Before I opened the book, I had no idea what it was about. I anticipated a travelogue or perhaps a collection of commentaries on the cultural aspects of China's problems. I never thought the work would be an account of the author's two years of teaching in Fuling.

Truthfully, I felt somewhat disappointed. I have nothing against the genre of the memoir, but in this case, given this subject matter, it simply struck me as too "easy."

This is certainly not to say that that the book is anything other than well written. The pros have been states too often already: its gentle and forgiving tone, its delicate and vivid descriptions, its self-effacing attitude. From a readerly perspective, it is almost perfect.
It is also true that this book is precious; there are hardly any Princeton or Oxford graduates who would go to Fuling to teach, probably not even Beijing or Shanghai. Spreading out across the vast landscape of inland China, there are too many small towns that have undergone transformative changes in the last twenty years but remain isolated from the mainstream narrative. Towns like this only jump into the public eye when extreme events occur. Their “faces” are blurred, but if one gets close enough, observes close enough, and is humble enough to sympathize, one will find that they are all actually as fabulous as Fuling. But only Fuling is fortunate enough to have been the subject of Peter Hessler’s writing.

In this "easy" format, what I see is definitely not only the experience of teaching but also the anguish and confusion, the hope and exploration of a young foreigner who has just arrived in China. The book engages how a foreigner whose brain is full of oriental ideas can deal with obstacles, brush away the surface of life, see through the deep political scars in the hearts of Chinese people. In the end, the book is finally about the process of shedding the past of "Peter Hessler." Once that is done, "He Wei" takes root and blends in with the people around him.

There is one passage in the book that sticks in my mind. It is the final conflict He Wei writes about. Just before he leaves Fuling, he and his colleagues want to make some films as a testimony to the life they have lived in this small town. They want to capture Fuling: the streets they walked, the campus they lived on, the students they interacted with, the friends they made, and the ordinary people who still live there. He Wei originally thought those people were difficult to photograph because, when they found out he was filming, they would drop what they were doing, watch and ask questions with curiosity. He did not consider another kind of "curiosity", a kind of political sensitivity. During the filming progress, a person claiming to be a "citizen" suddenly appears in front of him and scolds him: "it is illegal to film here." There is nothing worse than this. He has been living in the city for two years, trying to fit in with the local context, treating himself as a citizen, speaking broken Chinese, eating local food, and running through the rugged and wet mountain roads. But in the end, the truth is, “They are still foreigners."

This reminds me of the Chinese immigration of the 1800s. This is what Frank Pixley, the 8th attorney general of California, said about Chinese immigrants: "they can never assimilate with us; that they are a perpetual, unchanging, and unchangeable alien element that can never become homogenous.” But the Chinese in America are just like He Wei in China; they do the same things as normal Americans, trying desperately to fit in, making this their second home. And yet, just like He Wei, they are not accepted by the locals. Different cultures are not contradictory, and mutual integration is the only way to promote development. He Wei is highly contributing in this regard.

As I closed the book, the reflections in the text, the East-West culture clash, the humor, and the faint sadness gradually subsided. On the one hand, I marveled at the fact that a foreign teacher worked so hard to learn about China and to try to get Americans to know China. On the other hand, I was sad to find out that He Wei's life experience in these two years was a kind of rebirth. But what about me: an international student who has faced the cultural differences between East and West? I probably need to improve my ability to observe details of life and record the things around me.