If you want to read a book about a rapidly changing China, this is it!

If you want to read a book about a rapidly changing China, this is it!

This is an entertaining and informative view of China, past and present, offered by Peter Hessler, a Westerner who taught English there during the latter part of the 20th century, then returned several years later to work as a journalist. In the process, Hessler made friends with a wide range of Chinese, from his students to the owner of a restaurant in a low-rent Beijing neighborhood, to an itinerant truck driver.

His varied roles gave Hessler opportunities to discover the old and the new China, and to capture for his readers the disjointed experiences of many Chinese as their nation made the transition from a failed command-and-control economy to a quasi free market system.

The book is rich with anecdotes that illustrate the absurdity of the old Communist system, as well as what I think of as the "extreme capitalism" of the new era. The Chinese people Hessler describes are nothing if not enterprising, and they are incredibly clever in devising ways to subvert and circumvent government rules that make little sense. Especially interesting are the stories from Hessler's students, whose lives changed dramatically in the six years between his visits.

Oracle Bones is an excellent read and I recommend it along with a similar, newer, book called China Road, written by Rob Gifford.

Totally different from his wonderful River Town book, but just as interesting. Peter Hessler, not quite seamlessly, pulls together a bunch of subjects. We hear more about what happened to his students; we learn about his wheeling and dealing Uigher friend who eventually gets to America and remains an optimist despite his trials and tribulations. We learn about the oracle bones and their history. And then, there's the mystery of the scholar Chen Mengjia's death. Most interestingly, we learn more about Mr. Hessler's headline cutting/freelance life in China--after the teaching years. I hope there are more books coming from Peter Hessler.

We do not get very much in Chinese history as we grow up, and I think everyone needs to be more informed about the people of China, its history, and what is going on now. This book is well written, entertaining, and informative. Though not the only source to use, it provides a good beginning to get some insight into the Chinese point of view and become more current with Chinese thinking. I would also recommend watching China: A Century of Revolution. That is an excellent documentary.

This is an excellent book that should be read by anyone curious about present-day China and the economic juggernaut that they have become. The author looks at their situation not from the macro side (the big picture - China's economy is thus and thus, growing from this to that in X amount of time, etc.) but rather he looks at it from the micro side: through the stories of everyday folks who are working in this new economy, many of whom he knows very well. Some lived through the Cultural Revolution and have a lot of baggage left over from that experience, while others were born after all of that and have grown up in the post-Mao era when China finally woke up and embraced capitalism (in its own way). It is one of the best examples of narrative non-fiction that I have read, and was hard to put down.

I really loved Peter Hessler's Rivertown and found Oracle Bones just as enjoyable. The author's style of writing is original and surprising, at unexpected points of his books. I studied in Taiwan in the mid-70's and found Peter Hessler's descriptions of the Chinese to be very similar to my own experiences. I get the feeling that there are others who are finding his writing just as enjoyable - a few days ago I was in the Denver airport and saw a copy of The New Yorker with his article about the Olympics listed at the top. He is a wonderful writer and anyone picking up this book will finish it knowing quite a bit more than he did before starting it.

I've read it before going to sleep and more than a few times it made stay up later than I wanted. The book is well written, without artful gimmicks (it doesn't try hard to be literary), but also without the cliches and boring turns of phrases one sees in modern 'reporting'.
The book weaves the past and the present. The past appears in the form of the oracle bones that belonged to the Shang dynasty. Hessler talks to old scholars, people who dedicated their lives to the study of ancient Chinese history; he finds out how their lives were affected by the Communists and ruminates on the importance of writing for Chinese culture.
The 'present' part of the book looks at ordinary people and the way they lead their lives in this fast-changing society. Hessler is clearly aware that this is not a free society, but he doesn't hit you over the head with it: instead, what he cares about is these people - their stories, aspirations, dreams. Some of them are former students and friends, and he doesn't shy away from getting involved in their lives.
All in all a pleasure to read.

I brought this book with me when I moved to Shanghai, China and eventually got around to reading after 2 months of living here. I have previously studied many of the topics he had touch base upon in his book, from the history of oracle bones, to the current politics (such as Xinjiang's struggle for independence). I even took a class once (ancient history of china) where a professor had criticized the book for being misinformed on its information regarding the oracle bones. All this considered, I kept an open mind when reading Mr. Hessler's novel and ended up enjoying it greatly.

I enjoyed the fact that Mr. Hessler took a different route when writing this book. He focused a lot on the individual stories of Chinese citizens, while sliding in factual events, history, and culture. This made the book as enjoyable as a fiction novel. Most of the facts in the book were previously known to me, so in some ways, I was a bit disappointed (looking forward to enhance my knowledge on the region). But like I said, it was the individual people he met on his journeys through China that made the book a page-turner. I would suggest this book for anyone who has any interest in China, or just a good story about a different culture. If you are in the Asian/Chinese studies field you may find this book a little below your level. Although you may, like me, end up enjoying it for what it is, entertaining!

I enjoyed the book very much because author use his point of view to describe his journey through his students, friends and travel through out the China abut the feeling toward past, today and the future of China.

Never does Hessler mention the raising importance of China on the world stage. By avoiding the subject he toys with a tension that is best only alluded to: we as westerners are aware of China on the horizon; his job as a journalist is simply to offer well vetted evidence. All of this sets a stage for an understated humor.
The idiosyncrasies of particular regions in China (as in any country), are illustrated by slang. For example, one Sichuanese student named Willy, who sought his fortune in Wenzhou, writes to Hessler of his "backward and yashua [toothbrush] hometown--Sichuan". Throughout the story is the word "jiade". Meaning pirated, jiade becomes a catch-phrase and an inside joke that we're in on.
A method employed throughout the book is that of a parallel narrative: Artifacts A through Z. These are loosely interconnected chapters that pepper the book's 458 pages. They function as historical vignettes; Hessler here has an opportunity to contrast his travel documentary within the context of ancient Chinese history. In Artifact A, we are introduced to the Oracle Bones of the book's title. Oracle Bones are the oldest surviving Chinese writing. Named in Chinese "jiaguwen", they were ideas carved onto tortoise shells and cow scapulas. Cryptic passages such as "The king goes to the hunting field; the whole day he will not encounter great wind" or "We ritually report the king's sick eyes to Grandfather Ding" were, depending how they broke apart, read as an oracle. "The irony of Chinese archeology" Hessler points out, "is that the earliest known writings attempt to tell the future. . . . From the Shang, the voice of the turtle speaks." Throughout the different Artifact chapters the author demonstrates his diverse and growing knowledge of archeological sites, past dynasties, and oracle bone era written characters compared to their classical and contemporary counterparts.
The plot shifts toward a more investigative thriller. Mr. Hessler follows a thread of a story for The New Yorker: did historian Chen Mengjia commit suicide and, if so, why? Mengjia had travelled to the Unites States in the 1930s. There he documented ancient Chinese bronze artworks that had wound up in private hands. The Artifact chapters also begin to follow this theme. Part of the intrigue in this subplot lies in the how so many of the older generation in China were persecuted and threatened under Mao. Mengjia's book was published later by the communists. Only they had a different idea for the title: Our Country's Shang and Zhou Bronzes Looted by American Imperialists. As the author unravels what happened, he must, upon interviewing elder intellectuals, word his questions carefully so as not to offend. This story dovetails nicely into Chairman Mao's misguided-- and later aborted-- attempt to simplify the written Chinese character. We find ourselves uncovering a linguistic mystery.
In a story like this, being a journalist is a perfect job to keep things interesting. Whether we're in a border town across the river from North Korea for a National Geographic piece, or in a threatened hutong neighborhood in Beijing (where he finds an apartment-- and the next story) he moves the tale along. We witness the sad fate of Falun Gong members as China "cleans up" for a State Visit in Beijing. Later, the attacks of September 11th allow us a peek into the expatriate world as a news starved Hessler buys jiade videos to see more of what happened in New York. All along we are aware of the tremendous rate of growth in the country. The locals say, "we live in chai nar" (meaning "demolish where?").
Reading Oracle Bones is a learning experience. The placement of the Artifact chapters is an enjoyable way to break up the story, and there are many facts woven into the book by way of this lexicon. Having myself lived outside the States for several years, I could identify with some of the difficulties Peter runs into. As the Olympic games approach, and with China in the news, I have been checking the bylines of my New Yorker magazines for Mr. Hessler's name, to learn what he has been up to. I enjoyed the book and recommend it.

Hessler uses his own experiences, combined with detailed experiences gathered from native friends throughout the important regions of China to describe their lifestyle and situations in regards to growing up and making their own lives in "The New China." As Hessler describes the current status of economic regions and interpersonal relationships, he also weaves in ancient and recent history creating a resource for understanding why the Chinese react and function as they do.

A compelling read. I speak Chinese, my wife doesn't, and we have both found Hessler's books intriguing and understandable. "River Town" is also excellent. Hessler allows you to remember how it feels to be in that situation--even if you never have been.

It's refreshing to find a book on China by a journalist with some knowledge of and, even better, an interest in really learning about sinological matters. Since the end of the Cultural Revolution, Western journalists have written their books on China: at first largely from the perspective of being the rare Westerner in a newly opened up China, and then over time with increasing emphasis on his or her observations of China's political and economic situation--invariably in the context of the reporter's personal experiences in China.

ORACLE BONES, too, is personal, not that we get to know Peter Hessler very well (though a "Postscript" titled "Meet Peter Hessler" presents a short autobiographical sketch), but in the sense that we experience China through his "I"s. Unlike many earlier books by journalists, though, there isn't much focus on leadership politics here; instead the warp of the fabric of this book is perspectives on Chinese (and Uighur) culture and history.

If that is the warp, the weft principally follows the story of Chen Mengjia, a renowned scholar of "oracle bones" (scapulae and tortoise shells inscribed with writing and used in divination practices a few thousand years ago). Chen Mengjia was branded a rightist in the late 1950s, and he subsequently committed suicide at the onset of the Cultural Revolution. In the course of Hessler's journeys--not all related to Chen's story--the writer learns pieces of Chen's story (only a little of which is consistent) and a whole lot more about 20th century Chinese and Western sinological history. It's refreshing to find Hessler's views so well informed; you'll find nothing here, for instance, about the so-called Chinese "ideograph" that sullies so many books that refer to the Chinese writing system.

Hessler, now a Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker magazine, was once a Peace Corps volunteer English teacher in China, an experience that he describes in his earlier book, RIVER TOWN. He devotes a good part of this book weaving in descriptions of his encounters with his former students and of their post-education lives. Hessler also discusses the life of a Uighur that he befriends in China, and who subsequently travels to the U.S. and successfully seeks asylum. In these stories, Hessler doesn't flinch from the terrible realities of Communist China, and they are often brutal; at the same time, though, the U.S. (specifically, Washington, D.C.) doesn't get off easily in the depiction of the everyday difficulties that confront Hessler's Uighur friend, including racism and robbery.

Hessler's style gives the appearance of effortlessness when you just know how much work must have gone into the book. His keen observations often express subtle truths, such as when he comments, "There is always something sad about furniture in a museum" (p. 384) and his empathy conveys genuineness, e.g., when he confronts a scholar with a personal criticism of Chen Mengjia that the now old man felt forced to write when he was a youth (p. 390). You want to continue hanging out with Hessler and see what more he learns. It's a disappointment then when, even at some 450-plus pages, the book quietly ends.

Throughout the 90s I traveled to China a lot, as part of several research projects through my university. Though I have been hampered by not speaking the language (I started Chinese lessons three different times), I had wonderful hosts who introduced me to a wide range of things going on. I spent 6 weeks in 1993 teaching at Peking University, and was there when the disappointing news about the Olympics were announced. I was there in 1999 when we bombed the Chinese embassy.

Reading Hessler's book took me back to all these times, but gave me also so much more. He has done a fabulous job of exploring many different scenes and characters in the China of the 90s. I did not get the chance to spend time in the countryside, so I really enjoyed those parts of the book. Also, his ongoing stories of former students or of the Uighur Polat give great insight into the flow of events in this period. Going back to the 50s and 60s, with the stories of people's experiences in the cataclysmic events of the Mao era of China's recent history remind me of the similar stories I heard from my friends who had also lived through these periods.

I love the continuous story of the Oracle Bones themselves, and all the people, past and present, who were tied up in the stories of their discovery, interpretation, and preservation. And the late section of the book on the written language, and the attempts at change, was particularly interesting.

I am now motivated to go read Hessler's earlier book, River Town. He is clearly an author with a sensitive eye to what's been going on. I hope he as more books in mind.

Honestly, good for people with experience in China or not, but I think it resonated with me in particular because I have experienced much of what he describes. It also provides interesting background and history on the language and politics. His mastery is the ability to observe and conceptualize his environment without passing judgment. This is one of the major difference between Oracle Bones and China Road by Rob Gifford (China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power). Oracle Bones is also much deeper.

This is a remarkable book which takes one on a journey into history and brings a sense of connection to present events....like becoming aware of something resonating deep within and gaining a flash of recognition as it surfaces to conscious recognition.
I thoroughly loved reading this and the sense of change happening in China is very clear and well described. And as a side effect, I learned much regarding the Oracle Bones. Hopefully we will be having further books by the Author. If you enjoy this book and have China in your soul, also read his: "River Town."

I would have rated the book 6 stars if I were allowed to.

I have not finished the book yet. Soon I will come back to provider a complete reveiw.

I would have rated the book 6 stars if there were one.

The talent of the author is obvious to anyone who read the first 10 pages. Each chapter is independent so you can read one at a time, but yet they are related so I always wanted to find out what happened next.

The author also just wrote what he observed as a journalist (he admits he is an unconventional one), neither as a moral judge nor as a missionary who tried to install Christian values.

The characters in the book are very interesting, which include his former students (some of whom became emigrant workers), a dissident (one of the most fascinating characters) who was obsessed with North Koreans, a cab driver who invited the author home for dinners, a famous actor whose movie was banned, a talk show hostess with a very humble beginning, a former high-level official who asked the most smart question ("why don't we realize our product is not as good as the competitors").


The author also documented the reaction of the mass to key events, e.g. the bombing of the Chinese embassy, the china-US plane collision, 9-11 terrorist attack, which are also fascinating.

You've read my review of his first book. (Or not...) Six years later, here's another, and he remains one of my role models as an author and as a person. He's back in China, as a freelance journalist rather than a teacher this time, and that's every bit as illegal as it sounds. The man was born to write, and would be doing so no matter where he lived or what he did there. Yet again, he's met some extremely interesting people and told their stories well. He was able to travel among cities and villages, rich and poor, Han and minority. The book spans three years, plus two additional years of research, and you'll see just as much technological and infrastructure progress in the book as I did in my time in China. Two more years for publication, and that's just fine. I'm a recent NaNoWriMo winner -- my first time trying -- but I know that truly great literature takes a bit longer. Like me, Hessler is drawn to Uyghurs, outsiders, small towns, and Muslim food in China. But again, that doesn't matter. You'll care about anything he writes, because that's part of his gift. Humor, insight, intelligence, honesty, and that rare ability to touch both your heart and your mind. Some fascinating tales from China's past, many of which were new to me, give it a timeless quality as well. I don't want him to write faster, because that can't be done. I want more authors to aspire to this level of quality, because I read them much faster than Hessler writes them. Five stars out of five, another keeper, and all the other superlatives I roll out on rare and special occasions. I'm glad I didn't wait for the paperback. I'm not so glad it sat on my bookshelf unread for so long, because this could've been my second or third reading instead of my first.

The book gives readers glimpses of what it's like to live in China, what China is and was. The book tells the stories from Chinese born in this era with much more economic freedom and Chinese who had been through difficult political and economic times of past era. Each of these two themes has multiple stories. The book does a great job intertwining these stories and I never felt lost reading through the book.

The stories of young Chinese were the average Chinese he kept in touch with - he had known them through his teaching in Fuling. These are the average Chinese people. Each story served a purpose. Each story (character) was chosen to illustrate a perspective and demonstrate the changes that are going on in China.

Besides the personal story of the author's subjects, he also included a number of other stories and people he was tracking - these are the people from the previous era, such as people who had been through touch times such as the Cultural Revolution. He told us how he did the research, how one lead ends and another begins. He walked us through the process of his research. As a result, you feel like you know exactly what he did to gather all the facts and what insights he gained from each interview. He tracked the story of a few oracle bone scholars.

He also described his experience in China when several important events occurred in the world relevant to China and America during his stay. He talked about Chinese people's reaction to 9-11 attack; to embassy bombing; to Fa-Lung Gong demonstrations; to spy plane collision; to Bush's visit to TsingHua University; and to China-Taiwan relation.

I think this is good book. The author described the changes in China in an intuitive but unique way. It described many sides of China through views of young and old Chinese. It lifted the veil that had covered China especially for anyone who hasn't lived in China for an extended period of time. The book is logical and coherent despite the intertwining of stories and timelines.

With China being a hot topic it's easy to pick up any of the hundreds of books about China's economy, its threat to America, and the destruction of its environment written by US government officials and academia. Unfortunately, they all have the same story to tell. Hessler bypasses these common themes to provide a much more intimate picture of China and its people based on the years he's spent living there.

Mixing personal and historical stories, he provides some of the freshest writing on China in years and provides a glimpse at how modernization is affecting the average citizen. I was intrigued by the details he gave, from his visits to the border of North Korea to how emigrants play the system to enter the US. His own story of working through the system to become a journalist should be considered mandatory reading for anybody looking to this profession in China.

In addition, Hessler's writing style has improved since his first book River Town. I found River Town to be a good book, but the writing seemed a little stiff. Hessler writes with much more confidence in Oracle Bones, making it a pleasant read throughout.

China is undergoing an unprecedented (in scale), historic, monumental transformation as the country sloughs off the shackles of communism and various failed political ideological witch hunts, and focuses instead on modernizing and industrializing, to raise hundreds of millions of people out of the poverty of subsistence farming. Reading the newspapers in the United States, one catches only the briefest glimpses of what is really happening and what it means to people inside and outside China. And if one pays attention to the words of the top politicians of the U.S. and China, and the key political issues that the two countries tussle over, one is likely to completely miss the true nature of China's transformation.

In "Oracle Bones", Peter Hessler has done a remarkable job capturing and communicating the impact of China's changes on her people, in an endearing, highly readable narrative. Hessler focuses on a few individuals from "the masses", rather than "the elites": a money changer/trader, a few teachers, factory workers, a taxi driver, plus some archeologists and others working to understand and preserve China's past. The stories of what these people experience as China undergoes its latest transformation (as well as prior ones) put China's changes into a human context, and explain in emotional and personal terms what could never be adequately captured by a list of statistics. Occasionally the words or actions of the political leaders intrude into the stories, and one gets a strong sense of just how disconnected the leaders are from day-to-day life. China's latest transformation, while initiated by a few key actions from the top leaders, is truly an all-encompassing grass roots change in behavior, attitudes and values.

Hessler has a great vantage point to bring these stories of average Chinese folks to English readers. He speaks Chinese, and taught English in China for two years (an experience captured in his previous book, "River Town"). For the years that Oracle Bones covers, he was primarily a free-lance writer based in Beijing and traveling throughout the country. With few attachments to other people or institutions, he is free to pursue his stories wherever they take him. He practices longitudinal narrative fiction, meaning that he follows the storyline of various people over a multi-year period. Interwoven with the present day stories are stories about various historical artifacts, sites and the people exploring them, which convey the high degree of importance the Chinese place on their history and culture.

I highly recommend "Oracle Bones" to anyone interested in learning about the impact that China's present-day changes are having on the people of that country.

Nothing particular in Peter Hessler's middle-American Missouri background particularly fits him to be a brilliant commentator on modern China. In college at Princeton and later at Oxford he studied English and creative writing, focusing largely on fiction. His first contact with China was a trans-Siberian train trip in 1994, which ignited an interest in travel writing. When he arrived in the Yangtze River town of Fuling two years later as a volunteer English teacher for the Peace Corps, he spoke no Chinese. By the time Oracle Bones was published in 2006, Hessler, who has lived in Beijing since leaving the Peace Corps, had become an accomplished Chinese speaker with a wide-ranging knowledge of both traditional and modern Chinese society. And yes, he is a brilliant commentator on modern China. This book picks up where his first book, River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (P.S.), leaves off.

Oracle Bones is loosely built around a trio of narrative themes that spin out independently: the lives of several of his students after they leave school and enter the Chinese workforce; the struggle of his Uighur friend Polat, a Muslim dissident, to succeed first in Beijing and then in the United States; and his research into the life of Chen Mengjia, an oracle bone scholar who committed suicide during the Cultural Revolution.

Hessler's life in China is organized loosely around clipping articles for the Wall Street Journal, writing news and features for the Boston Globe, and writing articles for the New Yorker, in all three cases about China. The cost of living is so low in Beijing compared to the US that he has plenty of money to travel around the country visiting former students, camping out at the Great Wall (and getting arrested in the process), journeying in Xinjiang, the home territory of the Uighur Muslim minority, flying to Taiwan to visit a retired professor who studied oracle bones with Chen Mengjia during the Kuomintang period, and even visiting the set of a Chinese Western movie on the north rim of the Tarim Basin, at the edge of the Flaming Mountains. Periodically Hessler flies back to the States to visit family and later his Uighur friend Polat who is living in Washington, DC after receiving asylum from the US government.

The book follows several recurrent themes related to the study of modern China, notably, the changes in Chinese society since Deng Xiaoping's Reform and Opening, particularly the migration of young people from the countryside to overnight factory cities such as Shenzhen (in the Pearl River area) and the growing gap between the perspectives of the young and the old. In Hessler's narrative we see educated young people abandoning families and traditional lifestyles for the more lucrative, faster-paced life of the new cities. Among middle-aged people Hessler finds the ghosts of the Rightist denunciations of the 50s and the Cultural Revolution of the 60s lurking just beneath the surface. The very old recall traditional China in the unstable years under the Kuomintang.

It's my hope that Peter Hessler will continue his Chinese narrative in another, yet-unwritten book. The Chinese story is changing yearly now, and Hessler's perceptive eyes and ears are recording all of it. I eagerly await his next installment.

I'm preparing for a month's journey to China and I found this book a great introduction to China, it's people and it's customs. It is well written and interesting. It should be on the required reading list for anyone going to China.

This is a great read for anyone but especially those who have lived or spent a significant period of time in China. Hessler gives the story behind the story to several parts of China. He's got a keen understanding of China that I really appreciated and learned from.

I really enjoyed this book from every angle. The individual chapter length makes for great bedtime reading - one chapter a night. It blends epic Chinese history with wonderful personal accounts of the present. Very informative of the subtleties of modern day Chinese culture and how the events of the past have affected the present.

I am currently reading Hessler's other book, River Town, which he wrote prior to Oracle Bones. It is amazing to see how his narrative storytelling has improved. Oracle Bones is very cleverly crafted and he writes with a confident, mature voice (but River Town is still quite good).

Oracle Bones combines all the best elements of history, personal accounts, travel writing and social analysis in one book. I believe there is something enjoyable for everyone in this book, and his self-deprecating humor as a stranger in a strange land keeps the mood light.

Having read and enjoyed Hessler's first book, and because I am an ESOL teacher, I looked forward to receiving this one. Since I am not a history buff, the book provided me a good overview of the past of an emerging world power without ever becoming tedious with names and dates. The ancient past is covered, and the major eras of the twentieth century are presented from different points of view, so that a feel for the lives of modern Chinese people emerges without "studying" the main events which shaped their lives. The description (above, by the publisher) of the book is totally apt; it weaves past and present with stories of interesting, ordinary people, including one who emigrates to the U.S. I read many books and have a high literary standard. Hessler meets it. He is an informed, well-researched story-teller with a true artist's eye and ear. His attention to detail delights. While he does not aim for poetry, he writes with a graceful precision that is almost poetic. I found every part of this book fascinating. One caveat: nothing here is wasted, so pay attention to each character; the reappearances of many characters give the book rare depth and fullness. You may be disappointed only if you have already studied China extensively; I am fairly well-informed in general but wanted to learn more about this country. Oracle Bones provided both information and insight. I found it to be one of the most satisfying books I have ever read in any category.

This work of narrative non-fiction is a wonderful followup to Hessler's last book "River Town." His maturation as a writer is evident in a book that covers a wide range of topics in Chinese culture, history, and politics. This book kept me glued through its use of personal story lines to shed light on each topic. This was a perfect read to prepare me for my recent trip to China. 5 stars!