South of the Clouds《China still in clouds》

Seth Faison undoubtedly distinguished himself out from his peer China writers. He took a unique angle of conducting two journeys in parallel one penetrating through the clouds of Chinese society another into his innermost. Maybe one work resembles to this one is by Peter Hessler in his River Town but he created a new identity instead of unfolding the existing identity did by Faison. Faison simply amazed me with his candor. He dared to discuss his puzzlement on sexuality guilty from prostitution vulnerability as an outsider and the ultimate spiritual path leading to the meaning of life. While to a macho person those above are trivial to him and readers like me they matter.

For a handful times his unfading appetite for the secretive side of Chinese annoyed me but in most cased I was mesmerized by his story-telling skill. His writing is concise and allusive. It was a good training of my English that I tentatively linked those short sentences to my intensive Chinese background in a way to understand author’s take of China. I would like to recommend a revisiting of this work.

Stories from the first half of this book are average mimic to other works in the same genre (like Chinese Lessons by John Pomfret). Accounts on pirate CD and people smuggling are readable. Stories of gay marriage and Jin Xing are by social concerns at the first glance but in personal content indeed. I like the passage on Sauna Massage since no westerner else has written it before. The dog soup is biased in my opinion. Faison complained his feeling of being expelled as an outsider which is probably true in China but also true in United States and I believe in most parts of this world. People in the West talk confidently about China affairs without knowing a single Chinese and of course no clue of their language and so much. They tag China with derogatory words with no intention to know how Chinese people feel like. It is a tragedy. Right now this tragedy is magnified in Tibet. The tension is multifaceted there but miserably China expert like Faison still can not see the whole picture. Poor leads to vulnerability; vulnerability leads to humiliation. That’s the lesson we have learned from the Westerners. And that’s why we have the modernization mania which bothers the Tibetans the most so far.

Faison suggested Chinese per se is a religion. It makes sense though. Chinese language pockets numerous proverbs many of which are tenet-bearing. Our daily practices are ritual like in some sort and our strong moral system makes people behave accordingly. I might develop on this point later.

Among several China books I have read I rank this one high. A worth reading.