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China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power (Hardcover)
by Rob Gifford
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Author: Rob Gifford
Publisher: Random House
Pub. in: May, 2007
ISBN: 1400064678
Pages: 352
Measurements: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA01121
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-1400064670
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Gifford spent about 20 years living and studying in China, and also speaks and reads Mandarin. "China Road" summarizes his two trips taking about 12 weeks across that nation on Route 312 - its Route 66 equivalent running about 3,000 miles from Shanghai to the border with Kazakhstan. Besides providing a physical description of the road, travelers and sights, "China Road" goes much further - summarizing the opinions of its workers, officials, travelers and other citizens, and offering well-grounded historical insights into China's history that help explain its national "psyche."
I am reading some books recently (to name a few, the China Road, Collapse)...
I like Rob Gifford's book China Road very much. It is very interesting to read, and offers a great angle to analyze the real problems and hopes of China.
Let me tell you why I love this book.
The Idea
The idea behind the book is to take a journey along the China State Road No. 312 from Shanghai to north-west border of China. This idea itself is attractive.
What is road 312, or G312 (G means Guo or State)? It is a road starting from Shanghai, cross the mainland of China, and travels along many provinces like Anhui, Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Xinjiang... It is something like the mother road Route 66 in the United States.
It is a long road. It is 4825 km long, and the diversity in both natural and social scene is huge enough for anyone who are willing to understand more about China.
The idea is appealing to me as well. Maybe one day I should also take the trip of G312 to know China - I never claim I know China. I only know part of it, and I, myself, was often shocked by some facts I found out about China. In this sense, Rob knows China much better than I do.
The Trip
During the trip, Rob didn't just completed the trip - he explored deep inside. He visited places normal people live and normal travelers don't go. He talks with people who are saying something very familiar to me. He visited "dangerous" and "sensitive" places like Shangcai (I didn't make typo here. It is letter "c", not "h") in Henan Province, the AIDS village under the pressure of the local police... The trip was amazing, and I pleasantly followed his article to travel with him.
The Thinking
It is definitely not just a travelogue. It is a book full of his thought, not just observation. Let me just mention few of them.
In Shanghai, Rob noticed the difference of two party members. One still believe Communism is the future, while the other (I am like her) don't believe it. I laughed since it is common discussion I heard in my daily life.
Like in Xi'an, he thought about the question why China don't have its own Runnymede or Magna Carta. He thought it was rooted to the unification of the country in 221 B.C. when Qin (Chin) unified the whole country, by force. (I didn't repeat the whole story, but I think you can find out more).
After his trip, he event thought about the China's history in a while, and claiming that the country is going through circles:
China's history has only ever been about uniting and then collapsing, reuniting and then being invaded, overthrow, collapse, reuniting and collapsing again. Why should the future be any different?
-Rob, Page 276, A road is made, China Road
He then list some reasons why the future of China can be different...
My Thoughts
I appreciate Rob's thoughts, and his effort to report what China is today, and try to predict (although it is one of the hardest thing to do in the world) its future. The thought and deep sympathy are very rare in the books I read most of the time.
What about the China's future? This is a serious question. There are given answers that most people in this country can recite and even written in the constitute. However, I don't believe in. People should think about this question seriously (despite it is highly encouraged by the government that not to think about it at all).
(From quoting Wang Jian Shuo, China)
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Rob Gifford first went to China in 1987 as a twenty-year-old language student. He has spent much of the last twenty years studying and reporting there. From 1999 to 2005, he was the Beijing correspondent of National Public Radio, and he traveled all over China and the rest of Asia reporting for Morning Edition and All Things Considered. He is now NPR’s London bureau chief.
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From Publisher
Route 312 is the Chinese Route 66. It flows three thousand miles from east to west, passing through the factory towns of the coastal areas, through the rural heart of China, then up into the Gobi Desert, where it merges with the Old Silk Road. The highway witnesses every part of the social and economic revolution that is turning China upside down.
In this utterly surprising and deeply personal book, acclaimed National Public Radio reporter Rob Gifford, a fluent Mandarin speaker, takes the dramatic journey along Route 312 from its start in the boomtown of Shanghai to its end on the border with Kazakhstan. Gifford reveals the rich mosaic of modern Chinese life in all its contradictions, as he poses the crucial questions that all of us are asking about China: Will it really be the next global superpower? Is it as solid and as powerful as it looks from the outside? And who are the ordinary Chinese people, to whom the twenty-first century is supposed to belong?
Gifford is not alone on his journey. The largest migration in human history is taking place along highways such as Route 312, as tens of millions of people leave their homes in search of work. He sees signs of the booming urban economy everywhere, but he also uncovers many of the country’s frailties, and some of the deep-seated problems that could derail China’s rise.
The whole compelling adventure is told through the cast of colorful characters Gifford meets: garrulous talk-show hosts and ambitious yuppies, impoverished peasants and tragic prostitutes, cell-phone salesmen, AIDS patients, and Tibetan monks. He rides with members of a Shanghai jeep club, hitchhikes across the Gobi desert, and sings karaoke with migrant workers at truck stops along the way.
As he recounts his travels along Route 312, Rob Gifford gives a face to what has historically, for Westerners, been a faceless country and breathes life into a nation that is so often reduced to economic statistics. Finally, he sounds a warning that all is not well in the Chinese heartlands, that serious problems lie ahead, and that the future of the West has become inextricably linked with the fate of 1.3 billion Chinese people.
"Informative, delightful, and powerfully moving . . . Rob Gifford’s acute powers of observation, his sense of humor and adventure, and his determination to explore the wrenching dilemmas of China’s explosive development open readers’ eyes and reward their minds.”
- Robert A. Kapp, president, U.S.-China Business Council, 1994-2004
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Booklist, USA
<2008-01-07 00:00>
National Public Radio China correspondent Gifford journeyed for six weeks on China's Mother Road, Route 312, from its beginning in Shanghai for nearly 3,000 miles to a tiny town in what used to be known as Turkestan. The route picks up the old Silk Road, which runs through the Gobi Desert to Central Asia to Persia and on to Europe. Along the way, Gifford meets entrepreneurs hoping to cash in on China's growing economy, citizens angry and frustrated with government corruption, older people alarmed at changes in Chinese culture and morality, and young people uncertain and excited about the future. Gifford profiles ordinary Chinese people coping with tumultuous change as development and commerce shrink a vast geography, bringing teeming cities and tiny towns into closer commercial and cultural proximity; the lure of wealth is changing the Chinese character and sense of shared experience, even if it was common poverty. Gifford notes an aggressive sense of competition in the man-eat-man atmosphere of a nation that is likely to be the next global superpower. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved |
Ted Koppel, managing editor, Discovery Channel, USA
<2008-01-07 00:00>
How I envy Rob Gifford and his journey along China Road. How grateful I am to him for allowing me to share the trip through his vivid writing and his deep knowledge of and great love for China. As vicarious enjoyment goes, this one’s a ten. |
Peter Hassler, author of River Town and Oracle Bones, USA
<2008-01-07 00:00>
Rob Gifford has found the perfect road trip. His years in China have given him a keen eye and a deep understanding of the country’s contradictions; he’s the perfect guide to this magnificent road from Shanghai to the Kazakhstan border.
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Scott Simon, host of NPR’s Weekend Edition and author of Pretty Birds, USA
<2008-01-07 00:00>
My gosh, I loved Rob Gifford’s book. His journey along Route 312 is a great road story - from Hooters in Shanghai to the Iron House of Confucianism. China Road is insightful, funny, analytical, anecdotal, full of humble humor and magnificent discoveries.
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