalism. The Chinese suicide rate for women is about 5X the world average, with a large proportion coming from rural areas and having some education. Hessler muses that perhaps the glimpse of a better life depressed them -
The education curriculum in China is standardized and regulated, with standard exams at the end of middle and high school. Teachers try to get test questions in advance, and teach to the test.
Closing, Tessler notes that people in the U.S. and China are both nationalistic.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5