I first heard about Peter Hessler’s book “Oracle Bones” from my mom.  She was reading through it and enjoying it immensely, and she recommended it profusely.  I promptly ignored her for a year, until I managed to read a corroborating review from somewhere.  I picked up both of his books at the time, “River Town” and “Oracle Bones”, and the more I read of them, the more I was both annoyed and delighted.  Delighted because the books are some of the best  from a foreign author regarding modern China, and annoyed because I had always dreamed of someday writing a book about my experiences, and I realized that Hessler had, well, written the book I wanted to write.  So much for that (and sorry mom!).

I should note that before reading Hessler, I had almost zero interest in the travel literature genre, but he helped interest me in several other books by the likes of Paul Theroux (Riding the Iron Rooster) and even several Chinese authors such as Ma Jian or Gao Xingjian.

Hessler also writes for the New Yorker, and while I was in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics, he wrote a great piece for that magazine that reminded me why I enjoy his perspective so much.  I was therefore very excited when I got an email (again from my mom) telling me about his newest book, “Country Driving”, which again focuses on modern China and it’s rapid industrialization.

While “River Town” was set in the mid to late nineties, and “Oracle Bones” in the early 2000s, “Country Driving” is set in a span from roughly 2002 through 2008.  It’s divided into three sections, one details his trip by car along the Great Wall, one focuses on rural living in a town outside of Beijing, and the last takes place in a booming Special Economic Zone in Southern China.

Hessler is unique among most journalists covering China in that he speaks fluent Chinese (this was essentially a matter of survival while spending two years as one of two foreigners in a Chinese city), and that he both appreciates the context of China (history, literature, politics) and the people.  Culturally, there is much that can be mocked about China, and many foreigners focus on these nits that differentiate China from the West to their own detriment, and one of the things I like most about Hessler’s writing is he manages to poke fun at some of the more amusing aspects while still maintaining a deep respect for the country and its people.  He also manages to not romanticize China’s poverty or lament it’s rapid modernization like many foreign observers tend to do, instead, he strikes an engaging balance of description, context, humor and human interest.

For a glimpse into China’s complexities from a richly personal point of view, I recommend any of Hessler’s books.  To appreciate how rapid China’s rise has been since the mid nineties, read all three in order.  There is no other author today who writes as well or as thoughtfully about China.

One reason for my intrigue is that the pictures I’ve seen are the closest to my memories of what it looked like when I arrived in China in 1984.  China was just a few years into it’s experiment of opening to the West, and it’s very difficult to describe what it was like to see a thoroughly communist country wading tepidly into the waters of capitalism.

“A State of Mind” follows two young North Korean gymnasts through their training regimen to participate in the “Mass Games” which are held more or less every year to demonstrate the power of the North Korean state, the singular mind of its people, and the Communist ideal of the group overpowering the individual.  These games are elaborate gymnastic, visual, and auditory productions designed to shock and awe the North Korean population to even higher levels of devotion to “The General”, Kim Il-Sung.

I previously mentioned how the wholesale lifting of hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty has to be one of the greatest miracles in history, and nowhere is this point driven home more than the contrast between China and the North Korea of today.  North Korea has barely progressed since 1950, while China is challenging for world economic supremacy.  South Korea, likewise is a beacon of economic progress, and it’s all eerily driven home by the gymnasts and their families who confess to the camera that performing for the Great Leader is and will always be the highlight of their life.  Electricity blackouts, food shortages, and the lack of any progress over the last fifty years are all the fault of the Imperialist Americans.  North Korea has truly succeeded in a total religious education of its population on the virtues of communism, and it’s almost like you’re watching a farcical episode of Monty Python mocking the heady days of communism in the 50s and 60s when you see otherwise intelligent, driven people in total worship of their deranged leader.

The ultimate shame is that the North Korean people, like the Chinese, Burmese, Vietnamese, a host of nations in Africa, South America, and Central Asia, are completely stifled.  But nowhere is it as bad as North Korea, and as someone who remembers the flood of refugees flooding North China during the late nineties as millions starved, I was left with a genuine feeling of total frustration.  This film is important to remind people that it’s all been tried and failed before, right down to the 1984-esque state radio in every North Korean kitchen that broadcasts propaganda and cannot be turned off.  While it’s easy to criticize the evils of capitalism, and decry abuses of greed, it’s hard to see a corollary anywhere in world history where capitalism has produced a wasteland of human potential.

Communism works, and it works well.  It is the greatest engine of equality the world has ever seen as it swiftly ensures that everyone is equally poor.  Watch this film for the cautionary tale that it is, and watch it to be amazed at the talent and devotion of the North Korean people.

This is an extremely important book, in that I feel Martin accurately distills and describes a few integral pieces of China and the Chinese mindset that are almost universally missed by Western commentators.  These pieces, when placed in the proper context can often combine to explain the more (to Western eyes) puzzling questions about China, events that happen within China, and China’s reactions to external pressures.

One of the reasons why I enjoyed this book is that the author is a master at providing historical context and to illustrate and reinforce his ideas.  With a history as long as China’s this isn’t a small task, but he accurately makes the point that few nations are as cognizant of their history and traditions as China.  Ignoring thousands of years of constant cultural development leads to gross misunderstanding, and is something that is all too easy to do from a Western perspective that’s driven by the acceptance of a Western order that is really only three centuries old.

Jacques begins his book with the relevant facts of how China will most likely overtake the US as the largest economy in the world by 2027, and focuses on the central question of the book: What will a modern world dominated by China look like?  The prevailing thought of most attention paid to China is that capitalism, free markets, and Western style economies inevitably echo Western values of freedom, human rights, democracy, and culture.  In other words, free trade begets free societies.  Not necessarily so in China.

This misguided belief that a swing towards Western style freedom and government is inevitable is a key miscalculation that negatively affects US foreign policy and undermines true understanding of China and the rest of East Asia.

Reasons for China not following the Western model of modernism coalesce around different set of values.  In China, unity and stability is a key value that is reinforced by the strong, hierarchical family unit, the universal acceptance of Confucian thought, and the reality that China is a civilization-state, not a nation state.  The Chinese desire of unity explains the tolerance of the “one state, two systems” approach to Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, and even within the numerous special economic zones found within the country.  This type of duality is almost inconceivable to the West.  Stability is valued highly due to China’s  experiences with turmoil during its history (estimations of 25 million dead during Manchu invasion, 50 million dead during Taiping rebellion, and as many as another 50 million dead during World War II and the ensuing Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution), and it’s long experience with a strong central government and its emphasis on a Confucian trained and tested government bureaucracy.  Stability, therefore, is enough of a priority that the Chinese are content with a system that values the group over the individual.

History teaches us that the Chinese civilization has never wavered in it’s attitude of superiority towards outsiders.  Indeed, even when conquered by external invaders, which happened often throughout history, the invading groups (Mongols, Manchus) forsook their own identities and adopted Chinese customs, dress, and language while moving their capitals and governments to China.  Today there is an overwhelming sense among the Chinese that China is finally regaining it’s rightful place in the world as the Middle Kingdom.  Most forget that in the 1800s, the Chinese standard of living was slightly higher per capita than that of Europe.  England had a strong navy and easy access to coal close to its urban centers, China did not.  A crippled and weak end of the Qing dynasty, the Japanese invasion, World War II and the disastrous effects of Communism contributed to a net decrease in China’s GDP between 1820 and 1950.

The idea that modernism must revolve around the Western model is rejected by the examination of how little modernity has affected Chinese politics.  China has always had a strong central government that was paternalistic in nature and was bound to the collective well being of society.  This is unlike Western governments, which have evolved to the point where they exist as a utilitarian entity in exchange for popular support.

Jacques also spends significant time exploring the reasons behind the current Chinese policies towards trade, it’s own citizen’s freedom, and it’s long term goals.  In the light of the many historical and political contributing factors, it’s much easier to understand China’s currency peg (which hurts China more than it hurts the US), it’s continuing support for US debt, and it’s aggressive stance towards opening its own markets.  According to Deng Xiaoping, two things must remain for China to lift its population from poverty: domestic stability and international peace.  Seventy-five percent of China’s economy is accounted for by international trade of some sort, and while this may decrease as China continues to diversify, this is an unprecedented level for a country that is so large.  This precarious balance between its economy and the implicit social bargain (like all Confucian states have) to its citizenry for future standard of living improvement are the key drivers to China’s behavior.

This book isn’t without its faults.  Jacques, like the good Marxist he is, glosses over the disastrous effects of Communism for China’s people and its economy.  Like many intelligentsia (Thomas Friedman and almost any other environmentalist) , he finds himself almost in awe of the incredible power that the Chinese Communist Party has to command policies that he wishes or wants to see implemented.  His exploration of China’s tributary system and it’s possible resurgence in the future is incomplete as it doesn’t resonate well with the Western reader.  Some of the book’s information is outdated or at least could have been updated, and some of the statistics feel as though they’ve been cherry picked.  There also doesn’t seem to be enough credit given to the remarkable lever of capitalism: lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in just thirty years is nothing short of a miracle.

While the overall message of the book is that China will not become the US or a prototypical Western nation-state, this doesn’t mean that the China of today will exactly mirror the China of tomorrow.  It does mean that we shouldn’t prescribe the Western template to China, and should remain mindful of the powerful historical currents that remain in full force for China.

I was right, mostly.

The problem was, I was in school, strapped for cash, there was almost no technology that was any good out there, and getting a real site up was expensive.  As in, 300+ bucks a month for a dedicated server, 100+ bucks a month for credit card processing, 50+ bucks a month for a cell phone, etc. etc.

And I had to build the software.  So that’s what I did, and I spent 99% of my time building software just so I could have flexibility and be able to run a “real” ecommerce site.  We built up a customer base, sold some stuff, but I never had the time to devote to it that was required in order to build the kind of business with the kind of product line that I wanted.

Fast forward a few years, and now I’m married.  With a wife who’s got impeccable tastes and enjoys fashion, someone who likes learning new things and wants to get things done, and is blessed with one or two (psychology and spanish) of those useless degrees.  So we take a trip to China to see the Olympics, and she comes back and announces that she wants to start up the business again.

So here it comes: Unique Traditional Chinese and Asian Gifts and Handcrafted Items – Orient Products (.com)

This ought to be fun.