Peter Hessler's Oracle Bones

Peter Hessler's Oracle Bones: a journey through China and the West (published by HarperCollins in 2006) is a masterfully written account depicting modern China through the connections of history. He tells the stories of the many people he has known in the Middle Kingdom--their struggles with modernization and ways in which they embrace the changes of their country.

The subjects of most of the book are Hessler's students from his days of teaching English in rural Sichuan province (which he wrote about in his previous work, River Town), many of whom had moved from the village in search of opportunities in various cities that were a direct result of the policies of Deng Xiaoping. Others are friends and acquaintances he met while living and working in Beijing--people like his Uighur friend Polat who emigrated to the U.S. on falsified documents shortly before September 11, 2001. All of these people are connected by Hessler's research of the Shang Dynasty oracle bones and the common history of China.

Hessler writes objectively about international events as seen by an American living in China--there is the Chinese embassy bombing and the protests against the U.S. that followed, September 11 and the public reactions, and Olympic preparations that included the razing of numerous Hutong neighborhoods. He journeys through regions that most people outside China have little knowledge about, particularly the city of Shenzhen and Xinjiang province. He writes at length about Shenzhen and his trips through the city while visiting a former student. He shows the influence of world events, changing economic situations, and government policies on the common citizens. Most of his information of Xinjiang comes from research and his time on a movie set in the region.

There is also an historical perspective of the Chinese language. He analyzes the origins of writing characters, Mao Zedong's campaign to simplify the written language through Romanization, and even opposition to the simplification of characters. Through the study of language, Hessler unintentionally discovers the work of Chen Mengjia who opposed Mao's campaigned and suffered because of his opposition--he also conducted his own research of the oracle bones. Hessler is taken on a long journey to research the man's life and comes up with multiple stories that turn the scholar into an almost mythological character.

Oracle Bones is must read for anyone foreigner who lives in China. It is a brilliant glimpse of the ever-changing Chinese world, complete with Hessler's own moments of wit and unintended humor (most of which is more amusing to readers who have experienced life in China).