This was great. I was a bit skeptical of this book, lent to me by a friend, thinking it'd be all Under the Tuscan Sun rose-colored travelogue, but it's nothing like that. The author is a journalist who spent about 5 years in China (about 1998 through 2002), writing articles and teaching English. He turned his experiences into an entirely non-journalistic set of interconnected first-person stories, about how he learned about various aspects of China. His students, mostly rural kids from Szechuan, wrote to him for years, as they traveled to the new industrial towns, and told them about their lives. He learned about a researcher who had committed suicide after being branded a rightest in the '50s, and tracked down his friends, colleagues, and relatives. He had a fascinating friendship with a Uighur man who immigrated to DC, and who was personally affected by the aftermath of 9/11. Throughout, the writing is honest, evocative, insightful and personal without being sappy at all. And despite the cliched cover, there are no descriptions of quaint fishermen, or noble pandas, or incredible food. Thankfully.