On Reading Peter Hessler’s latest book, Country Driving

I first heard about Peter Hessler several years ago, when his first book River Town, the story of his experience living in a town along the Yangzi River, became widely known.  At that time I had little interest in reading the book, having already lived in China for several years and having just earned a PhD in Chinese history from Columbia.  At that point a book about a young American “discovering” China for the first time was not high on my list of China readings.  Been there, done that was the thought in my mind.  Perhaps others among us “China heads” felt the same way.

Read More

Some Late Night Thoughts on Reading Paul Theroux’s _My Secret History_

What is a “midlife crisis”?  Is it a wake-up call when one looks back on one’s life and wonders what could have been done better, or what different routes one might have taken had one married X instead of Y, chosen to live in country J instead of C, or earned a graduate diploma in E instead of H?  Is it a kind of bewilderment and disbelief at where one has ended up, like the line from that song by the Talking Heads, a band popular in my teenage years:  “You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?”

Read More