Barbarian Lost: Travels in the New China

by Alexandre Trudeau

The number one national bestseller and a Hill-Times Best Book of the Year To this day, China remains an enigma. Ancient, complex and fast moving, it defies easy understanding. Ever since he was a boy, Alexandre Trudeau has been fascinated by this great county. Recounting his experiences in the China of recent years, Trudeau visits artists and migrant workers, townspeople and rural farmers. Often accompanied by a young Chinese journalist, Vivien, he explores realities caught in time between the China of our memories and the thrust of progress. The China he seeks out lurks in hints and shadows. It flickers dimly amidst all the glare and noise. The people he encounters along the way give up but small secrets yet each revelation comes as a surprise that jolts us from our preconceived ideas and forces us to challenge our most secure notions. Barbarian Lost , Trudeau’s first book, is an insightful and witty account of the dynamic changes going on right now in China, as well as a look back into the deeper history of this highly codified society. On the ground with the women and men who make China tick, Trudeau shines new light on the country as only a traveller with his storytelling abilities could.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, History, Canada

304 pages, Hardcover

First published May 17, 2016

About the author

Alexandre Trudeau est voyageur, cinéaste et journaliste. Au cours des quinze dernières années, les films et les reportages qu’il a réalisés, portant sur d’importants sujets de géopolitique, ont été vus et lus par des millions de gens. Il a été un précieux témoin de la vie à Bagdad au moment où les bombes s’abattaient sur la ville. Il a exploré la réalité quotidienne des deux côtés du mur qui sépare Israël de la Palestine. Il s’est élevé contre le sort fait aux personnes suspectées de terrorisme et emprisonnées au mépris de leurs droits. Il a suivi les mouvements de la jeunesse pour obtenir plus de démocratie dans les Balkans, il nous a aidé à mieux comprendre les causes de l’instabilité au Darfour, au Liberia et en Haïti, et il a dénoncé, cinquante ans après qu’on eut accordé le prix Nobel à Lester Pearson, le délitement de la mission de paix que s’était donnée le Canada. Il vit à Montréal.

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

A barbarian in China
Reviewed by Ben Antao

If you’ve ever wondered how a father’s views can influence his son, you only need to read Barbarian LOST by Alexandre Trudeau about his travels in China in 1990, 2006 and 2008. This informative and insightful travelogue takes a penetrating look at new China, its emergence as an economic powerhouse, shaped by political control of the communist party, with interesting historical nuggets interspersed no doubt for the edification of the philistines. Trudeau, 42, a documentary filmmaker and journalist, splices the narrative with novelistic techniques, like creating conflicts, to engage the reader.

The younger brother of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tells the reader that he and his brother were first visiting China with their illustrious father Pierre Trudeau in 1990 when Dad told them, “Boys, you must not forget, the Chinese have often perceived westerners as barbarians. Think carefully about those occasions when you might be giving them good reason to do so.”

The son, fondly known as Sacha, obviously took his father’s advice to heart, judging not only from his book’s title but also from his meticulous commentary suggesting that “I’ll always be a little lost in China, that the endless banquet and smoky firmament are a reminder that a part of me never made it out.”

Barbarian LOST published by HarperCollins (2016) is a 288-page narrative set in 14pt (for easy on the eyes) contains nine chapters covering almost like a blanket the large sprawling land mass of China from north to south and east to west along the Yangtze River. For his trip Trudeau hires the services of a female Chinese translator Vivien, 35, also a journalist who has studied in America, and another young Chinese journalist named Sue during their travels in the south. This was a smart move, I thought, to engage a translator for help to understand the complex cultural nuances of the Chinese customs, even granting that some subtle sense might be lost in translation.

I’ve read travel books by Paul Theroux, the American novelist, and his journeys in India, England, Spain, Africa and South America and what excited me the most was to understand the travel writer and his perspectives. Similarly, in this book I found the character and personality of Trudeau even more revealing than his peregrinations in China.

“China can be frustratingly opaque, a most inwardly directed place,” he writes. “It moves fast and furiously. Hardly stopping for the Chinese, it certainly doesn’t stop for foreigners. Although not dangerous, China is still overwhelming.”

This is how he chose Vivien. “After exchanging brief emails with her, my instincts told me that she had some understanding of the Western mind---a must if she was going to deal with the likes of me. I feared my own disposition. I still felt myself something of a barbarian, a boisterous and judgmental type, the boy who injured himself by moving too fast and lightly through the sacred landscape, never noticing the stone stairs upon which he jumped, blind to the work that went into them, deaf to the prayers they were meant to carry.”

Upon Trudeau’s landing in Beijing in September 2006, he discovers Vivien who is from Shandong, south of Beijing but north of Shanghai, “as highly opinionated as I am. She freelances as a print journalist and is ready to defend her opinions in good English.”

He’s on a month-long trip. After the first night’s sleep, he tells her, “I’m here to figure things out. I want to see as many things and meet as many people as possible---journalists, intellectuals. But also farmers and workers, as well as activists, artists, prostitutes and business people.”

And so he tours around the old hutongs (slums) of Beijing, now redeveloped into skyscrapers. During the tour, Vivien asks, “So how do you feel about Tiananmen?”

“I would like to think that if I were Chinese, I would have been on the square, facing down the tanks for my freedom. But at the same time, I’m not blind to the benefits that stability has brought China since Tiananmen.”

“Sacha, trust me, I’ve lived here my whole life. I’m familiar with this government and its ways. I don’t see any good coming from corruption and injustice,” she replies.

Beijing is built on a great plain surrounded on all sides by mountains, he writes. To the north is the Great Wall and beyond the mountains towards the west lies a vast wasteland of dusty, rocky landscapes and shifting sands.

“The city sprawls almost to the mountains. Smog makes them invisible until we are very close. At their foot, the urban areas give way to the countryside, sprinkled with a few apple and peach orchards. The Ming emperors are buried in these foothills. Their tombs remain an attraction for tourists on their way to the Great Wall.”

The Ming emperors ruled from 1368-1644, after which came the Manchu rule (1644-1912), called the Qing dynasty.

They travel to Jinan where the main north-south axis from Beijing to Shanghai and the old east-west bloc of the Yellow River converge. Here Trudeau has an interview with Wu Fei, the scholar of the new Confucianism movement.

“Whatever our divergences, all New Confucianists are outside the system. We all want to take responsibility as Chinese men and women to pass on our culture to the next generation,” Wu says.
Trudeau summarizes Confucianism thus: “A popular interpretation of Confucius is that, to be happy and respected, we need to all behave in harmonious accord. All dress in the same way, in acknowledgement of our service to common ideals. All make the same oaths.”

In Qingdao, Vivien has set up a meeting with a young engineer Gan who studied at Tsinghua University. Gan is disappointed with the pursuit of real science in China, and instead is in export business.

“How can you have a legitimate pursuit of science when the leaders of the university are first and foremost politicians, not scientists? Even the professors are ranked according to their political power, not the quality of their work,” says Gan. “I witnessed professors selling their students’ research projects as their own. I got disgusted.”

Gan with a dash of fire in his eyes continues, “Politics are still involved in everything here. They’re exerting an irrational influence on things. This has to stop if China wants to be a serious country, scientifically and technically.”

Responding to Trudeau’s wish to visit a real village, Vivien takes him to Chongqing, deep in China in the west. Travel in Chongqing can be done in two ways, he writes, by automobiles through tortuous and traffic-choked streets or on foot. The city once used manpower to carry goods between the Yangtze and the city above the river.

Here he meets Li Gang, a lawyer for migrant workers. Li takes them to his village. “His home is a hovel, an ancient one-room, thatched roof habitation built of stone. Li’s wife is a very young and sweet-faced. In the tiny dark room, she quietly tends to the couple’s one-year-old daughter.”

Soon Trudeau realizes that the village is devoid of young people who were working outside as Li once did. Across the rolling hills, as far as he can see, are farms and fields, with groupings of houses like Li’s village. The village is connected to the rest of China in a variety of ways, both wired and wireless.

In the late Qing dynasty much of the Chinese countryside was owned by large landholders who relied on impoverished peasants to farm the land. It’s here that Mao Zedong, himself born of a rich peasant father, started his peasant revolution that culminated into the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and the subsequent Cultural Revolution. After Mao came Deng Xiaoping, the second emperor of the Communist dynasty.

The characterization of the Communist rule as “dynasty” by Trudeau shocked me at first, but then after due reflection it seems dynastic rule is what the Chinese people have been used to since 3000 B.C. Time may flow like the eternal river but the spirit of the ruled does not. They seek authority as though it was always ordained to be so.

Vivien and Trudeau take a four-day cruise on the Yangtze. “By the looks of it, I would say that this boat isn’t just for tourists,” she tells him. “I don’t think the third-or fourth-class passengers are on this boat for fun. It must be a cheap way to get somewhere if you have the time.”

During the cruise they have time to talk at length and make observations. “China is a country of mountains,” he says, “an uphill country. From the shores of the Pacific in the east, it rises progressively as one moves westward. Along its southwest border is Earth’s highest mountain, Mount Everest, at 8,848 metres.”

“One of the greatest of Chinese classics, Journey to the West, is about a journey into the mountains,” Vivien replies. “It’s a story of a physical ascension but also implies a Buddhist spiritual ascension toward enlightenment. But the connections there now seem quaint ---literary and historical.”

Travelling through Shanghai they stay at a cheap hotel. “Anywhere in China, Shanghai included,” writes Trudeau, “thirty dollars or less gets you a room with a private bathroom and clean sheets.”

With his friend Deryk who has married a Chinese woman, Trudeau visits a nightclub. “Travelling alone and too shy to reach out in any other way, for me, the dance floor has often been a way to commune if not communicate with the locals. A kind of complicity is established among dancers without a need for words. For a moment, dazzled by the rhythm, I might feel myself a part of the place. I mighty feel myself known and loved by the beautiful strangers round me.”

While in the city he meets a Chinese teacher named John, who tells him about the Song dynasty, apparently an important period in Chinese history.

In Suzhou he visits a silk manufacturing facility and the reader gets a full lowdown on the silk fabric and its prestige. “Wearing silk was long a sign of status and sophistication,” he writes. “When lords met, the one in silk looked down on the others.”

Later, while in a restaurant Vivien explains that too much hot food is bad for health. “Eating is a kind of balancing act,” she says.

This gives Trudeau another chance to observe: “The Chinese believe that the forces of yin (feminine) and yang (masculine) exist in all things, including us humans. Imbalances can exist in the world, in the body or in the soul; they are causes of misfortune and ailment. So one is constantly seeking to manage these forces in one’s behaviour and surroundings.”

In Guangzhou (once known as Canton) in the south Trudeau wants to visit a masseuse in the red light district where massage parlours and brothels are plentiful. Here Sue accompanies them. The reader gets a good description of the area, its highlights and flesh spots.

“As I stand before the staircase,” he writes, “my own puritanism comes crashing down upon me. I’m suddenly uncomfortable to be thinking all this sexuality through, or at least saddened by the thought of intimately engaging a young woman about her sexual existence. I conclude that our approach is all wrong.”

Later they travel through Shenzhen to check out some manufacturing companies, and then go to Hong Kong where Trudeau interviews the editor of South China Morning Post, the English daily. Milton Chang asks him how he would deal with the China story.

Trudeau replies, “As a travel writer, an extension of the travel filmmaking that I’ve been doing. My mission is to track glimpses, chosen moments that might reveal the grand affairs that lie beneath. Then to sew them all together into something that’s fun and easy to read.”

Well, Barbarian LOST has been an interesting read. If there is one lesson this book has confirmed for me, it is this: Make all the money you want in China but keep out of politics. And to western critics who cry foul at the abuse of human rights in China, the Chinese say that human rights for the masses means basic rights for food, clothing and shelter.

Oct 08/16
Words: 2040

[Avi Bendahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

*disclaimer - I received a free signed copy of this book as part of an event hosted by the publisher (Harper Collins)*

The first thing that struck me as I started getting into this book, was that it was sorely mis-categorized. Set among history/political science books, it has a far more deserving place in the travel section of any bookstore, since it's clear Trudeau is more in love with the idea of understanding people by traveling to where they are/live, than he is in dissecting complex political structures or histories. This is not to say that he doesn't talk about the latter in this book, but rather, that he always seems to use them as a framing device to talk about the specifics of the places he's going to and the people he's meeting. He's a traveler at heart, and it shows.
One thing that hit me pretty clearly about halfway through though was the fact that there were many aspects of the book that particularly resonated with me, but only because I myself had gone to China and experienced the country for myself. I'd be rather interested to see then how someone whose never been there would interpret the same material.
The book doesn't seem to draw any hard lines in terms of political points of view, and I rather appreciated that in most instances because it meant there wasn't very much moralizing, but more invitations to discuss things. I also couldn't help but feel a kinship with someone who perpetually plays devil's advocate around people whose opinions he shares.
A nice meandering read, with some chapters certainly more engaging than others; I would strongly advise to any interested readers though that most of the material for the book came from a trip in the early 2000s, with an extra visit sometime before the 2008 Beijing Summer Games for the final chapter dealing with artists, which means issues more current than that time-frame are not discussed (which can be slightly problematic in such a quickly evolving/changing society). You don't feel the time -delay too strongly though, due to the extremely people-centric point of view of the narrative.

[Day's · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book after I returned from a two week visit to China. The trip was a group tour of seven cities where we visited all the major tourist attractions: the Great Wall, the Terra Cotta Warriors, the Bund, the Forbidden City, the rice terraces, etc. It was a great trip and I was amazed at all the changes that were made since I last visited China in 1978. We caught glimpses of everyday life as the bus drove down highways past huge office buildings designed to inspire awe and clusters of skyscraper condos (some of which were empty). Although our tour guide did his best to explain what daily life was like and how government policies, past and present, affected the people, I wondered if there was more. I devoured Barbarian Lost, looking for more, and it was a trip that brought me back to the China I had just visited with some answers. Trudeau is an excellent writer. He throws in enough of China’s history to make the story interesting without sounding like a history lesson. Unlike my trip, he didn’t stick to the tourist trail. I enjoyed Trudeau’s memories of his trip to China with his father, and agree with some of his observations of the current China. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to see what lies beyond the tourist trail.

[MaryLou Driedger · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was looking forward to reading Barbarian Lost: Travels in New China by Alexandre Trudeau but now that I've finished it I have to admit it was fairly disappointing.
 I lived in Hong Kong for six years and visited many different places in mainland China. I was sure however someone writing a book about China would have travelled much more extensively in the country than I had.  Not so.  Trudeau visited well-known cities like Shanghai, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing and Chongqing but really saw just a small part of China. He didn't even go to places like Xian or Kunming or Zhongdian or Yangshuo. If you are going to write a meaningful book about modern China you need to see more of the nation than Alexandre Trudeau did.
I lived in China until 2011. Since the book had the word "new" in the title I was expecting to be enlightened about the changes in the country since I left but Alexandre is basically writing about a trip he took there in 2006.  My friends who still live in China say it is changing at lightning speed but you won't find out about those recent changes from reading Barbarian Lost. 
I couldn't believe that the author had declined to take a boat trip through the Bamboo Gorges because he was feeling blue.  I've done that trip! What an experience it was!  I interviewed one of our Bamboo Gorge trackers and learned so much from him about life in China.
The historical synopsis of things like the dynasties and the Cultural Revolution were pretty pedestrian and didn't offer much I didn't teach in my middle school, Chinese history classes.
The experiences Trudeau describes- eating a snake, spending time in a rural Chinese home, cruising the Yangtze with a Chinese crowd, watching mahjong games, eating restaurant meals with locals, picking your food live before you eat it.... are all things many people who have been to China have experienced.  They aren't really all that unique.  
After reading books like  Peter Hessler's River Town or Rob Gifford's China Road or Jan Wong's Red China Blues by authors who spent an extended time in China and really make China come alive in their writing, I am afraid Barbarian Lost just didn't measure up.  

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was given “Barbarian Lost” about four years ago, when I was thinking of going to China with some friends. I didn’t end up going, and so didn’t end up reading this book until now, in 2020. Last year, the Chinese government took two Canadian citizens hostage, ensuring that I have no desire to visit anytime soon. Despite this, and perhaps because of it as well, I still have an interest in the country, and finally decided to give this book a try.
When I received this book as a gift, I was still fairly high on the Trudeau family, but now its safe to say I have a strong distaste for Justin Trudeau. I approached this book attempting to not let my feelings about the author’s brother colour my perception of the author himself, but also aware that subconsciously that could still be the case. Either way, I did not come away enamoured with Alexandre Trudeau, or ‘Sascha.’ Unsurprisingly, he comes across very privileged and is not at all relatable. He reminisces about annual childhood trips to the world’s most powerful nations. He name-drops philosophers all the time. He boastfully lists all the far-flung, exotic and dangerous places he’s been to, as though that should impress me, when in fact all it does is prove that he has the time and enormous financial resources needed to even get to these obscure places. And speaking of time and financial resources… He’s interested in China, so he just goes there for a month to ask questions, and hires a full-time translator to accompany him for the entire time.
I found he also didn’t portray himself that well in dialogue. There are some moments where he’ll say something and I just find myself thinking, why would you say that??? or even if you did, why would you put it in the book? He has one particularly strange episode, on a 4-day boat trip down the Yangtze river, where he goes into a depression and basically refuses to leave his room because… I don’t know, the scenery was boring or something. To the point where it drove him to despair. I don’t know, it was weird. It’s the most major of a number of moments in this book that made me think the author must be a very odd guy.
Unsurprisingly, he’s also quite pretentious. He’s clearly VERY intelligent, and knows a lot more than me about Chinese culture, history, and politics, but sometimes the way he talks about “bouncing around ideas,” or goes off on unintelligible philosophical tangents turned me off. In fairness to him, I don’t think he’s trying to show off or make himself seem smart or anything – he’s just very rich and extremely well-educated and I would never hold those things against someone, but it just serves to underline that he is not your average person. He’s basically Canadian dynastic royalty – someone who’s had every possible advantage in life.
With that very personal (and maybe unfair?) little tirade out of the way, I should say that I actually really enjoyed this book. Its one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read in quite some time. While I’m not a big fan of some of the aforementioned philosophical gobbledy-gook that he sometimes spouts, I think Trudeau is an excellent writer. Case in point: the last few pages of the book were very abstract and philosophical and made no sense to me whatsoever, but I thought it was beautiful writing. I really liked the writing throughout – simple and straightforward when necessary, and at other times still interesting to read even when I had no idea what he was talking about.
And despite everything I said about him in the previous paragraphs, there is something likeable, or at least admirable, to the author. I like the way he traveled to China and tried to put aside and challenge his own beliefs, and speak to locals and learn about the country as best he could. He seemed to have a very honest interest that I found refreshing, and willingness and even a desire to have his own mind changed. While I won’t be traveling anytime soon just to poke around and ask questions, Trudeau has inspired me to make more of an effort to speak to locals and learn more about whatever country I visit next. There’s a lot of value to foregoing tourist sites and instead just immersing yourself as completely as possible in the everyday life of a foreign country. I think that, similar to the way Trudeau became captivated by China when he first visited, I became enthralled with Vietnam when I visited last year. Perhaps when and if I visit again, I’ll have to apply a bit of the ‘Sascha Trudeau’ mentality to my travels.
Returning once more to the ‘less positive’ aspects of this book (I don’t think they necessarily qualify as negatives), I was surprised by how small the scope of this book is. I think most of Trudeau’s ‘travels’ in this book took place over the course of about a month, which is surprisingly short. That seems a very short amount of time to draw any conclusions about such a huge country, both in terms of geography and population. Its also a little odd that this book was published in 2016, and yet his major trip took place in 2006 (I think), which leaves a ten-year gap between his experiences and his reflection. The passage of time is of course inevitable, and I am reading this four full years after the publication date, but enough has happened in China since Trudeau’s experiences there that this book no longer feels fully contemporary. China’s attack on Hong Kong’s independence, and the systematic breakdown of the “One Country, Two Systems” principle; experimentation and introduction of social credit systems; increased military activity and aggressive foreign policy under Xi Jinping, and more recently the government’s (possibly botched) response to the outbreak of Covid-19 are all fascinating aspects of modern China that are absent from this book.
On a very practical note, this book is in desperate need of a map. Trudeau sometimes assumes that his readers are familiar with Chinese geography, ancient dynasties, and philosophers, and I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. I think that including a map of China, and possibly a simple timeline of the many dynasties that he references would’ve been worthwhile.
All in all though, I found this to be a really good book. I would strongly recommend it to anyone with the slightest interest in China, whether you’re traveling there in the near future or just curious about one of the most complex and dynamic countries on earth.

[Robert Patzelt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book from a number of perspectives. As a travelogue it does a very good job in covering from different perspectives a massive, interesting and complex nation. Even though the nine chapters are all very different he uses his expertise as a documentary filmmaker to somehow (and quite enjoyably) weave them together. It is well written and his perspectives and those of the people he met provide a real glimpse into the new China. As a fellow Canadian and thus being familiar with his family, especially his father the former Prime Minster and his younger brother Justin who presently leads our country, it was interesting to get a look into Sasha himself. There is a depth and humility that comes out in his perceptions but also in how he expresses them. He acknowledges his being a person of privilege and an introvert yet he embarks upon an aggressive agenda of what he wanted to see, was unafraid of traveling rough and wanting to meet as diverse a group of “real” people as possible. It is clear that he loves China. He has immersed himself in the history and culture of the country and this love and knowledge helped shape his travels and as a result the book itself. It is a very enjoyable read and I look forward to his next book.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a tough one to rate. As I am not sure my interest in this book translates easily to everyone else. Anyway, I liked it, even as I wished it had a bit less history and a bit more warmth. The current news of unrest and protest in Hong Kong, this winter of2019/2020, makes some of his observations of the past all the more poignant. I remember the news cycle of the tanks in the square and the exodus of Hong Kong citizens to our own more peaceful, large, Canadian city since that time. It is hard to fathom the size and vibrancy of Hong Kong from this readers quiet middle class perspective, but I appreciate this glimpse into another time and place. I also trust this authors perspective, and while I acknowledge that he is indeed one particular Canadian, I feel his observations can be relied on to enlighten.

[Book Grocer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Purchase Barbarian Lost here for just $8!

If the surname sounds familiar to you, I’ll kill the suspense right now: Alexandre Trudeau’s immediate family boasts two Canadian heads of state. But this book doesn’t lean on his family connections – it’s a wonderful, insightful travelogue into the heart of modern China. Told with a journalist’s flair and a filmmaker’s eye, Barbarian Lost focuses not just on the sights and sounds, but also attempts to understand a culture and a people who are often misrepresented in the west. An open-hearted, honest, and informative book, replete with imagery, historical snippets, and moments of real humanity.

Steph - The Book Grocer

[Gail Sherley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am never going to go to China. I always seek out books on China to give me some insight into this vast place. I enjoyed traveling through the author’s perspective, but what I did not realize when I started it was who author was. I also got more insight into a family that is part of Canada’s story. Not a page turner but I am glad I picked it up and read to the end.

[Susan Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was in my mind an interesting book about Trudeau's travels in China over the span of a few years.
He travels mainly with an interpreter so that he can visit and talk with "real" people from different walks of life, in various parts of the country.

I found his observations intriguing to read and his self-reflection often thought-provoking.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written account of a trip to China in 2006 with a follow-up in 2008. Interesting and informative, the writing is so good it is almost poetic at times. Sad to see, with the benefit of hindsight, China's promise eroded by Xi and his minions. As this book demonstrates, it could have all been so different

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm fascinated by China, so I enjoyed being taken along by Trudeau on his travels to some unexpected places there. He meets with interesting people and explores their hopes and fears for the future of the country. He's definitely got his own point of view, and it's fun to go along for the ride!

[Kevin Caswell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Provides interesting insight into the social life in China yet there is no cohesive narrative or structure in the writing making it a bit of a hard read. Would have likely been a lot better if co-authored by someone such as Chantal Hebert!

[Veronica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book dull and boring as it's a genre I would never read except for the book club I belong to. The lives of the people Alexandre met were interesting but the description of places was flat. The book needed maps and pictures to help me visualize where he was.

[Kirsten · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can't quite decide how I feel - not sure I would get along with the author and since this is about his journey through China, the bulk of it feels like his impressions of. The interesting discussions between him, his guide and the people they meet are what kept me reading.

[Yasser Maniram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sympathetic and authentic travel reporting by a Canadian whose last name means international recognition, but who has utilized selective anonymity to cover China leading up to the 2008 Olympic Games.

[Suku · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading the book. Using premise of a travelogue, the books takes you through the history of China and the current scenario. Though it's more of a diplomatic approach, the book does cover a lot of history of China and makes it interesting for a layman. Overall a good read.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I just had to give up reading this book. There was no cohesive narrative and the author comes off as a jerk.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting tour of the country. I would have enjoyed it more if he had included a map of the country. Some pictures would have been nice too.

[Sean Binkley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solidly written travel book that touches on a wide array of issues in contemporary China. It gets a bit winded in parts but not too often and the perspectives Trudeau shares were illuminating.

[Dennis Maione · Rating 4 out of 5]

A couple of low points but, overall, an enjoyable read.

[Sonja Seeber · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 2006 account of travels in China with an interpreter; meeting different people (Party members, artists, journalists, workers), and trying to get a sense of where China is. Also a history account.

[Biblionorth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a disappointing read. The title is misleading as this book relates one month's travel to China in 2006 and an interview with Ai Weiwei just prior to the Olympic Games of 2008. ( I was expecting something a bit more recent considering the enormous changes occurring in China) The first 80 pages are so badly written, (English version) I almost quit. Furthermore, the stories were uninspiring. At one point, Trudeau tells of a 4 day cruise trip on the Yangtze river. He stays in his cabins for most of it and even refused to go on an excursion into the nearby gorges and remains on board. This is when I myself abandoned ship. (page 125)
I had read and much enjoyed some of his articles in Maclean's years ago and was looking forward to a far superior outlook into this fascinating country.

[Dianne Landry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sacha Trudeau, younger brother of our PM, writes a very insightful book about his travels through China with a young, interesting, translator. Along the way he stays in a small village, in a hut I would even shy away from, small hotels and on a boat cruising down the Pearl River. He visits manufacturing plants, large stores and small restaurants. He discusses communism and Chinese history with people from all walks of life and all economic classes.

This is a fascinating peep into the psyche of a great nation. Sacha is a true son of his father. I highly recommend this book.

[DonnaM · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two Innocents in Red China by Pierre Trudeau and Jaques Hebert (1960's) was a much more interesting and captivating read than the son's.

Alexandre's style is dry and lifeless compared to his father & Hebert's book. But still a very good read and insightful.

Perhaps they could have asked Chantal Hebert to co-author.

[Sarah Zahid · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is an interesting insight into China from a western angle . Definitely recommended

[Alexandra Chubachi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read with basic history, politics, and current (ish) state of affairs in china. Western perspective noted, but especially appreciated Vivian's voice. This book was extra interesting after reading a few fictional books set in China within the last 100 years.