Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China » (Reprint)

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.

A book about contemporary China.

The New York Times - William Grimes

[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.

Sent Down
Warmly Welcome You     3
The Slap     17
Broken Wing     26
Father's Lessons     35
Black Bricks     42
A Meat Pie from Heaven     51
Lovers and Comrades
Bitter Love     63
Party Animal     73
Outside the Gates     79
New Street Crossing     96
A Handful of Bran     102
Spiritual Pollution     112
Petrified Marriage     116
Yin Finds Yang     124
1989
Crossed Paths     137
Show Me the Money     144
To the Barricades     149
Asylum     165
Fishy Handshakes     169
Into the Sea
Fake Foreign Devils     177
Killing the Chickens     182
White Like Mother's Milk     186
Rice Bowl Christians     194
Yes Man     201
Homecoming     209
The Adman     215
The China Price     221
Spiritual Civilization     228
Gods and Animals     234
Sprinting Toward Little Comforts
Pine on a Cliff     243
Endure     251
Crawling Home     261
The Enthusiasms of High Altitude     270
Severe and Acute     277
High Tides     282
Thugs' Revolution     287
My Place in the Procession     292
Conclusion: The Chinese Dream     296
Acknowledgments     302
Credits     303
Index     304