My Peace Corps China Reading List

你们好:
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Due to Blogger.com being shut down by the Chinese Firewall weeks before the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre 天安门惨案, a few previously-written posts were never published. Now, months later and no longer living in China, I am posting those entries for preservation.
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My favorite reads over the last 2 years, in no particular order:
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One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez:












This was my first book read exclusively in China, mostly in bed under a dying light bulb after a long day of studying Chinese during Peace Corps PST. Probably the slowest moving first half of any epic I've ever read, then BOOM, a nearly perfect finale! The last few pages shook me to the bone...
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China Road by Rob Gifford












Probably the best book about Modern China. Rob Gifford lived in China with his family for years and mastered the language, thus empowering him to go on his own odyssey across the country (Shanghai to Xinjiang) in taxis and buses, interviewing locals and investigating many of China's dirty little secrets. After several volunteers (and our country director) read this, it become the first selection for a Peace Corps Reading Group. A must-read for past, present, and future PCCVs.
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Walden by Henry David Thoreau












I bought this book from a street vendor on the Southwest University campus. It was clearly a pirated copy as the cover was solely in Chinese besides "Walden" and the paper quality was thin, rice paper with offset type. I read most of Thoreau's masterpiece after reading Jon Krakauer's Into The Wild, another inspiring book about taking the road less traveled. A printed version of Walden's chapter, Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, hung on a clothesline in my living room. It continues to be an literary refuge for me.
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The Unheard by Josh Swiller












A copy of Swiller's The Unheard and the the next book, Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, were lent to me from Nikki, a fellow English major nerd/Chongqing PCV, when I just about had enough of spending my evenings before bed with a Chinese grammar book. Swiller is deaf and served in Zambia as a PCV in the late 90's. As I continue to read and review my journals from China, amazed with the chaotic things I experienced and the eccentric people I met, the time Swiller spent in Africa makes my service look like a weekend in Disneyland. Most importantly, Swiller was real and honest, and never held back when he was frustrated with Peace Corps' shortcomings in Africa; this book helped me provide Peace Corps China with the same constructive criticism.
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Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut












Speaking of relaxing getaways, I read Cat's Cradle while vacationing in Sanya, Hainan Province, escaping the chilly Chongqing winter during a Spring Festival holiday. I fell in love with Vonnegut's micro-chapter format, and the social and political setting described in this 1963 book never applied more to our 21st century world.
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Oracle Bones by Peter Hessler












Peter Hessler: Peace Corps China Hall of Famer. Oracle Bones is funny, clever, academic, personal, and an overall great ride though the past, present, and future China. Makes that Rivertown book look like Everybody Poops.
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Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom












I taught a half dozen Shakespeare plays at Southwest University to graduate English Literature students, and with its English language library being a derelict collection of outdated literary rubbish with even worse access to true literary criticism, Dr. Bloom's collection of idolizing love letters to Shakespeare's genius fueled my weekly lectures. The chapters on Hamlet, The Tempest, and All's Well That Ends Well are sublime.
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Selected Stories by Lu Xun












I gave an assignment on Shirley Jackson's short story, "The Lottery," and my students lead me to his immortal tale called "The Medicine." Lu Xun is prophetic and often called the George Orwell of China. A must read for any Sinophile searching for greater understanding of the Chinese ethos.
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Red China Blues by Jan Wong












Comparable to Oracle Bones, Wong's Red China Blues opened my eyes to how much China has grown and changed in the last 30 years. She was an advocate of Maoism as a Canadian-Chinese college student was was given permission by the Mao ZeDong-led Communist government to study in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution. RCB follows her ideological evolution from Mao lover to shocked and angry observer of the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989. I read RCB doing my last 2 months in China, and in my exit interview, I expressed regret that I didn't read it before I arrived in China in 2007. I learned so much. The best China memoir if one believes history repeats itself.
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On the Road by Jack Kerouac












Freedom. I couldn't get through this book in America. When I read it in China, it made perfect sense. It is beautiful, and I can honesty say, "I get it."
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You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe












The best book I read in China over my two years. I have reread excerpts many, many times...and will continue to for many years and I sort through the mess China left in my mind. I wrote about the lessons learned from this book in my journals more than any other piece of literature while in China, and concluded that no one should ever leave their motherland for an extended period of time without this book in their suitcase. I have over 75 dogeared pages in my copy.
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And mentionable post-PC service reads:
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What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami












One of the best books I read about running; I thought back to my 4-5 times a week runs in the smoggy land of Chongqing. I ran my fifth marathon about 3 months back from China, a sentimental feat for me since I could never run over 6 miles in China due to the air quality.
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The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck












Like Lu Xun, this is essential Chinese reading. Wang Lung and O-Lan are archetypal Chinese figures, and Pearl S. Buck is arguably the most important foreigner to decipher the Chinese riddle. Her defense of The Good Earth when it was attacked as being an inaccurate portrayal of China is one of the wittiest rebuttals....ever! Verisimilitude drips from its pages.
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Reading is great. What more can I say?
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我需要看书. 你呢?
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Love,
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Phil
January 11, 2010