Unsavory Elements: Stories of Foreigners on the Loose in China

by Tom Carter (Editor), Dominic Stevenson (Contributor), Peter Hessler (Contributor)

Unsavory Elements is an unprecedented anthology of 28 new, original, true stories from some of the most celebrated foreign writers that have lived in modern China. Westerners are flocking to China in increasing numbers to chase their dreams even as Chinese emigrants seek their own dreams abroad, and life as an outsider in China has many sides to it - weird, fascinating and appalling... Edited by Tom Carter, this anthology falls under the genre of travel writing, yet travel is just the beginning of the adventure here.

MEDIA REVIEWS

"Great vignettes from world class writers...a celebration of the outsider's experience in China, in all of its juiciness and fetid rancour." --Time Out Shanghai

"Excellent. Concise and truthful." --South China Morning Post

"Although other anthologies have featured outstanding journalism about China by Western writers, Carter's collection is the first to focus on the wide-ranging experiences of foreigners living in China." --China Daily

"The authors, mostly experienced writers who have traveled widely in China, offer tales beyond those of the usual laowai experience." --Shanghai Daily

"The majority of stories are individual gems and an enjoyably diverse range of issues are found in the book." --Time Out Hong Kong

"The moral of this collection appears to be that though almost everything has changed, one basic thing - the allure of China to a certain kind of Westerner - remains curiously consistent." --Taipei Times

"Funny, poignant, and wry...the outcome is a depth and variety about the expat experience and life in China that is almost unsurpassed." --Asian Review of Books

"Fast-moving romps through a rapidly-changing changing society." --Caixin

"An eminently dip-into-able, informative and enjoyable collection." --That's Shanghai

"One might be tempted to classify it as a travel book of sorts; what is being traversed and recollected throughout is not the lay of the land, but rather, the contours of confusion, excitement and isolation that every China expat has, at one point, had to clamber across and conquer." --The Beijinger

"A surprisingly refreshing, instead of rehashing, collection of essays, written by professionals, instead of amateurs...at times hilarious, at times beautiful, but always relatable..." --China.Org

"(Editor) Tom Carter has pulled together an impressive cast of writers, established and amateur alike." --Beijing Cream

"If there is an overarching message to take from the book, it is that holy !@#$ China changes quickly." --Shanghaiist

"The vignettes lead the reader through a variety of emotions; some will tug at your heartstrings, others will leave you chuckling in understanding, and a few will really make you think." --Shanghai City Weekend

"Presents a more realistic China." --Li Jihong for Shanghai Review of Books

"As a Chinese writer with a certain cynicism, I did not expect to find anything truly surprising. But surprised I was, and my own stereotypical presumptions stand corrected." --Xujun Eberlein for Los Angeles Review of Books

"The result is a highly readable, often humorous, and at times brilliant book that is unerringly direct: the authors gathered together here do not shy away from troublesome issues." --Asian Correspondent

"The title dis-serves them...the range, humor and insights in this book place it among the best of its kind." --Asia Sentinel

Genres: China, Travel, Nonfiction, Asia, Essays, Anthologies, Asian Literature

304 pages, Paperback

First published March 13, 2013

About the author

An inveterate vagrant who flirts with pictures and words, Tom Carter spent 2 straight years backpacking a groundbreaking 35,000 miles across all 33 Chinese provinces, and was named "one of China's foremost explorers" by The World of Chinese magazine. His first book CHINA: Portrait of a People (2008, Blacksmith Books, Hong Kong) has been hailed as the most comprehensive book of photography on modern China ever published by a single author. He is also the editor of Unsavory Elements (2013, Earnshaw Books, Shanghai), an anthology about foreign expats in China. Carter contributed photographs to a critically acclaimed Chinese-language travelogue authored by his wife Hong Mei about their year backpacking together across India. Most recently, he penned the illustrated biography An American Bum in China (2019, Camphor Press, Taiwan). Tom Carter was born and raised in the City of San Francisco, graduated with a degree in Political Science from the American University in Washington, D.C., and has called China home since 2004.

MEDIA REVIEWS OF TOM's BODY OF WORK:

CHINA: PORTRAIT OF A PEOPLE

"Tom Carter is an extraordinary photographer whose powerful work captures the heart and soul of the Chinese people." -- Anchee Min, author of Red Azalea

"Tom Carter's photo book is an honest and objective record of the Chinese and our way of life... his camera leads us through 33 wide-sweeping scenes of the real and the surreal." -- Mian Mian, author of Candy

"One of China's most extraordinary explorers." --The World of Chinese

"Unless you want to undertake your own two-year trek through some of the mainland's most difficult terrain to take your own shots, this is a study well worth having on your bookshelf." -- South China Morning Post

"It's a remarkable book, compact yet bursting with images that display the diversity of a nation of 56 ethnic groups." -- San Francisco Chronicle

UNSAVORY ELEMENTS

"Great vignettes from world class writers...a celebration of the outsider's experience in China, in all of its juiciness and fetid rancour." --Time Out Shanghai

"Although other anthologies have featured outstanding journalism about China by Western writers, Carter's collection is the first to focus on the wide-ranging experiences of foreigners living in China." --China Daily

"The authors, mostly experienced writers who have traveled widely in China, offer tales beyond those of the usual laowai experience." --Shanghai Daily

"The result is a highly readable, often humorous, and at times brilliant book that is unerringly direct: the authors gathered together here do not shy away from troublesome issues." --Asian Correspondent

"The title dis-serves them...the range, humor and insights in this book place it among the best of its kind." --Asia Sentinel

AN AMERICAN BUM IN CHINA

"Painfully hilarious...the escapades Evans experiences are the stuff of legend." -- Des Moines Register

"His story serve(s) as a cautionary tale for anyone who may believe that China needs Americans more than Americans need China, using Evans' misadventures as an example." -- Muscatine Journal

"Tom Carter does very well to draw out Evans' story, to capture the declining towns of the Midwest, to narrate his friend's exploits with humor, pithy realities, and insight, and to emphasize the political significance of China's events. His prose is deft and his observations show an excellent knowledge of what he speaks." -- The Beijinger

"Even the most ardent defenders of fiction will be forced to admit: you just can't make this stuff up...there is a page-turning quality to the book based on the simple, foreboding question: just how bad is this going to get?" -- Los Angeles Review of Books' China Channel

Reviews

[Richard Burger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never met an expat in China who didn't have his or her own extraordinary stories to tell, stories that at times made them stop and ask themselves, "What exactly am I doing here?" Every day one can experience an "only in China" moment, like waiting three hours to see a bank teller or seeing teenagers sleeping and snoring at an Internet cafe. Having lived in Singapore and Taipei, I've been struck by the cities' huge differences with China in terms of daily life. In the former two, there are rarely any surprises at all. They are great places to live, but they are also predictable. You are rarely taken aback by what you see on the street. China, as we all expats know, can be one surprise after another. We all have a battery of stories that prove it.

Which brings me to Tom Carter's superb book of short stories, Unsavory Elements: Stories of Foreigners on the Loose in China, written by some of the most prominent writers in (or formerly in) China, like journalist and author Jonathan Watts, Alan Paul (author of Big in China), Deb Fallows (a linguist, author and wife of James Fallows), novelist and Fulbright Scholar Kaitlin Solimise, and an epilogue by the great Simon Winchester, author of The River at the Center of the World. And there are 23 others, most of them writers of incredible competence and backgrounds rich in China experience. Somehow, Tom Carter, the photographer behind the acclaimed photo-essay book China: Portrait of a People, has achieved the impossible, tracking down 28 of the most brilliant China hands and inducing them to write first-rate stories about some of their most exceptional experiences in China. Carter somehow got them all to deliver their stories, edited them and whipped them into a book that is fast paced (I read it in two or three sittings) and, like China, full of surprises.

It is impossible to write a thorough review of this book. That would take 28 posts, one for each story; trying to choose which ones to mention in this review is painful, because there is so much good in so many of them. You really need to read the whole thing. If you live in China or are curious about expat life there, this is required reading.

Like any book with 28 authors, there is going to be some unevenness. There was one story that I found disappointing, as I thought the author was puffing it up. One or two were too long, a couple were inconclusive and begged for more finality. But the remarkable thing is just how high the quality of nearly all the writing is and how remarkable the situations are, some of them downright bizarre.

Michael Levy, author of a book I should have reviewed a long time ago, Kosher Chinese, kicks the book off with the kind of moral dilemma China is known for: Michael, teaching at an English training school for rich Chinese kids, is offered a bribe to write the students' admission letters so they can get into exclusive American boarding schools. At $1,000 an essay, it's a tempting offer. Levy takes us into the world of teaching in China and, coming back to the bribe, leaves us hanging in a surprise ending.

One story that fascinated me for its sheer strangeness was by author Dominic Stevenson about his stay at a Shanghai prison for smuggling dope across the border. When I've read in the newspaper about foreigners being arrested in China and put in jail I've always wondered what they go through and how they survive. While this story isn't poetic, it paints a wonderful picture of life behind bars and the special privileges foreigners enjoy there. (Despite some of the relative comforts they enjoy, it's an experience I plan on never knowing first-hand.)

The most breathtaking story is told by Susie Gordon about her night out with a fabulously rich Chinese businessman who, with no second thought, plunks down $20,000 for a few bottles of wine in a single sitting. Describing one wild night with Mr. Zhou and his son and friends, Gordon transports us into the rarefied world of China's super-rich, with all the luxuries, the trappings, the sins and temptations. She describes the behavior of Zhou's son and his obscenely wealthy friends at a lavish karaoke bar operated by a friend, Yu Haiming:

"The customary libation at KTV is whiskey mixed with green tea, or watery beer from tall green bottles, but Yu Haiming's place was unsurprisingly different. He had two of the girls bring in a magnum of champagne, a little silver tray arrayed with slim white lines of powder that might have been coke but in all likelihood was ketamine, and pills nestled like candies in a brass bowl. At one point, I remember looking around at the girls, the men, the drugs and the money, and wondering how long this utopia could last: the Chinese dream in its second prodigal generation."

The entire story is a tour de force. And there's much more: Deb Fallows' observations on all the things you're not allowed to do in China (the story is appropriately titled Bu Keyi), and how she and her husband came face to face with the law while shooting photos of Tiananmen Square on the 20th anniversary of the June 4 "incident." Jonathan Watts making a visit to an environmentalist in the rain forests of Xishuangbanna. Bruce Humes' truly harrowing depiction of his brutal mugging and subsequent experience in a Shenzhen hospital... The most poignant story is Kaitlin Solimine's gorgeous depiction of her "second mother" when she lived in China as an exchange student, who became a lifelong friend.

Unsavory Elements is the title of editor Tom Carter's own story, a tale of his visit with two friends to a seedy Chinese brothel in the countryside on a lane called "Teen Street." The story has generated considerable controversy. The story is hilarious -- one of the friends is a consummate loser and Carter's description of him caused me to laugh out loud. It took a lot of chutzpah to write a story like this, and I give Carter credit for his daring to tell a story that many expat men experience but usually choose not to tell to the world. I enjoyed reading this fast-paced piece, but I have to say that I understand why it is so controversial. The story is farce, and to shift gears and go the politically correct route and tell about the sorrows and tragedy of prostitution would have disrupted the tone. I thought, however, that Carter could have woven at least something into this story that conveyed a bit more empathy for the girls' plight, without being preachy. It's a hard thing to do, interjecting such a serious note into such a side-splitting narrative, but I know Carter has the skill to do this. Nevertheless the story stands out as one of the highlights of the book, another look behind the scenes of what most of us will never experience ourselves.

Do yourselves a favor and read the book. From high farce to heartbreaking poignancy, it's all here, and you get to peer into aspects of China you may never have known about otherwise (like Dan Washburn's trip deep into the Guizhou countryside, or Kay Bratt's moving story of a girl in a Chinese orphanage). One can only marvel at Carter's ability to get these stories written and then to draw them all together to form a unified whole. I've now read the book twice. It is a labor of love, and I think you'll love it, too.

[Jane Chu · Rating 2 out of 5]

the quality is all over the place. some decent pieces by old china hands, but way too many from the english-teaching crowd. at times i was quite peeved to have paid list price for a slew of typical "oh chiiiiina" stories that are a dime a dozen off any drunkard in Sanlitunr. ultimately it was Jonathan Watts and Pete Spurrier that salvaged this collection. oh and Tom Carter's is as bad as they say, not because it's about prostitution but because it's just try-hard and horribly written.

[Isham Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even before this book came to press it was already in the thick of polemic and controversy - for all the wrong reasons. Some advance-copy reviews by feminist editors in the expat zines of Beijing and Shanghai have been withering, particularly of editor Tom Carter's own "exploitative" and "juvenile" contributing story on a brothel visit (e.g. http://www.timeoutshanghai.com/featur...). It is actually one of the best pieces in the book, its slapstick style perfectly suited to the tawdry circumstances of a group of clumsy foreigners haggling in the shabbier variety of Chinese brothel. It is the only story in the entire collection, in fact, that merits the book's title. Before I came to the book, I was expecting and hoping for just that, something unsavory, stories of a refreshingly seedy and disreputable nature, peeling back a new layer of reality in Chinese society as more and more foreign pioneers venture deeper into the country. Inevitably, someone would take it upon himself to dredge up a collection of lascivious or discomfiting encounters and slap it together as a book. What we have here instead, alas, is a much more banal take on "unsavory elements": "the communist propaganda machine" use of the phrase (as Carter first recalled it) to describe anyone of questionable, less than revolutionary morals. Foreigners - formerly "foreign devils" - are by definition unsavory; their mere presence in the Middle Kingdom unsavory. It is not possible to be a foreigner in China and not simultaneously bumbling, gauche, vulgar and unsavory. Thus any random collection of non-fiction stories of foreign devils wandering around or working and living in China will do. The 28 contributors represent quite a spread, scattered about the country in pretty much all walks of life, but what cannot be said about them (with a few exceptions) is that they are unsavory. They are, on the contrary, painstakingly polite, respectful and normal. They are strenuously family-friendly; nine of the stories - those by Levy, Paul, Muller, Bratt, Arrington, Washburn, Solimine, Watts, and Conley - concern actual families and children or the teaching of children. The pieces are all good clean fun, worthy of inclusion in Reader's Digest or those bland, antiseptic Intensive/Extensive Reading textbooks for freshmen English majors in Chinese universities.

Inevitably, the collection is uneven. The pieces by Peter Hessler and Simon Winchester are predictably the most assuredly written, though they don't really tell us anything we can't get from their own books about China. Meyer, Polly, Earnshaw, Spurrier, and Kitto are competent writers but fail to particularly stand out, unlike Watts' piece on the German botanist and eccentric Josef Margraf, and Fuchs on Tibetan muleteers, which benefit from their intriguing subject matter. Stevenson mars his intriguing subject matter of life in a Chinese prison with snideness (here I direct readers instead to the extraordinary book Prisoner 13498: A True Story of Love, Drugs and Jail in Modern China by Robert H. Davies of his experience in Chinese prisons). Humes' horrific account of being violently mugged suffers from his gratuitous histrionics while recovering in the hospital; the tantalizing question and cliffhanger of how he was able to pay for the huge medical expenses (without any cash or insurance) is hinted at and then forgotten. Some pieces lack contextualization, like Eikenburg's account of her daring courtship with a Chinese male, but what decade is she referring to, exactly? Interracial relationships on the Mainland are far more ubiquitous and accepted now than two or three decades ago, when I imagine her relationship took place; a reader unfamiliar with China might wrongly assume things are as stringent and racist today as ever.

If I had been given the same anthology project with the same title and the same contributors to choose from, I would keep three. I would start the book off with Winchester's piece as a prologue (instead of its current slot as epilogue), then proceed with the spicy if rather innocuous account of KTV escorts among China's privileged by Susie Gordon, followed by Carter's aforementioned piece. For the succeeding stories, I would have to find alternative, more intrepid contributors willing to challenge bourgeois readerly expectations and really get down and rock 'n' roll in China's seamy, truly unsavory underside. After all, I would only be doing what China's own writers have already done, like Wang Shuo, Jia Pingwa and Zhu Wen back in the 1980s depicting life among hoodlums and lumpen elements at large or the graphic accounts of casual sex and drug use by Hong Ying, Wei Hui, Mian Mian and other female writers of the 1990s. Until that happens, pass on the word of Tom Carter's enticing new collection at the local bake sale or church group back home when queried on a latest wholesome introduction to China to curl up at the fireplace with.

[Emma Sea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of essays which shed some light on a few of the cross-cultural miscommunications I've experienced. The best of the bunch for me was a hockey fic, natch, Diplomacy on Ice by Rudy Kong, about a "friendly" ice hockey match in Manchuria.

I didn't realize until I'd finished that the book was somewhat controversial. Many other readers had the same negative response to Tom Carter's piece about visiting a small town brothel. The complete lack of empathy or insight, and the horrible devaluing of human life according to a genetic potluck of cultural standards of beauty was very upsetting to me.

But I can't judge the whole book by this single piece. Overall, a very interesting read.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unsavory Elements is a new anthology of western writers who have lived in China in recent years. If you think of any author who has published a book about China over the last decade, it's very likely that you'll find him or her in Unsavory Elements.

What surprised me wasn't that this book has such an all-star line-up, but that it contains work of writers I hadn't previously known.

One of my favorite essays is Kaitlin Solimine`s "Water, for Li-Ming," a tribute to her host mother from when she lived in Beijing on an exchange program at the tender age of 16. Her writing is fluid and reflective and I wanted to know more. As it turns out, Kaitlin is working on a novel based on her host family.

Another new writer (to me) whose essay I just love is Susie Gordon. In "Empty from the Outside," she narrates a late-night outing with rich and powerful Shanghai twentysomethings. Susie is part-business associate, part-accessory as the only foreign woman in the group. It's certainly a different look at Shanghai than most foreigners experience. She is also the author of several guidebooks about China.

And speaking of western women, Jocelyn Eikenburg (whose work I already knew!) writes about dating her now-husband and needing to hide the fact that they were living together. If the university officials had found out he was living with a foreign woman, he would have been kicked out of his program. Jocelyn is the doyenne of Western women/Asian men relationships and blogs at www.speakingofchina.com. She is also working on a memoir.

Other contributors I've read include Aminta Arrington, Kay Bratt, and Susan Conley, all of whom write essays about being a foreign mother in China. That's something you don't read about often.

[Julia · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few of the stories were ok and have made me want to read further books by certain authors. However other stories were superficial and at times irritating. Maybe this was becuase they were short stories but I felt these accounts just touched the surface of a different culture and only demonstrated the non inclusivity of a few of the authors. I found Chris Thrall's account of living in Hong Kong showed a deeper understanding and sensitivity towards the cultural differences between East and West.

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you happen to be a China expat, no doubt you have a crazy story to tell. I may feel like an old China hand myself at this point, but I came in 2008 just as the last of the real wildness was getting homogenized. I have my own stories, but nothing like the best of these. Somehow editor Tom Carter has captured the cream of the crazy China experiences, and what a read it is.

Like any anthology, it can be hit or miss. However, there are no great misses, only adequate stories lost among the truly memorable. From famed “Oracle Bones” author Peter Hessler’s story of refugee thieves at the North Korean border in “View from the Bridge”, to Michael Levy’s opening “Selling Hope” about crooked English teachers (a theme very familiar to anyone living here), every account is solid and interesting and the consistent quality is impressive. But it seems to get darker as the book reaches its conclusion, and I for one appreciated that. Charming expat family stories – such as Aminta Arington’s “Communal Parenting” and Susan Conley’s “Where There Are Crowds” – give way to tales of extremely illegal activity detailing the underbelly of Chinese society – of which I will list my favorites below. Thing about China though, is the dark underbelly is never that well-hidden and we all knew it was there the entire time...

My personal favorites: “Stowaway by Pete Spurrier, about hardcore backpacking and sneaking through trains and living on the edge of running out of money and visas; “Diplomacy on Ice” by Rudy Kong details the world of Northern hockey with a healthy does of extreme bloody violence; “You Buy Me Drink?” by Nury Vittachi details easily-impressed gangsters and scammers; “One of the People” by Bruce Humes might be the most terrifying of all, about being mugged and his time in a Shenzhen hospital almost getting his hand amputated, and yet horrifying though may be it’s always written with lighthearted humor; “Thinking Reports” by Dominic Stevenson is another downer, an excerpt from the hash-smuggling author’s time in a Shanghai prison writing propaganda reports, and as serious a situation as it is he never wants any pity only to tell his story; and “Empty from the Outside” by Susie Gordon covers more drugs and call girls all while living the highlife.

Finally, the namesake story “Unsavory Elements” by the infamous Tom Carter. If you haven’t heard, he goes to a brothel. It’s really not as offensive as I was expecting, it’s one of the funniest pieces and gives an important yet irreverent insight into what’s really goes on after late nights of partying in this country.

A unique book with a unique take on China, with none of the standard journalistic flair and dull economic theories. This is about real life and a real window into the emerging soul of the rising Middle Kingdom. There is something for everyone in the midst of all these talented storytellers. While it was very entertaining to me as an expat, I would recommend this book most of all to people who have never even been to China. The world should know, these are the real stories of this insanely fascinating land.

[Jessica Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and enlightening collection of true stories focusing on foreigners’ relationships with the Chinese, their roles in Chinese society, and adapting to Chinese culture. Contributors of all-new, original essays include best-selling authors Peter Hessler, Susan Conley, Simon Winchester and Michael Meyer.
Some new names as well such as standouts Dan Washburn, Susie Gordon, Kaitlin Solimine and Tom Carter (also the editor). Essential reading for anyone planning on expatriating to the PRC.

[Jessica Katelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

These “true tales” are extremely well written by professional China writers who know how to weave entertaining narratives with broader cultural themes. Will resonate with any and all whom have spent time in the Middle Kingdom or are considering making the move. Might have benefitted by upping the word-count on brand-name authors and purging submissions from the lesser-knowns.

[John Robbet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could have done without some of the more sleazy tales like Susie Gordon’s night out with rich Shanghainese drug users, Nury Vittachi’s bar-room mishap, or Tom Carter’s R-rated rendering of a bottom-rung brothel

[Marko Williamson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great writing from some great authors – all ruined by one highly-offensive essay (Tom Carter’s transaction with teenaged prostitutes) that has single-handedly overturned all that human trafficking NGOs in Asia have worked so hard to achieve.

[Amy VanGundy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting takes on foreigner life in China. A good representation of how everyone has their own "China life" and they are far from the same. However, all the stories, felt like teasers, too short, leaving me like I'd eaten a puff pastry or something. I'd like longer stories and less . . . sensational? Just my opinion.

[Daniel da Rocha · Rating 4 out of 5]

as usual with collections of short essays, quality varies. But as an expat in China, you can't help but be amused with other people's experiences around here. recommended!

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The vignettes are uneven, but it's worth a read.

[Arthur Meursault · Rating 5 out of 5]

TLDR VERSION: Excellent collection of short stories from people who understand China and who, more importantly, can write well.

SLIGHTER LONGER VERSION: As with any collection of short stories the quality can sometimes ebb and flow, and the stories you like best or worst will all be a matter of taste. It's also surprising how the better stories are not necessarily from the authors you think would have provided the best work. For example, one of the better known names in the author list is Peter Hessler, but to my knowledge he is the only author who didn't submit an original work, instead recycling a previous article about a trip to Dandong on the North Korean border in his usual "Look at me! My connections got me a job at the New Yorker!" style and, more importantly, committing the cardinal sin of writing an article about Dandong without referencing the wonderful PORT OF DANDONG advert on CCTV.

Putting Hessler to one side, there are some lovely little stories here. If Unsavory Elements was a cake then the cherries on the top would include the titular story by Tom Carter about an unsavory trip to a brothel that is sure to enrage all right-thinking feminists everywhere into angry tweets and emergency trips to Element Fresh. Other cherries (there are a lot of cherries in this cake - it's a black forest gateau) would be a fun little story about the perils of ordering t-shirts wholesale by Matthew Polly and the corrupt side of TEFL by Michael Levy. There are a few clunkers though - clunkers in that they are far too savory for a book that is supposed to be about the unsavory. I won't name the dull authors, but there a handful of annoyingly middle-class and twee stories about taking the kids on a road trip or adopting a Chinese child that wouldn't be out of place as the kind of filler article found in a glossy expat mag advertising overpriced international kindergartens and imported Balinese furniture that only expat wives with access to a husband's credit card can afford. As a book that advertises itself as a showcase for the risqué side of foreigners on the loose in China, I would have liked to have seen more stories about sex, drugs and alcohol and less stories about shoes and hot pot. It's a shame that what should have been a rip-roaring motley collection of wild shenanigans in the wild wild east has been hijacked in certain chapters by female authors looking to erase the voices of male writers on non-colour.

Still, overall 4 stars out of 5, and an extra star for not referencing Leta Hong Fincher.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

In a collection of 28 you would be hard pressed to not get a few duds.
Highlights from: Matthew Polly, Deborah Fallows, Jonathan Watts, Dominic Stevenson, Pete Spurrier... most of the female writers’ works in this holds up much better, simply for being slightly thoughtful and not sexist.

Want to give it 1 star for Tom Carter’s piece as it’s quite simply atrocious and includes the phrase “eight single lidded eye slits”.

The fact is if you’re going to be a foreigner writing about anywhere maybe don’t be such a racist about it???

[Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’re about half of these excerpts that interested me to read its full book.

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

`O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us.', February 7, 2014

Tom Carter is fast becoming a leader in international diplomacy. His immensely successful book CHINA: PORTRAIT OF A PEOPLE remains a model f melding photography with commentary. This handsome hunk adventurer is from San Francisco originally but won a degree in political science from the American University in Washington, DC and packed his backpack for China in 2004 where he spent two years trekking across 35,000 miles through every Chinese province, winning the title `son of China's foremost explorers' while capturing it all on film and imbedding his psyche with the myriad aspects of the people and beauties of China. This man knows China.

Now he turns another leaf with editing this wholly satisfying collection of short stories (including some of his own) written by people who have lived in China for an extended period of time. The writer contributors Carter selected are a collection of some of our important writers of the day along with some who sound as though they may become important after this book is circulated. While some may think Carter selected a series of pro-Chinese stories (and there are some winningly warm tales here) the real twist is that we get first hand information on all the changes that have happened in the Chinese population since the Cultural Revolution as directly observed by ex-pats dealing directly with the Chinese. The extremes of wealth and poverty, the graft and corruption, the drive to mold young people to be able to move to the US to gain and education and a freer way of life, the customs of old mixed with the preponderance of Starbucks in the big cities, the `classes of prostitution', the variations of life in the villages compared to the organized chaos of the cities of Beijing and Shanghai - it is all here, distilled into cups of tea we can sip at leisure, discovering the array of attitudes, customs and evolving manner of transforming a country rich in culture to a polluted power obsessed. This is an important book, not only because of the content, but also because Tom Carter cares about the `globalism ` of learning about all the friends who share this planet.

[E Sheridan · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some lovely vignettes of expat family life in this compilation, most notable Susan Conley's exploration of hutong culture with her children, Alan Paul's lampoon-ish family adventure in Szechuan, Kay Bratt taking a disabled orphan under her wing, and Kaitlin Solimine's heart-warming homestay experience.

But beware: this book lives up to its "Unsavory" title with several profane tales which left me shaken rather than stirred: not one but two stories about beatings (Hessler and Humes), an English teacher hitting on his female Chinese assistant (Matthew Muller), Nury Vittachi (a children's book writer for Scholastic no less!) interacting with gangsters and bar girls, Susie Gordon's glamorization of drug use and materialistic extravagance, SEVERAL baijiu (rice liquor) stories celebrating China's binge-drinking culture, and the editor Tom Carter's funny but nonetheless disturbing patronage of prozzies.

Fortunately an anthology allows the reader to be selective, and there are a whopping 28 action-packed stories to choose from, so I still feel good about recommending this book to my network of expat families.

[Sterling · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I had have written my review of this book a month ago just after I finished it I would have a lot more interesting things to report. Unfortunately I'm a busy person who reads/listens to books constantly and forgets the finer details rather quickly these days. This is a fascinating read for anyone of European descent who has spent time as an expat in China and Taiwan--or other various Asian nations I expect. Actually if the subject matter intrigues you I could recommend this for nearly any reader. It's just a cool collection of stories of "foreigners" and their experiences in China. It was especially great fun to have articles from luminaries like Peter Hessler and Simon Winchester in the mix. You get everything from train rides and Tibetan excursions, to transporting drugs and patronizing a brothel. There's more than one tale about a foreigner's unwise attempt to beat the Chinese at baijiu and every story has something interesting to say about how Western values often clash head-to-head with Chinese tradition and policy. I need to read this book again if nothing but for the sheer fun of it.

[Kate Denis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone interested in reading about modern China from the prospective of Westerners will already be familiar with heavyweight writers Peter Hessler and Simon Winchester, who make token appearances in the anthology.

The reader should therefore focus their attentions on the new talent commissioned by editor Tom Carter:

Dominic Stevenson, who spent 2 years in a Chinese prison for drug dealing, writers a light-hearted yet thoughtful account of his interactions with one of the guards. Jonathan Campbell, a drummer for a rock-band touring around China, pens a second-person narrative about his humorous observations from the road. Jocelyn Eikenburg, an American exchange student at a Shanghai university, falls in love with a Chinese man and must duck and dodge the school’s strict “no dating foreigners” rule.

Uneven, yes, but that is to be expected from any collection of writing that mixes established authors with emerging talent. All in all, expertly-edited, and an excellent and edifying read.

[Karen Hensley · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories and glimpses of foreigners encountering China are very illuminating. I am getting ready to visit China and devouring all the books and movies that I can fit in. This was a nice easy book to read and it provokes thought and comparison to other things that I have read about China.

This book is such a pleasant way to get better prepared for my trip. I also read Wild Swans, Life and Death in Shanghai, Red Azaleas, Oracle Bones and more. But Unsavory Elements was the lighter read while still having lots of good non-ficiton information.

Interesting that an amazing number of the good reviews come from ex-pats who have or are living in China. Maybe people in-the-know appreciate this book more? I know that the stories meant much more to me because of the months that I have spent reading other non-fiction about China.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Life as an expat. Doesn't matter what country it is, there are good days, bad days, and really bad days where you want to hide out in your "home" and pretend you live a more normal life. This book has experiences with all of those perspectives represented. Yes, these stories are specific to China and with that you will gain some perspective into modern Chinese culture - the good, the bad, and the truly ugly. It can be a hard place, but the challenge is worth it and don't let the bad stories scare you away!

[Silvia Lopez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this anthology’s clever balance of comedy with serious works (Guardian correspondent Jonathan Watts, explorer Jeff Fuchs, AP journalist Audra Ang). Humorous writers of note include Rudy Kong (ice-hockey brawl with Chinese cops), Derek Sandhaus (baijiu binge-drinking), Matt Muller (trying to teach English to a class full of disinterested students), and Matthew Polly (making a go of a t-shirt venture to pay for kung-fu classes).

[Lee Mavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unsavory Elements is a great collection of short stories that are all themed around foreigners. There are funny, sad and touching stories within, perfect for anyone whose worked in a foreign country.
I absolutely loved the contrast in narrative style and setting even though the book is limited to the above themes.

Those who are into travel stories will love this book!

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually liked this book more than the 3 star rating might indicate. Or I should say that I liked some of the stories a lot more. Unfortunately that wasn't true of all them. I do recommend it--both as a good bit of insight into how complicated a country China is and how diverse the reasons for being there and the experiences of foreigners there.

[Ann Madlina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riveting collection of true narratives by some of the country’s most notable “Old China Hands.” I shan’t expect any other China anthology to ever top this one in terms of scope of topics or name recognition of the writers involved. Published locally by Earnshaw Books in Shanghai, so I am doubly glad to help support an independent publisher.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay. Lots of different stories. Maybe I was expecting this to be more on the funny side, but it turned out to be a collection of different essays. Some of the essays were interesting, but some took time to understand. Nevertheless, its a good read in understanding how westerners handle being in China.

[Noel French · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, quick read that dishes out a number of "China slice of life" stories from excellent and (among China watchers) well known Western authors. Importantly, it approaches China through various lenses that offer a perspective apart from the normal narrative of China's rise.

[Ian McHugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A varied and enjoyable look at ex-pat life in China. Some pieces are better than others but the mish-mash of stories and perspectives mean this is a very entertaining read.