Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West

The stories in this book were written between 2000 (when the author was 30) and 2012. Many are from China, where he lived for over a decade, but also a few from the U.S., Japan and Nepal.The first story opens in a small village in southern China. A waitress is asking if he wants a big rat or a small rat. Virtually everyone in the village is named Zhong. Hessler selects a small rat. Other options include turtledove, fox, cat, python, and other local animals. One does not eat cat simply to eat cat - you eat cat because they have spirit and thus you will improve your spirits. Eating a snake makes you stronger, deep penis to improve virility. Eating rats supposedly keeps you from going bald; eat rats regularly and white hair will turn black. One of the two rat restaurants cost $42,000, and the other $54,000; they opened within six days of each other. A third will open soon, costing $72,000 and having air-conditioning, and a fourth is in the planning stages. They're all located within a half-hour of much larger Guangzhou, population 8+ million.The rats are from the mountains - they're clean - mostly eating fruit, not like city rats. The government checks the rats to see if they have diseases. Farmers on mopeds, bicycles, and on foot bring in rats trapped on their farms. A pound of rat costs nearly double that of a pound of beef. The meat is lean and white.Hessler is quite a venturesome writer - he's not only game for trying rat as a meal, he also ignores the regulation requiring registering with the government before traveling. (Too much trouble, and then I'd have to take all the officials out to lunch.') The restaurant owner suspects Hessler is really there to write about human rights, and doesn't want his name used - even though it's the same as everyone else's.Hessler then goes next door to a competing rat restaurant. They're disappointed he doesn't bring a TV crew with him. This time he chooses a big rat, and is taken out back to choose his rat. Fifteen minutes later, it arrives at his table.Hessler's normal Chinese abode is in a three-story apartment off a tiny alley without a name in a section of old Beijing. His alley is visible on the first detailed map of Beijing - completed in 1750. A local archaeologist believes the street may date back to the 14th century. The apartment is surrounded by single-story homes behind walls of gray brick. Dozens of households might share a single entrance, and though the old residences have running water, few have private bathrooms. Much is communal - even in winter residents sit outside chatting. Street vendors on three-wheel carts pedal through regularly - the group of houses is too small for a supermarket. The beer woman is the loudest. There's also a rice man, a vinegar dealer, a toilet-paper vendor, a knife-sharpener, etc.On an average day, a recycler passes through every half hour - buying cardboard, paper, Styrofoam, broken appliances, books. Everything has value - even a burned-out computer cord (5 cents), worn-out shoes (12 cents), two broken Palm Pilots (37 cents). One day a wig vendor came through - he'd just bought a long black ponytail for $10. Most is exported to the U.S. or Japan. Long hair was what he wanted - nothing short.It wasn't long before the 2008 Olympic Games would arrive, and Beijing constructed hundreds of outdoor exercise stations to boost the athleticism and health of average residents. In Hessler's area, they are especially busy at dawn and dusk - older people meet in groups to chat, briefly exercise, and smoke cigarettes. His alley is too narrow for auto traffic. The public toilet is next to his building - residents bring their chamber pots and chat to/from.The government also rebuilt the public toilet at the head of a major street near Hessler's apartment. The building had running water, infrared-automated flush toilets, and a lit of detailed rules printed onto stainless steel: "Number 3: Each user is entitled to one free piece of common toilet paper (80X10 centimeters).Full-time attendants were housed in a small room, imported mostly from the poor province of Anhui as no self-respecting Beijing resident would take such a job. The local bicycle repairman shored his tools and extra bikes in the public space fronting the new toilet, cabbage vendors slept on the bordering grass strip, and some ripped-up couches, folding chairs, a wooden cabinet stocked with beer glasses, and a chessboard were contributed. It was called the W.C. Club, with membership open to all. Weekend nights brought barbecues in front of the toilet, a driver for a news service discussed what was in the papers. In 2002 the W.C. Club acquired a T.V., plugged it into the bathroom, and mocked the national team as it failed to score throughout the World Cup.Beijing had once been home to over 1,000 temples and monasteries, but nearly all were converted to other uses by the Communists. Other members of the proletariat were encouraged to occupy the homes of the wealthy. The former compound of a single clan might become home to two dozen families. By the time Mao died in 1976, about a fifth of old Beijing had been destroyed - including sections of the Ming dynasty city wall 40' high, and formal gates to the city.Wang Zhaoxin and his brother sold cigarettes next to the public toilet. Their parents had moved to the area in 1951. Wang was offered the title of Chairman, W.C. Club, but refused. Hessler, being a foreigner, was ranked as a Young Pioneer. Wang always contributed more than his share to a W.C. Club barbecue. Old Yang, the bicycle-repairman, also passed messages among people in the neighborhood, including one from a local matchmaker named Teacher Peng (not an actual teacher).The fee for meeting someone was usually 200 yuan, for more for a foreigner - 500, even 2,000 ($240). (It was illegal to work with foreigners - they might corrupt/trick Chinese women. Hessler, out of curiousity and to avoid causing Old Yang to lose face, agreed to meet - at the McDonald's. Many meet there without ordering - reading, children doing homework, balancing account books, sleeping. His 'date' was a middle school music teacher. The next time he walked past the matchmaker's office whe asked if he wanted to invest in a karaoke parlor.By 2005, 75% of old Beijing had been torn down. The remaining quarter consisted mostly of public parks and the Forbidden City. Pedicab men joined the vendors and recyclers - giving tours to mostly Chinese tourists.Nearby was a boulevard with streetcars and busses, two supermarkets, and a McDonald's.Sometimes he drives north from Beijing for about 90 minutes to reach Sancha, a quiet village where he rents a farmhouse. The road dead-ends at the village, but a footpath continues up to the Great Wall. The first known historical reference to the Great Wall dates to 656 B.C. - the defensive barriers then were made of packed earth. Hessler once walked eastward along the wall for two days without seeing another person. In 221 B.C. the wall was extended to about 3,000 miles - to keep out the Mongols. It wasn't until the Ming Dynasty that durable materials were used. Guard towers rise every hundred yards or so over 20 feet. An inscribed marble tablet notes that in 1615 A.D., 2,400 soldiers built a section of wall that is around 650 feet long.The Mongols liked to attack in the night, during Fall - too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, horses were too thin in the spring - lacked energy.

This is one of the best books I have read. China is such a fascinating country and Hessler is such a wonderful writer, that anyone, Sinophiles especially, will absolutely love it.I was blown away on each page by Hessler's stunning prose and the way he deftly manipulates readers' emotions. More impressive is his sense of knowing what readers will find interesting. Every single chapter (all of which were New Yorker articles if I'm not mistaken - this book is a compilation) is fascinating in its own way. Hessler takes you from restaurants in China serving rats, to Shenzhen, a rapidly developing industrial city in China, to the stands of the Beijing Olympics, to Yao Ming's hotel room, and beyond. The chapter on Chinese driving and driver's ed was absolutely hilarious - I laughed out loud so many times in this book, and I learned so much. My eyes watered more than a few times.I also reject the criticism that it is somehow a problem with this book that a few chapters deviate from China and go to Japan (1 chapter on the yakuza and it was one of the best in the book) and Colorado (3 chapters, all of which were wonderful). 80% of the book is about China, and like any book on any topic, variety adds rather than detracts. I was so pleased by the chapter he wrote in nuclear power. He tackles a controversial issue in such a calm, evenhanded manner, while simultaneously telling such a fascinating story about a small town in Colorado and a way of life most of us know nothing about. That is the sign of excellent journalism. The final chapter, which described the final days of 91 year old gay man who lived in the closet his entire life was so touching.I can't sing the praises of this book enough. You simply must read it and enjoy it as I did!

Peter Hessler writes in the same vein-- essay-wise-- as John McPhee. (McPhee actually was his professor and mentor.) But, Hessler may inject more humor and heart into his pieces--not that they're ever saccharine.This is quite a collection, mostly essays about China and few about other places. The China essays, in some cases, feel a bit dated--only because China is still changing so quickly. The "driving" essays are probably not as true today as they were ten years ago, but the characteristics of the people probably haven't changed much. ( We always get a feel for the people. Read the title essay "Strange Stones" for this.)Some of the essays that involve Hessler's Peace Corps buddies are really good and make you wonder why the Peace Corps isn't doing as well as it used to. ( Hessler has some answers for this.) His profiled friends in these Peace Corps pieces are remarkable people.One of the best essays is the final piece titled " Dr. Don" about a pharmacist in a remote town in the American West. ( I read this previously in " The New Yorker ", but it was just as good this time around.) We get to know the pharmacist, and we get a wonderful picture not only of him but of the town, the town's "characters" and the town's way of life. If you read this essay first, you will be impelled to read more of Hessler's work, which he infuses with kindness and gentle humor and no hubris.

Peter Hessler is as good as Paul Theroux, and he shares his stylistic virtues - well-written, gripping, fluent prose, together with a willingness to let the facts speak for themselves. The most surprising and thought-provoking piece in this consistently excellent book is The Uranium Widows, where he investigates a mining town in Colorado. You might have him down as a solid Democrat but in this section he evinces a willingness to listen to and learn from a strongly Republican constituency. It's true that a few of the esays are rehashes of New Yorker articles or previous books (especially the piece called Quartet, which is of no special interest if you already own Country Driving), but most of it is unfamiliar to non-subscribers, and is anyway rewritten and refined. All in all, this is an enormously pleasurable book for anyone interested in America and China, the twin poles of this coming century.

Peter Hessler is a superb writer, his prose is easy to read and fluid and his content is always interesting and sometimes surprising, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in China.

Having read Hessler's other books on China, I found this book a rather random collection of good stories from his previous work. The main addition is the stories set in Colorado, which show Hessler honing his skills in his home country. His story on the condemned uranium mining community of Uravan, Colorado, is a masterpiece of careful research and sensitive, unpresumptuous interviews with the ex-mining families. As usual, Hessler lets the local characters lead the story where it will, and arrives at transparently stunning observations: "On the other side of the world, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities, but the town that helped make the bomb has been wiped off the face of the earth."I also greatly enjoyed the piece on Japan's yakuza gangsters. It's so refreshing to find a reporter who just hangs out with ordinary people and conveys how the world looks to them, rather than helping to broadcast what powerful people think to the commoners. Hessler even hangs out with Chinese street kids who push pornographic video disks. Naturally, I look forward to reading his tales of casual conversations in Arabic with the folks in Egypt.--author of A Galaxy of Immortal Women

This is the first book of Hessler's that I have read - followed a recommendation from Fareed Zakaria. It took me some time to warm up to the stories but by the end I wished there was more. Hessler is an extremely fluid writer who subtly winds you through his decade in China with these disarmingly simple stories about people living in one of the great economic powerhouses of the 21st century . He writes unassumingly , telling their stories with great insight and considerable wry humour. I will forever remember the chapter on driving lessons and his bad luck with rental cars.

easy to read, funny, brillant. it gives you a new perspective on contemporary china, more complex and intriging than the ones usually conveyed by media. it makes you feel that you have missed a huge piece of the contemporary world: et the end, you yearn for getting more.