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Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China | 
| Author: John Pomfret
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
Buy New: $9.78
You Save: $16.22 (62%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  39 reviews
Sales Rank: 577106
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3
Dewey Decimal Number: 951.058
ASIN: B0012QFKI8
Publication Date: August 8, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new book
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Product Description
“A highly personal, honest, funny and well-informed account of China’s hyperactive effort to forget its past and reinvent its future.”—The New York Times Book Review As one the first American students admitted to China after the communist revolution, John Pomfret was exposed to a country still emerging from the twin tragedies of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Crammed into a dorm room with seven Chinese men, Pomfret contended with all manner of cultural differences, from too-short beds and roommates intent on glimpsing a white man naked, to the need for cloak-and-dagger efforts to conceal his relationships with Chinese women. Amidst all that, he immersed himself in the remarkable lives of his classmates.
Beginning with Pomfret’s first day in China, Chinese Lessons takes us down the often torturous paths that brought together the Nanjing University History Class of 1982: Old Wu’s father was killed during the Cultural Revolution for the crime of being an intellectual; Book Idiot Zhou labored in the fields for years rather than agree to a Party-arranged marriage; and Little Guan was forced to publicly denounce and humiliate her father. As Pomfret follows his classmates from childhood to adulthood, he examines the effect of China’s transition from near-feudal communism to first-world capitalism. The result is an illuminating report from present-day China, and a moving portrait of its extraordinary people.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 34 more reviews...
 Very Good Book For Understanding Today's Chinese August 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
 A great ride June 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Very easy to read. Great entertaining writing style with lots of very clever anecdotes. On completing this book I then had to a) read all the other reviews here and b) check the Washington Post for any further author work. The big question here is:
what happens to the five profiled students in this book?
Are they still friendly with the author?
A Must Read Book for China Watchers March 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you enjoyed Jan Wong's Red China Blues, you'll love John Pomfret's Chinese Lessons. In this must-read new book, the author chronicles his history as an insightful China-watcher and "Old China Hand," from his stint as one of the first American students to participation in the newly opened student exchange program--he became part of Nanjing University's history class of 1982--until 2005. The book is a well-written account of his own decades of observations, but they form a backdrop for the real show: the fascinating interwoven tales of how the recent, devastating past has shaped the lives of five of his Nanjing University roommates. While there is much in this book that we've all heard before, Pomfret provides a greater level of detail and more analysis in his compelling book than many other authors have. Beginning with the tragedies of the Cultural Revolution, his classmates' life stories are not just presented but analyzed from historical, political, cultural, economic, and psychological standpoints. Pomfret offers five main, personalized stories of the events between the 1970s and now--plus numerous other interesting side anecdotes--with his own perceptive observations and interpretations of what his friends' various situations reveal about the past and what they might mean for China's future.
Through these five main stories, Pomfret attempts to understand the effects of the horrendous past on the present, and, more importantly, the future. As a result, this book asks the reader to consider some excellent questions. For example, how can people who have suffered so terribly put aside the past to live well in the present, and what does that present reality mean to them? What is the future of "communist capitalism"? How will the many contradictions that make up modern China be resolved? Can spirituality play a role in contemporary life? If so, what should that role be and how will it shape the country? What will happen when one-third of China's population is made up of senior citizens? How will China balance "progress" against her critical environmental problems? How will China bridge the ever-widening gap between the nouveau riche and the still desperately poor? Without a return to a moral value system, will China become not a superpower but a victim of its own corruption?
Few other books can match Pomfret's presentation of these issues and many others. While the story makes a great introduction for new expats or China travelers, Pomfret still might clear up a few "China mysteries" for Old China Hands. Chinese Lessons is entertaining, thought-provoking, well-written, and hard to put down. An excellent contribution to the field of "China-experience" literature, add this one to your "must read" stack of books on Chinese life and culture.
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Pomfret earned an M.A. at Stanford University in East Asian Studies and won a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Singapore. He was a long-time reporter for the Washington Post, and served as Beijing Bureau Chief. He is currently the Los Angeles Bureau Chief. In 2003, he was awarded the Osborn Elliott Prize for Journalism (an annual award for the best coverage of Asia).
A Series of Stories An American in China During 20 Years February 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
THe author went to a Chinese university in the early 80's, met lifelong friends, had many ah-ha experiences with the culture, and saw many changes from his first arrival to including the Tiananmen Square "incident" as the Chinese refer to it. The author was a news correspondent for several years before being deported from China for his involvement with Chinese involved in this incident. He then went back years later to again cover China as a correspondent.
The best part of the book is his descriptions of keeping up with his Chinese university friends and how their lives wound through the complexity of the Chinese culture when their values had been so changed by university time experiences and the government controls at odds with their natural desires for freedom of action and thought.
Very insightful and timely. The author is a very good writer with much talent.
The Observer's Tale February 22, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
One doesn't usually consider "escaping" to China. John Pomfret did. It was a means of putting maximum distance between himself and his father. He thereby became one of the first US-born students to enter China and take up university studies. Geographical distance or no, Pomfret's genes hold some coding for journalism and he dutifully and expertly recorded his encounters with schoolmates. Lodged with seven Chinese men of various backgrounds, he engaged five of them in conversations about their lives. What resulted was this compelling account of life in China under Mao and later.
Fundamental to their relating their lives was the tumult created by the "Cultural Revolution" - an event that undercut any progress China might have enjoyed after the overthrow of the Nationalist regime. In the West, the enormity of the upheaval on the population of China by that ideological imposition is difficult to envision. Friends and family alike were led to denounce others. Sons betrayed fathers, mothers were led to believe their efforts at upbringing their children were falsely based and colleagues viewed each other as wrongly inspired, if not downright treasonous. Intimidation was strongly inflicted, even murder was condoned as part of the "purification" process. So caught up was the entire society by the fervour of The Great Leap Forward, that today, as Pomfret demonstrates, it seems to require an outside observer to adequately depict it. Even Chinese who managed to leave the country, granting them a fresh perspective, aren't fully detached from the events. The author notes the strong pull of China, which remains "home" to these expatriates who return if opportunity permits.
To his great credit, Pomfret doesn't take a lofty view in dealing with his contacts. An astute journalist, he teases the stories of people like Big Bluffer Ye, Little Guan and others onto his pages. He's there almost entirely as an observer, introducing himself into the narrative only enough to entice the stories from his classmates. The stories are at once bleak and inspiring. One classmate learned of his parents' murder through a chance conversation. Another entered the ranks of the Red Guard, even terrorising his home village before returning to the city to become a successful businessman - collecting urine for pharmaceutical firms. A young woman, caught in the web of repression, still strives to provide a life for her child. It's a testimony to human endurance and the will to survive and succeed.
Pomfret's advantage over many China observers is his living experience there as a student, and his return allowing him to recapitulate the intervening years. This dual approach provides more, and better insights, into the present culture than those who manage only one journalistic snapshot. Given that the Cultural Revolution was a social disaster of high order, why has the ruling Party not been overturned? Pomfrets intimacy with his contacts provide many answers, some of them grim, on how that retention of power has been accomplished. Big Bluffer Ye proves worthy of his name as he personally transforms a section of his city from dilapidated slum to an illuminated mall, giving not a thought to those displaced by his endeavours. He strives for success and knows how to attain it.
The author's personal story is woven through his narrative with finesse - appearing more evidently in the second part of the book. He can express his own feelings without intruding on those of subjects. They are almost amazingly open to him, rendering the myth of "inscrutable Chinese" untenable. He records them without inflicting us with any more judgement than a sense of awe at how alien they sometimes seem, even after his long-term association. Even so, it's clear Pomfret's underlying resentment at being expelled from China after reporting on the Tiananmen Square debacle remains strong. He remains a North American, not a Chinese. An engaging, if disturbing, story this book is one that anybody wishing to understand the rise of China on the world stage must read. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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