"A book that is like the river itself, both lovely and rebellious, and strong beneath the stillness of its surface." - New York Times Book Review

If you are looking for a good read and are the slightest bit interested in what it is like to teach English in China I would recommend the book, "River Town" by Peter Hessler. I would venture to guess that almost every Peace Corps volunteer and new English teacher in China reads this book because it is a well-written and honest description of what most Americans working in China experience on a day-to-day basis.

I am in the middle of the book right now and it has been fun to read another person's thoughts regarding similar emotions that I have felt and cultural differences that have caught my attention as well. Peter Hessler is 27 when he enters the Peace Corps and lives in China from 1996 until 1998. He is placed at a university in a city on the Yangtze River called Fuling. The book details some of his teaching experiences, culture shocks, the challenges of learning Chinese and what he learns about the Chinese people tied in with past history as well as current events and politics. He is especially good at sharing the complexity,
frustration and respect that is understanding China.

It has been interesting to read not only to join in on some of the same struggles and validate other concerns and questions that I have but also to note how China has changed in just 11 years. It is also interesting to see the differences in living in a more rural area (like Peter) compared to an urban area, like Changzhou where I live. Here is a note about the book that the author, himself, wrote:

"This isn't a book about China. It's about a certain small part of China at a certain brief period in time, and my hope has been to capture the richness of both the moment and the place. The place I know well - the murky Yangtze, the green well-worked mountains - but the moment is more difficult to define. Fuling was situated midriver both geographically and historically, and sometimes it was hard to see where things came from and where they were going. But the town and its people were always full of life and energy and hope, which in the end is my subject. Rather than an inquiry into a source or a destination, this is an account of what it was like to spend two years in the heart of the great river's current." - Peter Hessler, "River Town"

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