Fried Eggs with Chopsticks: Around China by Any Means Possible

by Polly Evans

When she learnt that the Chinese had built enough new roads to circle the equator sixteen times, Polly Evans decided to go and witness for herself the way this vast nation was hurtling into the technological age. But on arriving in China she found the building work wasn't quite finished. Squeezed up against Buddhist monks, squawking chickens and on one happy occasion a soldier named Hero, Polly clattered along potholed tracks from the snow-capped mountains of Shangri-La to the bear-infested jungles of the south. She braved encounters with a sadistic masseur, a ridiculously flexible kung-fu teacher, and a terrified child who screamed at the sight of her. In quieter moments, Polly contemplated China's long and colourful history - the seven-foot-tall eunuch commander who sailed the globe in search of treasure; the empress that chopped off her rivals' hands and feet and boiled them to make soup - and pondered the bizarre traits of the modern mandarins. And, as she travelled, she attempted to solve the ultimate gastronomic just how does one eat a soft-fried egg with chopsticks?

Genres: Travel, China, Nonfiction, Memoir, Asia, Humor, Biography

335 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2005

Reviews

[Jerjonji · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's rare that I read a travel book and get a feeling that the writer actually loved the country he/she was visiting. Usually, it's about 'the foreigner in a foreign place'. This book was no exception. In spite of learning some Mandarin before heading off to see China by herself, she doesn't seem to enjoy the trip at all. Travel woes, weariness, constant feelings of alienation, cultural clashes, and the struggle to communicate wear the reader down. I kept thinking, just enjoy it! Let go of your preconceptions, and enjoy the trip! But she never does. She tries to be lighthearted and funny, but most of the time her griping interferes with the humor. She should not be a travel writer, I decide by the end. She should be a business traveler where everything is clean and tidy. But the places she went, the people she met, the things she saw, the food she ate... it made me intensely jealous!

[marcus miller · Rating 1 out of 5]

For some reason this book annoyed me. I couldn't decide if the book was about China or if it was about her. After awhile I decided it was mostly about the author. If you are worried about getting sick, unusual food, filthy toilets (or slits in the ground), and long train rides I wouldn't recommend going to China, a place I found to be fascinating in the few weeks I was able to visit. If you are interested in a travel book I would recommend the Lonely Planet. If you want hilarious, pick up Mark Twains, Innocents Abroad. If you want to read about the complaints of an adventurous but whiny traveler this should do the job.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutely horrendous...

I should've known from the outset by the poorly designed cover and obnoxious title that this book would be a disappointment. With a pitiful sense of humor that limps weakly from page to page, the author delves into the filth and misery that she maintains is the true China.

While some of her observations may in part be true (I admittedly have no idea), she decimates any interest in reading of her experiences in the country any further. After describing the unsanitary waste disposal system, the excrutiatingly painful "massage" intended to rid her of the flu, the blackened, stench-filled air, the author had almost nothing positive to say her experiences while there. I will definitely look elsewhere to get a more substantial and enthralling look at China.

Honestly, I couldn't even finish the book...and I NEVER give up on books, I always hold out until the very end. If you value your time and money in the slightest, do not waste the precious moments of your life with this book.

[Christine Zibas · Rating 4 out of 5]

"When we arrived in Zhengzhou, we headed straight for the China International Travel Service office where a man called Mr. Li had very kindly acquired a ticket for me for that evening's sleeper train to Hangzhou. He was waiting in his office till 7:30 pm so that I could go and collect it. It was really incredibly helpful of him. I'm not sure how many administrative workers you'd find in England willing to spend an extra couple of hours in the office at night just so they could help a random foreign traveler."


I wanted to quote that particular passage because so many people have given Polly Evans's book poor marks for its negativity. Reviewers have complained that she's too sour when it comes to travel conditions in her book on China.

Two things should be noted in fairness to the author, however: First, she most often traveled the way that the common man in China travels; second, the book was written pre-Beijing Olympics. Add in a third, she wasn't often going to the main tourist spots, but instead heading for out-of-the-way destinations, places where her own Britishness could invoke the locals to stare at her and small boys to cry at her sight.

Traveling beyond the Western world (the US, Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, and the like) and beyond the well-worn tourist routes often involves hardship. Real travelers know to look beyond the glossy travel magazines, as much as we like how they feed our fantasies. Travel, like imagination, often involves 90 percent perspiration and 10 percent inspiration. If you don't like those odds, it's best to stick to the Eiffel Tower and the Great Wall, the Sheratons and the McDonald's.

Evans shares a good bit of history of the places she sees. While she can overdo it on the descriptions of how she got there and how she managed to find something to eat with only the most basic of Chinese phrases (and a lot of pointing), she can also laugh at herself and her circumstances. Following her route on the book's enclosed map, it would be hard to imagine coming away with a more unique experience that few Westerners are likely to share.

No, this book isn't perfect. Evans's dry humor may not work for all readers. But she deserves credit for what she was able to do and the honesty with which she was able to share her experiences, even those that did not reflect kindly on her. I came away envious of her journey, even if I am not sure I myself could have endured it. For those interested in off-the-beaten track travel with all its grimy particulars, Fried Eggs with Chopsticks succeeds.

[Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like this book got a lot of undeserved bad reviews. I think many misinterpret the author's attitude. On the contrary, I felt Ms. Evans had the utmost respect for the people she met and the places she went to, and I appreciated her honest voice throughout the entire book. Her reactions were real and believable.

[Chrissi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Englishwoman's romp through China had me in stitches almost the entire time. She hits the nail on the head of what it's like to travel - and live - in this enormously diverse and sometimes very frustrating country. It's a beautiful place of contradictions and eating loads of things with chopsticks that don't seem very possible to eat with chopsticks. I can identify with her journey and her joys. This is what made the book pleasing to me, even if the chapters toward the end seeming to go on with some of the same issues as earlier.

I loved it for its real look into traveling China, and I'm looking forward to reading more of her travel memoir books.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am off to China in 7 weeks time so am reading this to get another's story of the land
Its very readable and rather amusing

*****

I really enjoyed this book. Evans has an amusing way of talking about travel and it often felt like she wrote the kinds of things i would think and say. I liked the fact thather tale of travelling through China felt so real - she had wonderful times and really horrid times, just like a traveller actually has. So often it seems that travellers feel the need to either have had the most amazing time ever, or tohave hated the entire trip. Life seldom works like that and it was great to read a book which seemed to tell the truth.

I am off to China and other South East Asian countries for a 7 week trip in just inder two months and Evans' book has excited and warned me in equal measure

I certainly picked up some tips and some ideas of thinsg to do.

I'll read more of Evans' travel books in the future - i thoroughly enjoyed this one

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Humorous at times but there was nothing in this book that made China sound at all appealing.

[Daren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, this one gets slammed in the reviews. I didn't think i was that bad?
I actually quite enjoyed it for what it was - a quick read.
Yes, the author complains about the public transport, and she is quick to point out all the negatives, and quick to hide in a luxury hotel when she gets tired, but at least she was writing it honestly.
I thought she was able to cleverly summarise enormous historical events quite accurately in a paragraph or two - that is something most authors have struggled with. Perhaps the negative reviewers just don't get her humour - I founds her quite funny.

[Kate]

A few years ago I read another book by Polly Evans, Kiwis Might Fly. I remember it as being both touching and hilarious. The book had a specific purpose and in my view, the way Evans stuck to this, made it a little more than a light hearted humorous travel book. I really feel like I got to find out a lot about New Zealand from the book that I (or most travellers) wouldn’t have seen. In contrast, in Fried Eggs With Chopsticks, a purpose is sorely missing. I have been to most of the places Evans visited in China, probably around the same time that this book was researched. Whilst it comes a very distant second for witty one liners at which Evans undoubtedly excels, my travel diary reveals so much more than Evans has included in her book and, having reading Kiwis Might Fly, I couldn’t help but feel she could have done so much better. I know only too well the trials of public transport and communication in China as a young Western woman, and there are definite causes for complaining and being miserable, I just don’t think it’s the majority of what readers will want to hear. Still, I did find the odd gem in there and at some parts found myself laughing aloud. If I’d gone in to it without the expectations I had as a result of already having read Kiwis Might Fly, I would have enjoyed it more for being the quick regurgitation of some historical and cultural facts and witty observations that it is.

[Kailah · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you want to read a good book about travels in contemporary China, read Peter Hessler's "Country Driving." If you want to read about someone traveling who doesn't actually want where they're going to be different from home---but have it be funny, and a good story along with the (here rendered comical whining)---read Anne Patchett's "The Accidental Tourist."

You wouldn't know it from Evans' descriptions and constant whining, but she has lived and traveled abroad before. She should desist entirely, or, at most, only travel in the West. She says herself---multiple times! explicitly!!--that she should not do this type of travel, at least not if it doesn't involve copious amounts of Starbucks and Western-style luxury hotels. By the end of the book the reader is as tired as she is; and---if one doesn't actually live in China, and generally like it---equally glad to leave the country. feh.

That said, there are small scattered gems which help move the book along and minor humorous bits which tie the book together and kept me (at least) reading to the (blasted) end.

(NB: I do have to say I was pleased that the region she liked most in all of China was where I live!!--- Zhongdian/Shangri-la/Gyalthang. Right on!)

[Martygirl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having been to China and planning a trip back, I thought this would be an interesting read. Although the sprinkling of history cited in the book is interesting, the regular whining of the author becomes grating. Instead of embracing the adventure and cultural differences, Ms. Evans seems to focus on her personal discomfort, as if she's surprised that a many hour bus ride through rural China would be easy and comfortable. I also find some of her comments (and not just of the Chinese - of Americans too) as very sterotypical rather than humorous. The book, as an indicator of travel in current China, is rather dated as well.

[Eriko · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this was an irritable book to read. I was impressed with her for the first few pages, as she described the history well and her nervous enthusiasm about China. But all she writes is her stereotypical view of the place. For an instance, I was annoyed when she compared her hometown in England to a little village in China and said her hometown was like heavenly in comparison, despite her hometown is "boring". Another one is describing someone she encountered using animal as description (not that the animal is bad). She is not fit to be a travel writer. If she brought more balanced view, this would have been great. Unfortunately, I could not finish this.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Polly Evans, based in England, has written previously of her travels, and this one is recording her trip in China and the experiences she encountered. At times it was interesting and fascinating, and in other parts it made me wonder why she made the choices that she did. It was okay, but no more than that.

[Flora · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5

Although I relate to the reader to some degree, there is an obvious sense of annoyance mixed with travel fatigue by the end of the book. Contrary to the negative reviews, I don’t think this is a poorly written book. In fact, I think it realistically reflects the state for the majority of China at the time of the authors travel. As a country in great transition, the country is a construction site and is at the crossroads of old versus new. Besides this, given the tumultuous recent Chinese history - with wars and revolutions - much of the values and etiquettes have gone out the window. I’m saying this as a Chinese person who had spent my childhood in China, and I must say the way the author described Chinese behaviour and life conditions are quite accurate.

That being said, it’s clear that the author has frustrations that gradually mounts and sours into almost ... despise at the end of her journey. I found that her descriptions of the country are overall increasingly negative in the later chapters in spite of some positive experiences. This annoyed me a lot, because while I understand travel fatigue and weariness from being gawked at, not showing any appreciation for kindness received come across as very obnoxious.

This is an interesting book to read, as a traveler who knows a bit about China and Chinese culture. However, for those who have not been in China and plan to go there, I think at this point in time this is no longer an accurate description and not to mention a huge turnoff.. Better off seeking a good guidebook or more decent travel writing.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have traveled in China on three separate occasions, so I thought this would be a fun read. There were parts that I completely related to—the nasty hacking up snot and spitting it everywhere, the smoking and just how filthy I felt after walking around and feeling like I never wanted to wear those clothes ever again and ordering food in a foreign country where I do not speak the language. Those parts seemed funny because I felt the same, but I also feel that she had the idea that there is a right way and a wrong way and she is right and the Chinese are wrong. I prefer to think that when I am in a different country, that there are just differences and I am not accustomed to those differences so I feel uncomfortable, not that there is something wrong with them. Oh, the lines too were funny, because that really is how it is. Some parts got a little boring for me with history.
I would give this book a pg rating, with nothing objectionable.

[HeavyReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn't tell what the author was trying to do with this book. Was she trying to discourage Westerners from visiting China by showing it as a dirty place, full of disease and people with questionable hygiene habits, a place with weird, bad food and a difficult to speak language? Was she trying to be funny by poking fun at a culture she is just not a part of? Was she only trying to tell her own experiences? I think most of all she was trying to sell her work.

I didn't hate this book, but it did come across as if the author thinks living in the West is better and China is a strange and dangerous place. I did like the way the author seamlessly worked Chinese history into her story.

I've never really longed to visit China and after reading this book, it's even lower on my list of possible travel destinations.

[Karen Hensley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated Polly Evans' real-world view of traveling through China alone. The small vignettes in different places made me feel like I was there. I empathize with Polly wanting to retreat to a western style hotel sometimes.

This is a very helpful book for a traveler doing advance planning. If you are trying to figure out if traveling on your own through China is for your, or if you are already planning it, then I think you will find this book a good read and it will help you contemplate what you are about to get into. I like the tips to go to small museums in smaller towns.

BTW, I have traveled on my own in Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, Hong Kong, one city in China, Korea, Fiji, and several other countries. I did not get a sense of Polly judging China, just reporting what she experienced and how she felt about it. It makes a good and useful book.

[MJ Halberstadt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up before heading to Beijing and Shanghai for work trips; I wasn't going to have any opportunity for sightseeing, so this book had to stand in. Evans' writing is often VERY funny, vivid and observant - I've flagged pages 13-16 and all of chapter 20.

I wonder if it's my own hasty reading that has caused me to already have forgotten where some of her misadventures happened; there's a lot of complaining about transportation methods that starts to get tiring after a while, and not a ton HAPPENING. She spends several days in most of the places she visits, but our context for them is mostly limited to the hotel amenities, customer service and transportation woes.

I will say, though, that if I find myself going to Spain or New Zealand, I'll probably read her other books.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evans travels across China by mule, plane, boat, bike, train, and car. She eats things she never realized were in the food category and she meets people living lives she never realized were in the lives-lived category. I liked this book much more than Evans' other book, It's Not About the Tapas.

Pet peeve: The subtitle says the book will be "hilarious". C'mon. You are just setting yourself up for disappointment if you go into the book expecting hilarious. Amusing, yes. Humorous, yes. But hilarious?

[Reena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I can relate to this book somewhat because I've been to China and have had similar experiences trying to immerse myself in a totally different culture.
I learned new information I haven't about Mao and the others and info about the cities/provinces I never had a chance to visit. I also got a good idea of where maybe I should not bother going to, thanks to Polly telling me in her book not to go there.
I'm like 3/4ths done, so hopefully i'll finally finish the book before spring break.

[Brandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book about the author's travels through China. As a traveler she had her good times and bad times. A lot more refreshing than reading a travel book where everything is roses all of the time. The author best sums it up "China had been wonderful; it had been fascinating. At times it had been fun. But it had been hard work."

[Carolyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I started reading this book over a year ago and was never able to finish it. The author seemed to have little to say that was positive, and while her observations may have been accurate, it wasn't what I was looking for in a travel book.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book for anyone visiting China. Having recently traveled there, I found this book spot on with my experience. It is accurate and at times hilariious. This author has several books about her travels around the world. A great resourse for an authentic experience abroad.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read another book so far, which so clearly writes about the strangeness of being lao wei in China. Her description of trying to book a train ticket for a 24 hour journey while the clerk insisted it was a 12 hour journey, had me in stitches.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book on a womans adventure through china, which is rare, I only ever seem to find either travel writing written by men or written by women in the 80s :S
So this was refreshing!

[Liona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Polly Evans' journey through China made great travel reading. She tells a good story and keeps her sense of humor throughout the book.

[Bookbug101 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very funny and insightful book about one woman's travel experiences in China. I want to read more books by this author. Very entertaining and gets at the essence of China's culture.

[Bookbug · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a very funny account of the author's experiences traveling in China. If you want to get a sense for the real China, this is a great book.

[Christine Way · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. A nice mix of humor and travel with just the right amount of historical information to keep my interest.