The latest by the indispensable Peter Hessler includes this pitch-perfect description of a certain kind of bookstore in China:
Last year, when I entered Xinhua Winshare, one of the largest of the bookstores that are overseen by the Party in downtown Chengdu, the first table displayed twenty titles that documented the career and theories of Xi Jinping in mind-numbing detail: “Xi Jinping’s Seven Years as an Educated Youth,” “The Story of Xi Jinping’s Poverty Alleviation,” “Xi Jinping in Xiamen,” “Xi Jinping in Zhengding,” “Xi Jinping in Ningde.” Less than thirty feet away, another table featured stacks of books marketed as the Dystopian Trilogy: “1984,” “Brave New World,” and “We,” a novel that was banned in the Soviet Union after it was written, around 1920, by Yevgeny Zamyatin. Nearby, a security camera hung from the ceiling, and the cover of the Orwell volume declared, “War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. And Big Brother Is Watching You.”
The article is classic Hessler, full of surprising discoveries and humanizing complexities, all perfectly structured to offer an unexpected and welcome three-dimensional view of people and issues usually represented in two (or one!). Its subject (though he always finds many connections) is a complaint placed anonymously on WeChat that he browbeat his students with ideologically unacceptable ideas. He was able to demonstrate that the alleged incident didn't happen - but his contract teaching in China was still not renewed (admittedly at a time when many such invitations dried up).
I'd be lying if I said his experience didn't make me wonder whether my summer school experience this year might be different than in years past, since the subject of the first dystopian table just spoke at my host university, calling for more political-ideological training in "building of world-class universities with Chinese characteristics."
