Synopses & Reviews
A highly personal, honest, funny and well-informed account of Chinas
hyperactive effort to forget its past and reinvent its future.”The New York Times Book Review
John Pomfret is a reporter for The Washington Post. Formerly the Post's Beijing bureau chief, he is now the Los Angeles bureau chief. In 2003, Pomfret was awarded the Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Asian Journalism by the Asia Society, an annual award for best coverage of Asia. He lives with his wife and family in Los Angeles. Shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize As a twenty-two-year-old exchange student at Nanjing University in 1981, John Pomfret was one of the first American students to be admitted to China after the Communist Revolution of 1949. Living in a cramped dorm room, Pomfret was exposed to a country few outsiders had ever experienced, one fresh from the twin tragedies of Mao's rulethe Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Twenty years after first leaving China, Pomfret returned to the university for a class reunion. Once again, he immersed himself in the lives of his classmates, especially the one woman and four men whose stories make up Chinese Lessons, an intimate and revealing portrait of the Chinese people. Beginning with Pomfret's first day in China, Chinese Lessons takes us back to the often torturous paths that brought together the Nanjing University History Class of 1982. We learn that 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 a year rather than agree to a Party-arranged marriage; Little Guan was forced to publicly denounce and humiliate her father. As we follow Pomfret's classmates from childhood to university and on to adulthood, we see the effect that the country's transition from near-feudal communism to First World capitalism has had on his classmates. "[A] compulsively readable new book on today's China . . . Chinese Lessons is a rich, first-hand account of modern Chinese history as it was lived and experienced by five of the author's 1981 classmates at Nanjing University . . . Pomfret's affection for the people he is writing about almost always shows through, which keeps Chinese Lessons from feeling like a polemic; the book's accumulation of acutely observed detail is compelling."Karl Taro Greenfeld, The Washington Post Book World "[A] compulsively readable new book on today's China . . . Chinese Lessons is a rich, first-hand account of modern Chinese history as it was lived and experienced by five of the author's 1981 classmates at Nanjing University . . . Pomfret's affection for the people he is writing about almost always shows through, which keeps Chinese Lessons from feeling like a polemic; the book's accumulation of acutely observed detail is compelling. Pomfret ends by positing a notion that will be increasingly discussed in years to come as China's great opportunity for economic growth begins to look more and more like a wasted chance to improve the lives of so many of its people: 'The social contract hashed out by Dengyou can get rich if you keep your mouth shutis fraying because too few people have won their share of the bargain.' If Pomfret is correct (and I think he is), China will still be the great story of the 21st centurynot because of what has gone right but because of what has gone wrong."Karl Taro Greenfeld, The Washington Post Book World
"Chinese Lessons . . . is a highly personal, honest, funny and well-informed account of China's hyperactive effort to forget its past and reinvent its future. What makes this book particularly rewarding is that Pomfret not only describes China today, he also reminds us what came before."Orville Schell, The New York Times Book Review "[Pomfret] loves China, and he excels at describing the minutiae that make up Chinese life: the slang, the food, the bathrooms and the explosion of nouveau-riche bad taste in the boom towns and shopping districts. He makes an engaging, expert guide to the changes that have transformed China in the last quarter-century"William Grimes, The New York Times "In this intimate and revealing book, John Pomfret shows why he is one of the great China correspondents of his generation: He has never held himself at a distance, but has plunged in, with vigor and an open mind. His approach to China has no tint of romanticism or awe; the lives he discovers and the stories he tells, including his own, are unvarnished, unexpected, and riveting."Steve Coll, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars "Chinese Lessons is an extraordinary book. Through telling the intimate stories of his former classmates, John Pomfret reveals a contemporary China where many individual lives have been thwarted and twisted. This is a book full of insights, honesty, and compassion. It touched me deeply."Ha Jin, author of Waiting "John Pomfret has written a brilliant, insightful book describing the dark side and human cost of the 'Chinese economic miracle.' His feel for China, based on years of living there, his fluency in Chinese, and his reporting genius cut through the sham and spin."James R. Lilley, former U.S. Ambassador to China and chief of the American Mission in Taiwan "Washington Post reporter Pomfret looks back at his student days at Nanjing University in 1981 and the lives of his classmates, survivors of one of the most tumultuous periods in the country's history. Readers numbed by the catalogue of crimes offered in Mao: The Unknown Story (2005), by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, will find them evoked here with more personal applications to the lives of Big Bluffer Ye, Book Idiot Zhou, Little Guan, Old Xu and Daybreak Song. Don't be misled by their jaunty college nicknames. These are the children of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, convulsive political purges unleashed by Mao. They witnessed (and sometimes were forced to act as accomplices to) the humiliation, torture and even deaths of their own parents. Pomfret sketches each of the five as he remembers them from college, including as well the story of his own student days in a country still ill at ease with foreigners. It's his detailed reporting about their lives before and after graduation, however, that sets this book apart. While knowing that he can't fully comprehend China's tortuous history or its complete effect on his subjects, the author has immersed himself as much as any outsider can in all things Chinese, enabling him to assess each of his subjects with remarkable empathy. He plainly admires these former classmates, but he's clear-eyed about the peculiar ways in which each has been twisted by a tyrannous political system that 30 years ago put 'capitalist roaders' to death and today declares that 'to be rich is glorious.' It's fascinating to see how each has negotiated adulthoodlove, family, workin a country hurtling toward modernity under the Party's capricious whip hand. A moving account of individual experiences, indispensable to anyone seeking to understand the precarious national psyche of the world's most populous nation."Kirkus Reviews "[Pomfret] stayed in touch with his Chinese classmates as they came of age, and . . . he deploys their individual stories and his own coming of age and immersion in Chinese culture to tell the larger storyalmost as a memoirof a China itself coming of age. His writing is steady and frank, wittily rueful over China's follies and his own, appreciative, and wonderfully readable. His long-term commitment to China affords insights into the contradictions of economic boom, social uncertainties, and a political system that, yes, is changing but probably not fast enough."Library Journal "Tracing individual lives is a familiar way to make sense of history, and tracing the intersections of individuals is a familiar strategy for studying identity. Pomfret, a 1981 exchange student at Nanjing University and later an American journalist in China, does both in this coming-of-age story that reads like a novel, complete with conflict, intrigue, illicit sex, convincing villains, and sympathetic, flawed heroes, and drawing as much on Greek as Chinese notions of fate in the lives of individuals and states. Inverting Plato in typical American fashion, he looks at individualsthe small circle of friends whose lives first crossed at Nanjing University when China's 'opening and reform' beganto understand the state in which they live. In so doing, he affords readers a glimpse of the intersection of two societies at a time when they were defining themselves as predominant world players. Regardless of whether what followed was guided by fate, Pomfret's narrative of it may prove helpful in realizing something other than collision between the U.S and China."Steven Schroeder, Booklist "Pomfret's enthusiasm and personal access make this an engaging examination of three tumultuous decades, rooted in the stories of classmates whose remarkable grit and harrowing experiences neatly epitomize the sexual and cultural transformations, and the economic ups and downs, of China since the 1960s. At the same time, Pomfret draws on intimate conversations and personal diaries to paint idiosyncratic portraits with a vivid, literary flair . . . Pomfret's palpable and pithy first-hand depiction of the New China offers a swift, elucidating introduction to its awesome energies and troubling contradictions."Publishers Weekly
Review
"[Pomfret] loves China, and he excels at describing the minutiae that make up Chinese life....He makes an engaging, expert guide to the changes that have transformed China in the last quarter-century." New York Times
Review
"A moving account of individual experiences, indispensable to anyone seeking to understand the precarious national psyche of the world's most populous nation." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
A first-hand account of the remarkable transformation of China over the past forty years as seen through the life of an award-winning journalist and his four Chinese classmates.
As a twenty-year-old exchange student from Stanford University, John Pomfret spent a year at Nanjing University in China. His fellow classmates were among those who survived the twin tragedies of Mao's rule the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution and whose success in government and private industry today are shaping China's future. Pomfret went on to a career in journalism, spending the bulk of his time in China. After attending the twentieth reunion of his class, he decided to reacquaint himself with some of his classmates. Chinese Lessons is their story and his own.
Beginning with Pomfret's first days in China, Chinese Lessons takes us back to the often torturous paths that brought together the Nanjing University History Class of 1982. One classmate's father was killed during the Cultural Revolution for the crime of being an intellectual; another classmate labored in the fields for years rather than agree to a Party-arranged marriage; a third was forced to publicly denounce and humiliate her father. As we watch Pomfret and his classmates begin to make their lives as adults, we see as never before the human cost and triumph of China's transition from near-feudal communism to first-world capitalism.
Synopsis
"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.
Synopsis
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 John Pomfret is a reporter for The Washington Post. Formerly the Post's Beijing bureau chief, he is now the Los Angeles bureau chief. In 2003, Pomfret was awarded the Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Asian Journalism by the Asia Society, an annual award for best coverage of Asia. He lives with his wife and family in Los Angeles. Shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize As a twenty-two-year-old exchange student at Nanjing University in 1981, John Pomfret was one of the first American students to be admitted to China after the Communist Revolution of 1949. Living in a cramped dorm room, Pomfret was exposed to a country few outsiders had ever experienced, one fresh from the twin tragedies of Mao's rule--the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Twenty years after first leaving China, Pomfret returned to the university for a class reunion. Once again, he immersed himself in the lives of his classmates, especially the one woman and four men whose stories make up Chinese Lessons, an intimate and revealing portrait of the Chinese people. Beginning with Pomfret's first day in China, Chinese Lessons takes us back to the often torturous paths that brought together the Nanjing University History Class of 1982. We learn that 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 a year rather than agree to a Party-arranged marriage; Little Guan was forced to publicly denounce and humiliate her father. As we follow Pomfret's classmates from childhood to university and on to adulthood, we see the effect that the country's transition from near-feudal communism to First World capitalism has had on his classmates. A] compulsively readable new book on today's China . . . Chinese Lessons is a rich, first-hand account of modern Chinese history as it was lived and experienced by five of the author's 1981 classmates at Nanjing University . . . Pomfret's affection for the people he is writing about almost always shows through, which keeps Chinese Lessons from feeling like a polemic; the book's accumulation of acutely observed detail is compelling.--Karl Taro Greenfeld, The Washington Post Book World A] compulsively readable new book on today's China . . . Chinese Lessons is a rich, first-hand account of modern Chinese history as it was lived and experienced by five of the author's 1981 classmates at Nanjing University . . . Pomfret's affection for the people he is writing about almost always shows through, which keeps Chinese Lessons from feeling like a polemic; the book's accumulation of acutely observed detail is compelling. Pomfret ends by positing a notion that will be increasingly discussed in years to come as China's great opportunity for economic growth begins to look more and more like a wasted chance to improve the lives of so many of its people: 'The social contract hashed out by Deng--you can get rich if you keep your mouth shut--is fraying because too few people have won their share of the bargain.' If Pomfret is correct (and I think he is), China will still be the great story of the 21st century--not because of what has gone right but because of what has gone wrong.--Karl Taro Greenfeld, The Washington Post Book World Chinese Lessons . . . is a highly personal, honest, funny and well-informed account of China's hyperactive effort to forget its past and reinvent its future. What makes this book particularly rewarding is that Pomfret not only describes China today, he also reminds us what came before.--Orville Schell, The New York Times Book Review Pomfret] loves China, and he excels at describing the minutiae that make up Chinese life: the slang, the food, the bathrooms and the explosion of nouveau-riche bad taste in the boom towns and shopping districts. He makes an engaging, expert guide to the changes that have transformed China in the last quarter-century--William Grimes, The New York Times In this intimate and revealing book, John Pomfret shows why he is one of the great China correspondents of his generation: He has never held himself at a distance, but has plunged in, with vigor and an open mind. His approach to China has no tint of romanticism or awe; the lives he discovers and the stories he tells, including his own, are unvarnished, unexpected, and riveting.--Steve Coll, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars Chinese Lessons is an extraordinary book. Through telling the intimate stories of his former classmates, John Pomfret reveals a contemporary China where many individual lives have been thwarted and twisted. This is a book full of insights, honesty, and compassion. It touched me deeply.--Ha Jin, author of Waiting John Pomfret has written a brilliant, insightful book describing the dark side and human cost of the 'Chinese economic miracle.' His feel for China, based on years of living there, his fluency in Chinese, and his reporting genius cut through the sham and spin.--James R. Lilley, former U.S. Ambassador to China and chief of the American Mission in Taiwan Washington Post reporter Pomfret looks back at his student days at Nanjing University in 1981 and the lives of his classmates, survivors of one of the most tumultuous periods in the country's history. Readers numbed by the catalogue of crimes offered in Mao: The Unknown Story (2005), by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, will find them evoked here with more personal applications to the lives of Big Bluffer Ye, Book Idiot Zhou, Little Guan, Old Xu and Daybreak Song. Don't be misled by their jaunty college nicknames. These are the children of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, convulsive political purges unleashed by Mao. They witnessed (and sometimes were forced to act as accomplices to) the
Synopsis
A first-hand account of the remarkable transformation of China over the past forty years as seen through the life of an award-winning journalist and his four Chinese classmatesAs a twenty-year-old exchange student from Stanford University, John Pomfret spent a year at Nanjing University in China. His fellow classmates were among those who survived the twin tragedies of Maos rule—the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution—and whose success in government and private industry today are shaping Chinas future. Pomfret went on to a career in journalism, spending the bulk of his time in China. After attending the twentieth reunion of his class, he decided to reacquaint himself with some of his classmates. Chinese Lessons is their story and his own.
Beginning with Pomfrets first days in China, Chinese Lessons takes us back to the often torturous paths that brought together the Nanjing University History Class of 1982. One classmates father was killed during the Cultural Revolution for the crime of being an intellectual; another classmate labored in the fields for years rather than agree to a Party-arranged marriage; a third was forced to publicly denounce and humiliate her father. As we watch Pomfret and his classmates begin to make their lives as adults, we see as never before the human cost and triumph of Chinas transition from near-feudal communism to first-world capitalism.
About the Author
Formerly The Washington Post's bureau chief in Beijing and Los Angeles, John Pomfret was named editor of the Post's Outlook Section in 2007. In 2003, he was awarded the Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Asian Journalism and in 2007 won the Shorenstein Prize for coverage of Asia. He lives near Washington, D.C., with his wife and family.