Title: Peace Corps teaching in China
Review: This was a real pleasure to read. It took me back to the many rewards of being a Peace Corps volunteer myself, as well as to my teaching for a year in China in the late 1980s. Hessler writes well, and the book succeeds nicely on that level. Also, his insights are fresh - and candid. He is able to capture the richness of his experiences in China, and also to honestly talk about some of the more unpleasant episodes as well. Many of his experiences ring absolutley true to me in my experiences in China. And, he does especially well in capturing a China in the process of profound change, as well as a China complex and contradictory in many ways. I have just begun reading his second book, Oracle Bones. Already I am enjoying it. I would certainly recommend River Town - and I suspect Oracle Bones as well. One learns many facts about China and gains some broader understandings of the culture and the people.
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