Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West

by Peter Hessler

Full of unforgettable figures and an unrelenting spirit of adventure, Strange Stones is a far-ranging, thought-provoking collection of Peter Hessler’s best reportage—a dazzling display of the powerful storytelling, shrewd cultural insight, and warm sense of humor that are the trademarks of his work.

Over the last decade, as a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of three books, Peter Hessler has lived in Asia and the United States, writing as both native and knowledgeable outsider in these two very different regions. This unusual perspective distinguishes Strange Stones, which showcases Hessler’s unmatched range as a storyteller. “Wild Flavor” invites readers along on a taste test between two rat restaurants in South China. One story profiles Yao Ming, basketball star and China’s most beloved export, another David Spindler, an obsessive and passionate historian of the Great Wall. In “Dr. Don,” Hessler writes movingly about a small-town pharmacist and his relationship with the people he serves.

While Hessler’s subjects and locations vary, subtle but deeply important thematic links bind these pieces—the strength of local traditions, the surprising overlap between apparently opposing cultures, and the powerful lessons drawn from individuals who straddle different worlds.

Genres: China, Nonfiction, Travel, Essays, Asia, History, Memoir

384 pages, Paperback

First published May 7, 2013

About the author

Peter Hessler is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he served as Beijing correspondent from 2000-2007, and is also a contributing writer for National Geographic. He is the author of River Town, which won the Kiriyama Book Prize, and Oracle Bones, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. He won the 2008 National Magazine Award for excellence in reporting.

Reviews

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Hessler’s fourth book is a compilation of eighteen essays, most of which appeared in some form in The New Yorker. Each week when my issue of that magazine arrives, I notice first the by-lines. There are certain author names I recognize right away, and I read them first, sometimes even before looking at the cartoons. Peter Hessler is one of those authors.

I became acquainted a dozen years ago with his first book, River Town, which is the story of his years in China as a member of the Peace Corps. His two subsequent books were also about China, primarily about ordinary people into whose lives he delves deeply and sympathetically. It’s wonderful writing. I feel no need to embellish further from that statement.

I picked up this, his fourth book, inspired by a rare opportunity to hear him speak and to attend a Q&A session he held with writing students. His talk was great; so is this book. Besides the essays about China, he includes several essays written upon return to the United States. But it’s the window into China that I crave.

While this book lacks the central focus of his first three, the essays are warm and brilliant observations that add to the impressions of China garnered from the first books. I have a few favorite essays. One, called “Quartet,” details his four traffic accidents in a country with millions of new drivers and no tradition of driving protocol. Another, “Walking the Wall,” profiles several Great Wall-obsessed people (notably American David Spindler) who are part archeologists, part historians, part hikers. “Wild Flavor” takes the reader along to compare two restaurants in China that specialize in serving rat. We have unique views of the new Chinese economy in “Chinese Barbizon” and “Boomtown Girl.”

It would be easy to go on, but – Spoiler Alert! – you will like this narrative non-fiction.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars or more if this is the first Peter Hessler book you've read. 3.5 stars if you've read any of his China trilogy books previously. The rating discrepancy is due to some overlap here with his prior books and the tidy endings in the essays to make them fit within a magazine (the New Yorker) that are (thankfully) absent in a full length book.

While reading this book I thought back to the Seinfeld episode where Jerry cannot be unfunny (I think it was that Jerry cannot not be funny). This is the fourth Hessler book I've read and I think he's incapable of writing poorly. All of the usual good stuff is on display here: the depth of writing; the perceptiveness; the humor; the effortless storytelling.

This book is a good starting point to get sense of Hessler's writing style or if you want to try a book you can pick up and put down frequently. None of the stories should take more than a half hour and a few are pretty short. All of the essays are good and Quartet was my favorite (although that essay largely appeared in Hessler's third book Country Driving).

[Larry Bassett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter has written for pretty good books about his life in China. This book has about a dozen stories that were previously published in the New Yorker. They are mostly about China and some of them are a bit repetitious from his books. But since I have a pretty poor memory for exact recollection I didn’t much matter with the repetition. I did find a phrase or a paragraph here in there where I said oh yeah I’ve heard that before but it didn’t seem problematic to me.

But there are several pretty different stories in this book from what I am Used to with this author. One was like about a guy from the US who got a job writing about crime in a major Japanese newspaper. It was really interesting. And there are two other stories in this book about his experiences in Colorado. You couldn’t say they are in a completely different style then Peter Hessler because he is after all still Peter Hessler. But when he and his wife left China after being there a decade, they somehow decided to move to Colorado. So there are these two stories in the book centered on Colorado. They are somewhat offbeat and fascinating. You don’t have to have any particular connection with Colorado to enjoy listening to them. Kind of like you don’t really have to have any special attachment to China to enjoy Peter‘s books about life in China.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read all four of Peter Hessler's books, this being the most recent, and MAN is he a terrific observer and writer! His essays are brilliant; his first book, "River Town," about his Peace Corps volunteer experience in Fuling, China, is brilliant; everything he writes is brilliant. I love his observations, his humor, his deep and abiding respect and affection for his human subjects; his clear, beautiful, and accessible writing; everything! Much of his writing is about his 15-year residence in China - anyone with any level of interest in China should read this book (well, anyone with any interest in human nature, in the world, in - OK - anyone who is breathing should read this book). This latest, a collection of essays, also includes pieces written about the USA southwest, and Colorado in particular, where he and his (writer) wife Leslie Chang moved after living in China. Peter Hessler is a MacArthur Fellow (2011) and he and his family now live in Cairo, where he is a foreign correspondent for "The New Yorker." READ THIS BOOK! READ ALL OF HIS BOOKS AND ANYTHING ELSE YOU CAN GET YOUR HANDS ON BY MR. HESSLER!

[Chrisl · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the title essay, Strange Stones, Hessler wrote "From the beginning, the Peace Corps had ... another goal ... to produce Americans with knowledge about the outside world. It was intended to influence national policy ... everybody I knew had been changed forever by the experience. But these changes were of the sort that generally made people less likely to work for the government ... The vast majority of former volunteers would have opposed the American adventure in Iraq ... But their opinions had virtually no impact on national policy ..."

[Sairam Krishnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have been a fan of Peter Hessler's writing in the New Yorker for a while, and this book gave me a chance to read the best of his longform writing together. It's remarkable, the style with which he tells these stories, weaving in and out of certain narrative arcs, focusing on certain characters, leaving them midway and coming back to them again. Usually I try to discern the structuring when I read things I like, but sometimes I let it be. I give in to the story and how it's told, the details I'm taken by. I just read. This is one of those books and Hessler is one of those writers.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collection of essays first published at the NYer 2002-2012. I had marked this as previously read, but I think I was recalling reading many of these essays in the magazine over those years. As is usually the case, I liked some more than others. For this read, my favorites were his essays on SW Colorado, where he was living at the time this collection was published. The rest are all from China, and are of variable interest, for me anyway. I gave up on the Beijing Olympics piece and finished the basketball piece. The straight reportage from China was of more interest. "Wild Flavor," about two meals of wild rat, was queasily fascinating and apparently led to his long-standing New Yorker gig.

Overall average is around 3.5 stars,. I'm rounding up for the outstanding essays.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conflicted feelings about this essay collection: many pieces are clearly meant for an audience that know little about China, necessarily sacrificing depth and nuance. In those pieces, China is nothing more than just what the title suggests, a strange stone. Especially the more newsworthy essays were significantly less interesting than pieces by local Chinese journalists from the same time period.

Having said that, the pieces on ordinary people that Hessler had time to get to know better were really fun to read. There, Hessler’s empathy and storytelling ability shine through. My favorite has to be the essay about one of his students from Fuling who became a migrant worker in Shenzhen. The one about Don the pharmacist and one about Three Gorges migrant family also clearly showed how good a writer and journalist he is.

[Alexander Boyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book proves, sadly, that Peter Hessler did not "peak in the Peace Corps" and in fact only continued to become a better writer, thinker, and (dare I say it?) person as time has gone by. This of course kills me inside as, I peaked in Peace Corps.

Must read snippets of life in China and Colorado.

[Bonnie E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. The author is an adventurous and thoughtful soul who is able to relate to all manner of people in different parts of the globe, and his experiences make for quite an extraordinary journey. The book is a compilation of eighteen exquisite essays which do not have to be read in any particular order but each and every one really should be read because they are that good. The vignettes are moving and funny and insightful, and offer glimpses into towns and cultures and everyday people mainly in China and in the western United States.

Hessler starts out with a foray into Luogang, a village in China's southern province, to dine at the city's famous rat restaurants. His matter of fact description of eating rat at two competing establishments is a fine introduction to the rest of the book but the stories just keep getting better and better. Many are set in exotic locales like the first one in Luogang but the stateside ones are equally moving and Hessler is great when describing a druggist who dispenses friendly advice along with pharmaceuticals in a slowly dwindling town in Colorado. Readers join Hessler in his walk along parts of the Great Wall of China while gaining understanding about the wall's history, and we learn about a beach resort on the Bo Hai Sea where the government officials always vacation.

Some might not like the fact that stories about China are interspersed with the author's accounts of moving back to America where among other things, he finds himself stumblingly winning a half marathon along Frank Sinatra Boulevard in Las Vegas. But I really like the transitions back and forth. Hessler is skilled enough to allow us to appreciate both the exotic and the familiar while yearning for more in each.

[Brian Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read Hessler's other books on China, I found this one a rather random collection of good stories from his previous life there. The main addition is the stories set in Colorado, which show Hessler honing his skills in his home country. His story on the condemned uranium mining community of Uravan, Colorado, is a masterpiece of careful research and sensitive, unpresumptuous interviews with the ex-mining families. As usual, Hessler lets the local characters lead the story where it will, and arrives at transparently stunning observations: "On the other side of the world, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities, but the town that helped make the bomb has been wiped off the face of the earth."

I also greatly enjoyed the piece on Japan's yakuza gangsters. It's so refreshing to find a reporter who just hangs out with ordinary people and conveys how the world looks to them, rather than helping to broadcast what powerful people think to the commoners. Hessler even hangs out with Chinese street kids who push pornographic video disks. Naturally, I look forward to reading his tales of casual conversations in Arabic with the folks in Egypt.

[Terzah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm biased, but I think Peter Hessler writes some of the best narrative non-fiction around. This book is a fantastic showcase of it. My favorite essays were "Chinese Barbizon" (I love the way Hessler brings home the ties between China and the U.S., ties that exist where you least expect them) "Wild Flavor" (just funny) and "Strange Stones" (Peace Corps, Hessler writes, "changed you, but not necessarily in the way you'd expect. It was a bad job for hard-core idealists, most of whom ended up frustrated and unhappy. Pragmatists survived...."; absolute truth, in my experience). But everything in this book is good.

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Hessler is an American writer who spent years living abroad in China.  His memoir of teaching in a village called Fuling, River Town, is one of my favorites.  Strange Stones compiles various observations from his time in China, but also upon his return to the United States, where he lives in a small town in the Rocky Mountains.

If you've never had a chance to read anything by Hessler, I highly recommend doing so.  His work is very readable, and touches on everything from food, family, relationships, business and travel.  My favorite Hessler book is still River Town, but Strange Stones is still head and shoulders above most China memoirs.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a hard book to rate, but I probably give it 3.5 stars. It’s good – interesting and entertaining – but it’s a collection of articles essentially, so it’s not as cohesive as Hessler’s other books. I somewhat dreaded finishing it because I like his writing on China, and after this book, there are no more. This book is mostly articles that were originally in the New Yorker, with most of them being about China, and a few about rural America. After living abroad for about 15 years in the UK and China, Hessler returned to the United States, living in rural Colorado for a time. This helped give him some fresh perspectives on both places, and positioned him to tell stories of people who don’t always capture the attention of most writers. He does have brushes with notable people, but also shares the struggles and dreams of ordinary people.

It’s not a single theme for a book, so it’s hard to summarize. I thought it would be more useful to just share a few random quotes that I thought were insightful.
In an article about walking the Great Wall, Hessler shares some perspectives on its importance
“Historians generally portray the Great Wall as a military failure and a waste of resources. Spindler disagrees, noting that the improved wall held back major attacks in the sixteenth century. At Shuitou, where we hiked, the Chinese defeated thousands of Mongols in a key battle. For the Ming, the wall was only part of a complex foreign policy, but because it’s the most lasting physical relic, it receives disproportionate blame for their fall.” (43)

When reconnecting with a student he taught a few years earlier.
“The building was only half constructed – the walls unpainted, the plaster chipping away, the plumbing unfinished. They didn’t have hot water yet and probably never would. Much of the development beyond the Shenzhen fence seemed to be like this – abandoned before it was completed. There was so much work to do, so many new factories and apartments to build, and contractors moved on once the bare essentials were in place. It occurred to me that if anything in this region was actually finished, it was immediately sent away for export.” (106)

People living where the Three Gorges dam was going to flood
“But there was almost no long-term planning. If the river rose, they moved up the hillside; farmers waited until the water reached their fields before harvesting. When people spoke of the future, they meant tomorrow.” (132)

“And the lack of political stability taught people to avoid long-term plans. ‘Since 1949, policy has changed so often…You never knew what would happen. In the 1980’s, people saw the reforms as an opportunity. And you had to seize the opportunity, because it might not last.’ Whenever I traveled along the Yangtze, I sensed that the [Three Gorges] dam’s timing was perfect. Building the dam appealed to the dreams of the Communist leaders, but they never could have achieved it in the days of Maoist isolation and political chaos, before the market reforms. And if the reforms had been around long enough for locals to get their bearings and look beyond satisfying today’s immediate desires, they would have questioned and possibly resisted the project. In the future, when people look back at this particular moment in China’s transition, with its unusual combination of communism and capitalism, the most lasting monument may well be an enormous expanse of dead water in central China.” (133)

On a town that had been near a uranium mine
“Scientists said that, despite the public perception, radiation is a weak carcinogen. In the 1980’s, the National Cancer Institute conducted an extensive study of all 107 American counties that contained a nuclear power plant or a Department of Energy nuclear facility. The study found no excess cancers. Recently the institute participated in a fifteen-nation study that involved over four hundred thousand nuclear industry employees, all of whom had worn dosimeters that tracked radiation levels over years of work. Dr. Ethel S. Gilbert, a scientist at the institute, told me that they found no evidence of increased mortality for people exposed to doses of less than 0.1 sieverts, which is more than fifty times the average annual dose of an American nuclear-power employee. She talked about the challenges of explaining such issues, because people fail to distinguish between high and low doses of radiation…With high levels of radiation, there’s a clear linear pattern – more exposure means an incremental rise in risk. But it’s unclear whether this pattern continues into the lower-dose range, where any health effects are so small that they can’t be demonstrated by epidemiological studies.” (149)

“The experience [working in the Peace Corps] changed you, but not necessarily in the way you’d expect. It was a bad job for hard-core idealists, most of whom ended up frustrated and unhappy. Pragmatists survived, and the smart ones set small daily goals: learning a new Chinese phrase or teaching a poem to a class of eager students. Long-term plans tended to be abandoned. Flexibility was important, and so was a sense of humor. There had been nothing funny about the Peace Corps brochures, and the typical American view of the developing world was deadly serious – there were countries to be saved and countries to be feared. That was true of the Communists, too; their propaganda didn’t have an ounce of humor. But the Chinese people themselves could be surprisingly lighthearted. They laughed at many things, including me: my nose, the way I dressed, the way I spoke their language. It was a terrible place for somebody stiffly proud to be American. Sometimes I thought of the Peace Corps as a reverse refugee organization, displacing all of us lost Midwesterners, and it was probably the only government entity that taught Americans to abandon key national Characteristics. Pride, ambition, impatience, the instinct to control, the desire to accumulate, the missionary impulse – all of it slipped away.” (164)

On a chapter on driving in China.
“When you live in China as a foreigner, there are two critical moments of recognition. The first occurs immediately upon arrival, when you are confronted with your own ignorance. Language, customs, history – all of it has to be learned and the task seems impossible. Then, just as you begin to catch on, you realize that everybody else feels pretty much the same way. The place changes too fast; nobody in China has the luxury of being confident in his knowledge. Who shows a peasant how to find a factory job? How does a former Maoist learn to start a business? Who has the slightest clue how to run a car rental agency? Everything is figured out on the fly; the people are masters at improvisation. This is the second moment of recognition, and it’s even more frightening than the first.” (213)

In an interview with Yao Ming
“’In china, the goal has always been to glorify the country,’ Yao said. ‘I’m not opposed to that. But I personally don’t believe that that should be the entire purpose of athletics. I also have personal reasons for playing. We shouldn’t entirely get rid of the nationalism, but I do think that the meaning of sport needs to change. I want people in China to know that part of why I play basketball is simply personal. In the eyes of Americans, if I fail, then I fail. It’s just me. But for the Chinese, if I fail, then that means that thousands of other people fail along with me. They feel as if I’m representing them.’” (247)

“When I visited the GM China offices in Shanghai, Timothy P. Stratford, the company’s general counsel, handed me two photographs. In the first picture, two cars were parked side by side: the green one was the QQ [of the Chinese brand Chery], and the black one was the Matiz, the South Korean original. In the second picture, the doors had been switched: green on black, black on green. ‘You would never find two competitors’ cars where the doors could be swapped,’ Stratford explained. ‘It means that not only do they copy the door but everything else that is necessary to form the opening for the door. A door opening is kind of like a fingerprint for a car.’” (287)

In an article about the city of Lishui, which has many people dedicated to being painters.
“He explained that a clerk had miswritten his given name on an earlier application, so now it was simpler to just use that title. He was becoming somebody else, on his way to a country he’d never seen [Italy], preparing to do something completely new. When I asked what kind of work he hoped to find and what the pay might be, he said, ‘How can I tell? I haven’t been there yet.’ Next to us in line, a man in his early twenties told me he planned to go to Azerbaijan, where he had a relative who might help him do business. I asked the young man if Azerbaijan was an Islamic country, and he said, ‘I don’t know. I haven’t been there yet’…In other words, virtually everything I had heard from the Lishui migrant workers, in the form of unsubstantiated rumor, turned out to be true [about workplace hazards]. It was another efficiency of the third-tier factory town. People manufactured tiny parts of things, and their knowledge was also fragmented and sparse. But they knew enough to be mobile and decisive, and their judgment was surprisingly good.” (311)

In an article about moving back to the United States
“People in China never talked like that. They weren’t storytellers – they didn’t like to be the center of attention, and they took little pleasure in narrative. They rarely lingered on interesting details. It wasn’t an issue of wanting to be quiet; in fact, most Chinese could talk your ear off about things like food and money and weather, and they loved to ask foreigners questions. But they avoided personal topics, and as a writer I learned that it could take months before an interview subject opened up. Probably it was natural in a culture where people live in such close contact, and where everything revolves around the family or some other group. And a Chinese person with options would never choose to live in a place like southwestern Colorado. The American appetite for loneliness impressed me, and there was something about this solitude that freed conversation. One night at a bar in Ridgway [Colorado], I met a man and within five minutes he explained that he had just been released from prison. Another drinker told me that his wife had passed away, and that he had recently suffered a heart attack, and now he hoped that he would die within the year. I learned that there’s no reliable small-talk in America; at any moment a conversation can become personal.” (324)

“Leslie and I learned that the most effective way to kill our end of a conversation [when in the US] was to say that we were writers who had lived in China for more than a decade. Nobody knew what to make of that; they seemed much more comfortable talking about their most recent prison term. At times, the lack of curiosity depressed me. I remembered all those questions in China, where even uneducated people wanted to hear something about the outside world, and I wondered why Americans weren’t the same. But it was also true that many Chinese had impressed me as virtually uninterested in themselves and their communities. They weren’t reflective – they preferred not to think hard about their own lives. That was one of the main contrasts with Americans, who constantly created stories about themselves and the places where they lived. In a small town, people asked very little of an outsider – really, all you had to do was listen.” (325)

Overall, it’s a good book, and classic Peter Hessler, but not as great as an entire book on a single subject. You can find most of these articles in old issues of the New Yorker, but it’s nice to have them all in one place. I would say it’s a good book for someone who likes bite-size pieces, or who has enjoyed Peter Hessler’s books, and wants to have one last one that shares his wonderfully informative perspectives on China.

[Kang-Chun Cheng · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hessler is an incredible writer. I definitely have my favorites in this selection, but it is a wonderful, captivating collection overall. really capturing the dynamics, sensitivities, and isolations that come with living abroad long term as part of his stories.

[Jago · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Peter Hessler's writing, this collection of longform articles covering topics in the East and West is just fascinating. Hessler is always insightful and emphatic. Can't recommend his books more.

[Jonathan Jalbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating dive into some of China’s rapid changes in the 90’s and 00’s, as well as some stories about small-town America. Hessler has a keen sense of his outsider perspective but uses that as an advantage, building relationships with folks from a huge range of circumstances.

I found myself nourished with information about many questions I’d had before: What is the Peace Corps? How do Chinese people perceive Americans in China? Was Yao Ming as good as they say? How did displaced folks from the building of the Three Gorges Dam react? What is globalization? What are the lives like of the factory workers who make all our stuff?

Many of the essays feel pretty clearly written for the average white New Yorker reader (in an exoticizing of China kind of way), which makes sense and is perhaps a style that comes across more negatively these days. But overall, I think Hessler has a good heart and has put real effort and care into his relationships with the people he writes about, so that style didn’t bother me. The book comes together nicely as a testament to asking questions to strangers and being curious.

[Nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

As good as always.

[Jingyao Liu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel a little cheated reading this essay collections by Hessler: quite a few of the articles are directly taken from his previously published books - not just themes and subjects, but direct lines and paragraphs are being repeated. It feels less like a cohesive essay collection and more like a repackaging of previously published work, with minimal new reporting or synthesis.

I still like Hessler but to put it bluntly, this book feels like one of those books a good author puts out when they haven't written anything major in some years but still want to rake in some publishing income by leaning into their existing readership and looking through their old drafts to find those the tier 2 story ideas that never fully came to fruition. And I've only read Other Rivers and Country Driving - I wonder if more of these essays would look familiar if I'd read Oracle Bones and River Town. What frustrates me is that many of these essays feel like promising drafts rather than finished pieces - lacking either the depth of reporting or narrative development that would justify book publication.

>>>Wild Flavor
Yes, some Chinese people eat dogs. Some eat other weird animals like snakes and rats. BUT the vast majority of modern day Chinese people do not, can't even find access if they wanted to try, and abhor the idea of eating dogs. I find it slightly disturbing that Hessler's works repeatedly reinforce a largely untrue stereotype, especially when he is widely treated as a “definitive” Western voice on China.

>>>Hutong Karma
Not particularly memorable as far as plot goes, but as someone from Beijing, I appreciate an essay on Hutong culture.

>>>Walking the Wall
Too much of a repeat from the Country Driving chapters on the Great Wall. I'm pretty sure that books talks about the interesting foreign Great Wall researcher Spindler too.

>>>The Dirty Game
This is gold. I would read a whole book on this, if Hessler can dig up more details or anecdotes. It shows that Hessler can write a good story even if it's not about China. Opened my eyes on politics!

>>>Beach Summit
An interesting episode of Hessler experiencing real-life censoring / political danger in China, though kind of a minor episode that lacked more dramatic development.

>>>Boomtown Girl
Somewhat of a repeat - at least felt very similar to the last third of Country Driving and the parts in Other Rivers about his previous students.

>>>Underwater
Not memorable.

>>>The Uranium Widows
Absolutely fascinating. Would happily read a whole book on this if Hessler writes it.

>>>Strange Stones
Very much a repeat.

>>>All Due Respect
Interesting...though it felt like Hessler couldn't get too close to the story to go the depth it needs. I had so many questions on how xyz is possible for a foreigner to achieve in Japan. The feasibility and intricacy of investigating Yakuza need to be explored at a deeper level.

>>>When You Grow Up
Would read a whole book if Hessler can develop a relationship with these boys and track their lives. As is, it's interesting but too shallow and doesn't warrant making its way into a book.

>>>Quartet
Somewhat of a repeat from Country Driving.

>>>Home and Away
Interesting subject (Yao Ming) but poorly developed and scattered storylines and ultimately not memorable.

>>>The Home Team
Not memorable. Wei Jia and Wei Ziqi again (from Country Driving).

>>>Car Town
Repeat from Country Driving.

>>>Chinese Barbizon
A repeat. Literally word by word for certain passages.

>>>Go West
Interesting anecdote of Hessler accidentally winning a major race due to the top dogs deviating from race course. But again, a story you'd tell at a party with friends, not publish per se.

>>>Dr. Don
This has major potential if he can get close with the characters and win their trust so that he can cover the full depth of their life stories. A lot of eye-catching plot development and potential for a tear jerker of a book. I especially liked the part on the main character's gay brother. As is, it's too underdeveloped to make its way into a book.

I hope this is not too harsh. I'm only saying this because I like Hessler's books and have high hopes when he drops a book.

~quotes~
Out in the great wide world, foreign reporting can be depressingly narrow, especially in the post-9/11 climate. Sometimes it seems as if there are only two possible subjects for stories: people we should fear and people we should pity. But those aren’t the individuals I met while living abroad.
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In Namje, Tanka Bhujel had taught Rajeev that individuals often matter more than the system. “His style is to go directly to the most powerful person and ask what he wants,” Rajeev told me. Initially, he found this hard to do in Washington, where somebody without connections can’t get on the schedule for an important member of Congress. But then Rajeev started studying a book with color photographs of everybody in the House and Senate. “Once you know somebody’s name, you can talk to them,” he explained. Over time, faces stuck in his memory, and that was when Washington truly became a village. He recognized Senator Bob Corker and Senator Christopher Dodd at Reagan National Airport. He struck up a conversation with Representative Russ Carnahan at the Starbucks on Pennsylvania Avenue. He ran into Representative Peter Welch late one night outside Così, and he met Representative Dennis Kucinich at Le Pain Quotidien. Anybody can wander around the Senate hallways—you don’t even need an ID to get in—and Rajeev spent days there. He attended committee hearings so that he could approach key officials during breaks. He learned that the best spot in the House is the small underground rotunda that connects the Cannon and Longworth buildings; he met dozens of members there. His second year on the job, 124 House members added their names to a “Dear colleague” letter in support of increased funding for the Peace Corps, which drew more signatures than any other issue.

People told him that this routine was called “bird-dogging.” Lobbyists rarely work like this, because elected officials don’t want to be seen in public with a special interest, but the Peace Corps is far less threatening, especially when represented by Rajeev. “It’s rare that they see somebody a little bit young and a little bit brown,” he said. In August, I spent time with him on the Hill, and within two and a half days he had talked to fifteen senators without appointments. It was as if the political world had suddenly become very small, and yet it had a distinctly exotic tilt—Rajeev could find a Nepali connection that would start almost any conversation. He approached Mark Udall, the senator from Colorado, by mentioning that Udall’s mother had also served as a volunteer in Nepal. The senator immediately brought his hands together, bowed slightly, and said, “Namaste.” Rajeev introduced himself to Senator Dianne Feinstein by noting that her husband was the honorary consul general to Nepal. At a breakfast for Iowa constituents, Rajeev caught Senator Tom Harkin’s attention by referring to another Midwesterner who exports Tibetan rugs from Kathmandu. When he mentioned the Peace Corps, the senator said, “I wonder how many volunteers we have in Haiti.”
-----
His contribution to the nation’s ideology was a twenty-thousand-word speech about development that became known as “Three Represents.” Millions of Chinese studied this document in their schools and work units, but very few of them could tell you anything meaningful about it. Much of the speech was an exercise in tautology: “All relations of production and superstructures, regardless of their nature, develop with the development of productive forces. . . . As for how things will develop specifically in the future, the answer to this question should come from practice in the future.” The language of the speech became clear only when it defined a negative: “We must resolutely resist the impact of Western political models such as the multiparty system or separation of powers among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.”
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The People’s Republic was the first Communist state to have outlived the cult of personality, and the blandness of men like Jiang and Hu was perhaps their most salient characteristic.
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In 1978, two years after the death of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping marked his rise to power by initiating what became known as Reform and Opening—capitalist-style innovations that ended almost three decades of Communist economics. Deng avoided trying out the more radical changes in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai, where mistakes would be politically disastrous. Instead, he and his advisers experimented in less developed areas, in what came to be called Special Economic Zones. Through a system of tax breaks and investment privileges, the government hoped to encourage foreign firms to set up shop in these zones. In 1980, they conferred this honor on Shenzhen, a sleepy southern border town whose economy had depended mostly on fishing and farming. Shenzhen became a “reform laboratory,” and one of its nicknames was Window to the Outside World. Before long, major international corporations established plants in the city, including the American firms of IBM, Compaq, PepsiCo, and DuPont.
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Colorado’s atomic history is full of contradictions, beginning with the fact that the first large-scale mill that processed radioactive elements was built in hopes of curing cancer. Around the turn of the twentieth century, when Marie and Pierre Curie began pioneering research on radioactivity, they worked primarily with radium. Soon it was being used in experimental treatments of cancerous tumors, a forerunner of radiation therapy.
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In a region of tough people, this obscure and ruined spot sometimes seemed the sole point of sentimentality. Twice, former residents wept while talking about Uravan, which never happened during a discussion of a family death from cancer. Some of this had to do with the perception of agency: locals found dignity in mining and milling, which reflected personal decisions, whereas nobody had had a choice in leaving Uravan. But there was also a strong sense of injustice and waste. People loved the town, and they believed the cleanup was unnecessary; they hated the way outsiders assumed that Uravan natives suffered birth defects and other health problems.
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The effects of high doses are well documented, largely because of a sixty-year study of nearly a hundred thousand Japanese atomic-bomb survivors. With high levels of radiation, there’s a clear linear pattern—more exposure means an incremental rise in risk. But it’s unclear whether this pattern continues into the lower-dose range, where any health effects are so small that they can’t be demonstrated by epidemiological studies. [...]

After the Chernobyl accident, in 1986, antinuclear groups and scientists used the findings from the Japanese atomic-bomb survivors, extrapolated downward for the radiation levels in Europe, and predicted tens of thousands of deaths from cancer. Critics note that this is like taking a set of deaths from motorists who drove a curve at a hundred miles an hour and making the assumption that, if people slow to ten miles an hour, they’ll die at a tenth of the original rate. This is also why $127 million was spent obsessively cleaning up an abandoned town whose former residents lived longer than the national average. Metaphorically speaking, the Uravan speed limit was set at one. [...]

In Chernobyl, dozens of emergency workers died after fighting the reactor fire, but the health impact on neighboring communities seems to be limited. After more than twenty years of extensive study, there is no consistent evidence of increased birth defects, leukemia, or most other radiation-related diseases. The only public epidemic consists of high rates of thyroid cancer in children, whose glands are particularly sensitive to radiation. Fewer than ten people have died—thyroid cancer is usually treatable—but many have had to undergo surgeries, and it will be years before the full impact of the epidemic is known.

Even this epidemic, like the accident itself, could have been avoided entirely. The Soviet reactor lacked a containment facility, a design flaw that is unimaginable today, and the Communist government delayed announcing the accident. “The Russians could have done one thing that would have gotten rid of the epidemic of thyroid cancer,” Boice told me. “They could have said, ‘Don’t drink the milk.’ ” In surrounding areas, cows ate grass contaminated by fallout, and people fed the milk to their children.
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But people suffered from high rates of stress and increased alcohol consumption. Places near Chernobyl have high rates of alcoholism, tobacco use, and depression. After the Ukrainian accident, European countries as distant as Greece reported a significant spike in elective abortions, owing to a fear of birth defects.
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A year ahead of me, an older man had joined up after retiring from the U.S. Coast Guard. Everybody called him the Captain, and he was a devoted fan of Rush Limbaugh; at training sessions he wore a Ronald Reagan T-shirt, which stood out on the Chinese college campus where he lived. At one point, a Peace Corps official said, “Maybe you should change your shirt.” The Captain replied, “Maybe you should reread your Constitution.” (This was in the city of Chengdu.) One day, while teaching a class of young Chinese, the Captain drew a line down the heart of the blackboard and wrote “Adam Smith” on one side and “Karl Marx” on the other. “OK, class, short lesson today,” he announced. “This works; this doesn’t.”
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From the beginning, the Peace Corps had been described as a type of foreign aid, but another goal had been to produce Americans with knowledge about the outside world. It was intended to influence national policy—the organization had been inspired in part by the 1958 book The Ugly American, which criticized a top-down approach to foreign affairs. At some level, I came away with a deep faith in the transformative power of the Peace Corps; everybody I knew had been changed forever by the experience. But these changes were of the sort that generally made people less likely to work for the government. Volunteers tended to be individualists to begin with, and few were ambitious in the traditional sense. Once abroad, they learned to live with a degree of chaos, which made it hard to believe in the possibility of sweeping change. The vast majority of former volunteers would have opposed the American adventure in Iraq, because their own experiences had taught them how many things can go wrong with even the simplest job. But their opinions had virtually no impact on national policy, because they didn’t tend to be in positions of influence.
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“I’ve slept with sources,” he told me. “I’ve done hard negotiations that are probably tantamount to blackmail. I’ve ransacked rubbish bins for information. I’m willing to get information from organized crime or antisocial forces if the information is good.”
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“In China, the goal has always been to glorify the country,” Yao said. “I’m not opposed to that. But I personally don’t believe that that should be the entire purpose of athletics. I also have personal reasons for playing. We shouldn’t entirely get rid of the nationalism, but I do think that the meaning of sport needs to change. I want people in China to know that part of why I play basketball is simply personal. In the eyes of Americans, if I fail, then I fail. It’s just me. But for the Chinese, if I fail, then that means that thousands of other people fail along with me. They feel as if I’m representing them.”
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Her responses were typical of migrants from the countryside, where there’s a strong tradition of humility as well as pragmatism. In the factory town, people usually described themselves as ignorant and inept, even when they seemed quite skilled.
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People in China never talked like that. They weren’t storytellers—they didn’t like to be the center of attention, and they took little pleasure in narrative.
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In his will, Mr. Brick left more than half a million dollars in cash and stock to the local druggist. After taxes and other expenses, it came to more than $300,000, which was almost exactly what the community owed Don Colcord. But Don didn’t seem to connect these events. He talked about all three subjects—neglecting his dying brother, offering credit to the townspeople, and helping Mr. Brick and receiving his gift—in different conversations that spanned more than a year.

[Joel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hessler is one of my favorite non-fiction writers, with 3 previous books (my favorite one being Oracle Bones) about China and the years he spent living there. This book is a collection of stories he wrote for the New Yorker; most of them are about China, and some of them will be familiar to readers of his previous books, because the same stories appeared there. That's a bit disappointing. But there are also a few essays covering Colorado (where he moved when he left China), Japan, and Nepal. Those stories represent a branching-out for Hessler, and some of them- an examination of the legacy of uranium mining in southwest Colorado, a piece about the Japanese yakuza and a journalist who crusades against them- are among the best pieces in this book.

This is still an excellent book; even the familiar stories are worth reading again. Hessler approaches China with a very open mind, willing to approach the country on its own terms. Perhaps the most critical observation- which underpins much of what he writes about this rapidly-changing society- comes from the essay "Quartet":

"When you live in China as a foreigner, there are two critical moments of recognition. The first comes immediately upon arrival, when you are confronted with your own ignorance. Language, customs, history- all of it has to be learned, and the task seems impossible. Then, just as you begin to catch on, you realize that everybody else feels pretty much the same way. The place changes too fast; nobody in China has the luxury of being confident in his knowledge. Who shows a peasant how to find a factory job? How does a former Maoist learn to start a business? Who has the slightest clue how to run a car rental agency? Everything is figured out on the fly; the people are masters at improvisation. This is the second moment of recognition, and it's even more frightening than the first. Awareness of your own ignorance is a lonely feeling, but there's little consolation in sharing it with 1.3 billion neighbors."

[Bill Pritchard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of dispatches cover a number of years of Peter Hessler's early writing years, covering rural China and small towns in Colorado. Peter Hessler is well known as a correspondent for the New Yorker, and I have admired his work for many years. His quiet way of writing suggests that of an excellent listener, and his "way of seeing" opens ones eyes to many wonders - especially of China. The first dispatch speaks of eating Rat in China, and the last closes with the only pharmacist within four thousand square miles in Southwestern Colorado. Mr. Hessler combines the best of Charles Kuralt and Bill Bryson... and I am enthralled with the combination. Spending over 1 1/2 decades in China (the last time he put gas in a car in the United States he had to use leaded gas) left him with China as his frame of reference. He uses this frame to turn the mirror back to us Americans, and his insight is well worth reading. Allow me to share a small section (pg. 325): "In the States, I often had trouble responding to personal stories. But soon I realized that it didn't make much difference what I said. Many Americans were great talkers, but they didn't like to listen. If I told somebody in a small town that I had lived overseas for fifteen years, the initial response was invariably the same: "Were you in the Military?" After that, people had few questions. Leslie and I learned that the most effective way to kill our end of a conversation was to say that we were writers who had lived in China for more than a decade. Nobody knew what to make of that; they seemed much more comfortable talking about their most recent prison term. The lack of curiosity depressed me."

I could go on, but why ruin it for you? Take a chance and enjoy Strange Stories by Peter Hessler. Highly Recommended.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Hessler is one of my favorite writers and this collection of essays was a treat. My favorite pieces are those set in China, plus two pieces - Uranium Widows and Dr. Don -set in southwest Colorado. Uranium Widows is an excellent piece about public health in uranium workers. I was impressed with his open-mindedness and with the medical research he quoted. Dr. Don encapsulates what is best about living in a small town.

The Preface was fascinating. Hessler talks about trying to find the balance of how much of himself to include in an essay. I think he usually excels at this balance. Recently he has been writing essays about Egypt, and I have been having trouble reading these. After reading the Preface, I think what is missing in the Egyptian essays is that sense of personal involvement and balance. I know that he is fluent in Chinese and that this fluency makes his stories from China sing, so it may be his lack of fluency in Arabic that makes the Egyptian essays flat. But this is an aside - there are no Egyptian essays in this collection.

I loved learning that Hessler studied under John McPhee and that McPhee was instrumental in getting Hessler into the New Yorker. (I have the highest admiration for McPhee and still consider him one of the most important essayists of our time.)

This collection was like meeting with an old friend and remembering how valuable that friendship is.

[Jonathan Mckay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Refreshing.

Picked up this book on a recommendation from Jason (Blocked on Weibo: What Gets Suppressed on China's Version of Twitter), and I was not disappointed. The combination of stories from Americans and Chinese locales was jarring at first, but I think in the end made this book much more powerful. I didn't feel like there was any theme to the book, but there was the ability to see the world through the author's eyes, and get insight into village life on either side of the pacific. Unlike many American books on China, I felt like the author understood enough of the context to convey in a neutral manner what life was like, rather than add layers of American culture into the translation. (Such as Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China or China Airborne)

[Kuang Ting · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the latest book by Peter Hessler. It was published in 2013. It's a collection of his essays in publications. There are 18 stories in total. Most of the stories still took place in China, but he also shared his observations from Cairo, America, and even Japan. Each essay is independent. Readers can start from whatever appeals to you first. As usual, Hessler's story-telling is superb. He knows how to see things into details. I feel immersed into the time and space of each story.

It's interesting to see his change during the years. He is now married and becomes the father of a twin daughters. He no longer travels alone. His wife has become the best companion during the journey. It's sweet to see Hessler constantly mentions his wife. I sincerely wish them best wishes.

Several essays cover the same topics appeared in his previous books. They are tailored to fit the length of magazine articles. He added some new things in these stories. I think it's a good way to revisit these old memories. If you are new to this writer, the book offers a book start point, which gives you what he writes about. He usually writes the stories of ordinary people in a captivating way.
I really look forward to his new book in the future. I am curious about what life in Egypt is like.

[Alcibiades · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember I liked Peter Hessler's first three books very much. But the greatness i found out in this book made me think about to rearrange the ranking, then I realized its stupid to rank works, either from different authors or the same one.

Not like the previous works by Hessler, Strange Stones are made up by 18 short stories. While river town and oracle bones have memorable tones of consistency, strange stones stands out with its refinement by focusing on different subjects. The authors' mastery of storytelling and cultural insight made each of stories unique, interesting and sometimes thought-provoking. The moments of humor which were unexpected but so funny often led to my hysteric laugh. At most other occasions, the stories painted the culture or the person in a vivid, intimate but unflattering way i believe will give readers long lasting impressions and after thoughts. I guess all in all his book proves the skills of the author not only as a research journalist but also a leading nonfiction writer.

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have now read all four books by Peter Hessler, so you can tell I enjoy his writing. This one wasn't quite as interesting as the others because a lot of the material had been covered a bit - or a lot - in his previous books so I did not learn as much.

If you want to know what China is like from the viewpoint of an American who speaks Chinese (Mandarin, I assume) and lived there for, I think, about 14 years, read them in the order they were published. Mr. Hessler started out as a Peace Corp volunteer teaching English to Chinese students and went on to become a freelance writer while staying in China.

The writing is always clear, concise, and extremely interesting. He has driven all over the country and really does investigative journalism while writing in a very easy to read style. He loves to talk with people and will try anything to get a story, even eat at a restaurant that specializes in rat dishes.

The writing is always clear, concise, and extremely interesting. Mr. Hessler now lives in Caito and I am anxiously awaiting a book with fascinating stories about Egypt.

[Grady · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collects a number of essays originally published in the New Yorker. Somehow, knowing that Hessler had moved from Beijing to Cairo, I thought the 'west' in the title would include essays from Egypt, but it doesn't - instead it refers to three essays about rural Colorado. Unlike Hessler's previous books, which wove previously published material and new material into complex tapestries, there's no effort to thread the essays in this collection into a common fabric. Favorites for me in this collections included 'Walking the Wall', about the Great Wall of China and an American who studies it; 'the Uranium Widows', about a former uranium mining town in southern Colorado; 'Home and Away', comparing athletic stardom in China and in the West; and 'Dr. Don', a moving profile of a man who has served his Colorado community for years as a pharmacist and the only medical professional for miles around.

[Dominik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hessler jest reporterem idealnym: nie będąc do końca ani częścią świata wschodu, ani zachodu, podchodzi do obu z odpowiednim dystansem. Dystans ten wysuwa na pierwszy plan bohaterów książki: całe narody i miasta, poszczególnych ludzi, a nawet z pozoru martwe i nieme kamienie. Kamienie leżące setki lat przy Wielkim Murze, kamienie radioaktywne, podróżujące z Kolorado do Nagasaki, kamienie zatopione na dnie Jangcy, ale przede wszystkim dziwne kamienie. Hessler lubuje się w tropieniu dziwności: paradoksów rządzących ludzkimi żywotami, wymownych zbiegów okoliczności, przypadkowo (lub nie?) kojarzących ze sobą to co tak od siebie inne i dalekie. Ta podróż ze wschodu na zachód i z powrotem każe nam porzucić wszystkie znane współrzędne, kompasy wariują, a drogi na mapach prowadzą w kółko. Nie można zawrócić, trzeba podróżować dalej.

[Jill Blevins · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading "Country Driving" I couldn't wait to read this collection of similar stories based on the narrator's experiences in China, mainly. I was not disappointed. In fact, I read it again recently which is something I never, ever do but I was taking a travel writing class and wanted to see if this writing was as good as I remembered. And it was. Just delicious. And, although "Country Driving" is probably one of the best travel writing narratives written about a crazy country going through an incredible transition, this was just as fascinating. Although I have to say, the narrator has a way with China stories that will never get old. Midwestern family life? Not so much.

[Vincent O'Neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very enjoyable read. Peter Hessler combines personal experience with vivid writing and honed storytelling to describe his experiences living in China and then returning to the United States. From eating rat in Macao and helping a family move their belongings as the Three Gorges Dam claims their house, to following a school friend reporting on crime in Tokyo and finally relocating to a remote-but-captivating part of Colorado, every one of these stories is highly entertaining. I strongly recommend it.