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Justin Hill was only twenty-one when he arrived starry-eyed in Yuncheng, central China, a small town hidden among the plains of dusty Shanxi province. He was greeted by a place and people designed to shatter the most tightly held of illusions about the glories of Chinese tradition and culture: an ugly grimy town where spitting in public was encouraged and queuing was anathema, where the local TV output consisted of nightly readings of the works of Deng Xiao Ping interspersed with NBA basketball games. But after two years teaching Yuncheng's inhabitants he emerged knowing that nowhere was more authentically Chinese than this outpost nestling in the bend of the Yellow River, battling the contradictions of past and future with robust good humour.
From the Author
A Portrait of Small Town China
When i was 21 i arrived in Yuncheng, a small town in central Shanxi Province, on the last day of the Chinese Spring Festival. It was the beginning of two and a half years living and working there. And it was the beginning of unworking the stereotypes of Chinese people that are common currency in the West - stereotypes like 'inscrutable Chinese' - and the endless coverage of Human Rights, Dissidents and Tiananmen Square.
Justin Hill was only twenty-one when he arrived starry-eyed in Yuncheng, central China, a small town hidden among the plains of dusty Shanxi province. He was greeted by a place and people designed to shatter the most tightly held of illusions about the glories of Chinese tradition and culture: an ugly grimy town where spitting in public was encouraged and queuing was anathema, where the local TV output consisted of nightly readings of the works of Deng Xiao Ping interspersed with NBA basketball games. But after two years teaching Yuncheng's inhabitants he emerged knowing that nowhere was more authentically Chinese than this outpost nestling in the bend of the Yellow River, battling the contradictions of past and future with robust good humour.
From the Author
A Portrait of Small Town China
When i was 21 i arrived in Yuncheng, a small town in central Shanxi Province, on the last day of the Chinese Spring Festival. It was the beginning of two and a half years living and working there. And it was the beginning of unworking the stereotypes of Chinese people that are common currency in the West - stereotypes like 'inscrutable Chinese' - and the endless coverage of Human Rights, Dissidents and Tiananmen Square.
These are of course, important issues, but I don't think they give an accurate representation of a country that holds a third of the world's people. It is time people in the west looked intelligently at all the aspects of china - not just at single issues.
In my book I tried to represent the Chinese people I met as faithfully as possible - without judging them or considering them as peculiar or un-normal. I felt it was time that a country as big and important as China had an accurate book written about it; too many writers come to China looking for oppression and difference.
Travel is about seeing and learning with an open mind - not about reinforcing your own prejudices. If you look for oppression - then not surprisingly - that is what you will find.
I hope you enjoy A Bend in the Yellow River.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
In the early mornings, when the old go through their taiqi routines - boxing, sword and spear - in beautiful slow motion, the sun rises up sullen and red over the heads of peasants, cycling into town along the mud track that becomes Hedong Donglu with their reed panniers full of produce to sell. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
In the early mornings, when the old go through their taiqi routines - boxing, sword and spear - in beautiful slow motion, the sun rises up sullen and red over the heads of peasants, cycling into town along the mud track that becomes Hedong Donglu with their reed panniers full of produce to sell. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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