Jottings from the Granite Studio

Ed note: This is a guest post by Zhang Yajun.

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As a Chinese person, books written by foreigners about my country always intrigue me. Of course, some are good, others…not so much.  The bad books occasionally rate a mocking giggle, but the better ones are like mirrors that reflect the country, the people, and yourself. Peter Hessler’s new book Country Driving is one of those mirrors.

The book has three distinct sections: The first recounts Hessler’s experiences driving along the Great Wall from Beijing toward the Tibetan plateau, a trip of nearly 7,000 miles. He spoke with people he met along the road and observed first hand how automobile ownership and the boom in new highway construction have transformed interior regions of China. The second part focuses on Wei Ziqi and his family, who live in Sancha, a village in the rural hinterlands of Beijing. For six years, Hessler rented a weekend home from this family and built deep connections with them. He saw the effects on Wei’s family and the village as China’s economic development trickled into this previously isolated pocket of rural life. In the final section, Hessler describes how a little town in Zhejiang has become a boomtown in large part due to