8 Alternative Books on China You Haven't Heard Of

Approach the 'China' section of a bookshop and immediately you are struck by the overall redness of the area. It seems there are no books about China that aren't crimson and adorned with a dragon and/or Chinese flag. Maybe a picture of Mao for good measure. They all have titles like The Dragon Wakes, China Shakes the World or The China Boom. There is no Wild Swans or The Last Emperor here. 

But lets look past "China" to the individuals that make up this vast kingdom; where are the books about current subcultures, trends, phenomenons affecting everyday life? Where are the stories about and by the common people of China: what they like, desire, fear, experience and do to stay afloat in the shifting sands of this rapidly changing country?

I've picked out 8 books; some I have read, some I have been to talks by the author, and some I have listened to reviews on podcasts, and some are just on my reading list. But all cover aspects of life in modern China that economic and international relations books would skim over but are by far the most interesting part of studying China and Chinese (to me at least).

1. Little Emperors and Material Girls: Youth and Sex in Modern China by Jemimah Steinfeld - A look at young people's sex lives, family ties, material desires and strangely enough, patriotism through anecdotal stories and observations.
2. Notes from Beijing Coffeeshop by Jon Geldart - Geldart has spent over five years in Beijing conversing with Chinese business leaders, opinion formers and ordinary Chinese mainly in coffee shops and tea houses. His observations, stories and profiles are a gateway to seeing how people are really do business and living in the new China.
3. Factory Girls: Voices from the Heart of Modern China by Leslie T. Chang - Through the lives of two young women, Chang vividly portrays the struggles of millions of migrant workers who leave their rural towns to find jobs in the cities, driving China’s economic boom. 
4. I Am China by Xiaolu Guo - Guo is a director and author censored and monitored in her homeland for her more subversive works, and I Am China is no different, telling the fictional tale of two lovers, separated by distance and an oppressive political regime, desperate to find their way back to each other. 
5. Verse Going Viral: China's New Media Scenes by Heather Inwood - Verse Going Viral examines what happens when poetry, a central pillar of traditional Chinese culture, encounters an era of digital media and unabashed consumerism in the early twenty-first century. 
6. Buying Beauty: Cosmetic Surgery in China by Hua Wen - Hua explores how turbulent economic, sociocultural, and political changes in China since the 1980s have produced immense anxiety that is experienced both mentally and corporeally. Cosmetic surgery in China has grown rapidly in recent years of dramatic social transition. Facing fierce competition in all spheres of daily life, more and more women consider cosmetic surgery as an investment to gain "beauty capital" to increase opportunities for social and career success. 
7. Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos - Age of Ambition describes some of the billion individual lives that unfold on remote farms, in glittering mansions, and in the halls of power of the world’s largest authoritarian regime. Together they describe the defining clash taking place today: between the individual and the Communist Party’s struggle to retain control. 
8. Modern China: All That Matters by Jonathan Clements - I know I said I was going for personal stories, but Modern China: All That Matters covers key issues of national reconstruction that shape Chinese people; the Cold War, the Cultural Revolution, and the dizzying spectacle of China's economic reform. Clements offers a Chinese perspective on such events as the Handover of Hong Kong, and chronicles the historical events that continue to resonate today in Chinese politics, economics, culture and quality of life.

If you have any more recommendations, please comment below!

杜甫《陪鄭廣文遊何將軍山林十首》Du Fu Ten Verses (1 to 4)

This is a translation of the first 4 verses of 陪鄭廣文遊何將軍山林十首 (Ten Verses on Accompanying Zheng Guang-Wen Travelling in General He's Mountain Groves), by the renowned Tang dynasty poet 杜甫 (Dufu).

This poem is composed of ten verses, although each can be read as an individual poem. I will try to offer a translation that best reflects the grammar in use, although as this sometimes makes for a clunky English translation, I will do my best to offer another idiomatic English poetic rendering as well.


其一 Part 1
不識南塘路，今知第五橋。
I am not familiar with the Southern Well Road,  [塘 is a manmade well or reservoir]
But now I recognise the fifth bridge.
名園依綠水，野竹上青霄。
Famous gardens border green waters,
Wild bamboo reaches up into the clear sky.
谷口舊相得，濠梁同見招。
Mr Gu Kou, a long time ago we got to know one another [Gu Kou is another name for Zheng Guang-Wen, the name in the title of the poem]
To Hao Liang, together we have been summoned. [Hao Liang is a famous lake in China with many cultural connotations, as it is the lake where Zhuangzi had a the conversation about the fish. Hao Liang could also be another name for General He, it is not clear]
平生為幽興，未惜馬蹄遙。
All my life I have been inspired solitude [为X兴 to be inspired by X]
And have never regretted my horses footsteps off into the distance.

I am not familiar with the Southern Well Road,
But now I recognise the fifth bridge.
Famous gardens border green waters,
Wild bamboo reaches up into the clear sky. 
Mr Gu Kou and I got to know one another a long time ago,
And together we have been summoned to Hao Liang. 
All my life I have been inspired solitude,  
And have never regretted my horse's treaded route into the distance.


其二 Part 2
百頃風潭上，千章夏木清。
One hundred qing, the wind blows over deep pools, [頃 an area of land equivalent to 6.67 hectares]
One thousand trees, the summer woods are cool. [章 means trunks, representing trees]
卑枝低結子，接葉暗巢鶯。
Low branches drop down with fruit,
Joined leaves hide nested orioles.
鮮鯽銀絲膾，香芹碧澗羹。
Fresh carp, silver slivers of meat,
Fragrant celery, the broth of a jade mountain stream.
翻疑柁樓底，晚飯越中行。
I wonder, to be below the rudder house, [翻疑 to turn over one's doubts, is a binome meaning 'to wonder'. 柁 is a rudder 樓 means building, so 柁樓 is the small building constructed over the rudder at the back of the boat for the captain to steer the boat in]
Eating dinner travelling through Yue.

One hundred qing, the wind blows over deep pools, 
One thousand trees, the summer woods are cool.
Low hanging branches droop with fruit,
Dense leaves hide nested orioles.
Fresh carp, silver slivers of meat,
Fragrant celery, the broth of a jade mountain stream. 
I wonder what it is like to be in the rudder house, [I'm really not sure about this line, if anyone has better versions, please comment below]
Eating dinner travelling through Yue. 


其三 Part 3
萬里戎王子，何年別月支？
Ten thousand li, the rong wang zi, [戎王子 is a plant, it doesn't seem to have any special properties]
When did you leave Yue Zhi? [月支 land to the west of the Tang dominion, called Tokhara]
異花来絕域，滋蔓匝清池。
Strange flowers come from foreign lands, [絕域 means foreign lands, but 絕 means to cut off, so the real meaning is more of a cut off, isolated land]
It spreads and grows, surrounding the clear pool.
漢使徒空到，神農竟不知。
The Han emissary arrives back in vain,
The God of Farming somehow does not know (of the wang rong zi).  [神農 the god of farming and agriculture, said to have invented farming techniques for China, also called a sage]
露翻兼雨打，開坼漸離披。
Dew rolls and the rain strikes,
It cracks open, and gradually departs and spreads. [both these lines refer to the wang rong zi]

Ten thousand li away from the rong wang zi plant,
When did you leave Tokhara?
Strange flowers come from isolated lands,
It spreads and grows, surrounding the clear pond.
The Han emissary arrives back empty handed,
And even the God of Farming does not know of it. 
Dew rolls over and the rain strikes the wang rong zi,
The flower cracks open, but gradually petals fall and cover the ground. 


其四 Part 4
旁舍連高竹，疏籬帶晚花。
The side house joins with tall bamboo, [旁舍 by this he is implying very humble living, not the main house by a small house by the side, almost like a shed, or an outbuilding]
The sparse fence bears evening flowers.
碾渦深沒馬，藤蔓曲藏蛇。
Mill whirlpool, in the depths the horse sinks, [碾 means to crush, and also means a mill]
Wisteria grows, in the bends snakes hide.
[Scholars don't really know what these two morbid lines are about, but speculate Dufu is mentioning some traumatic period in his life]
詞賦工無益，山林跡未賒。
Words and verse, this work is without profit,
Mountains and forests have never been far away.
盡捻書籍賣，來問爾東家。
I touch everything, sell off my books,
I have come to question your landlord.

Bamboo grows around the outbuilding,
The loosely thatched fence bears evening flowers.
The horse drowns in the depths of the whirlpool by the mill,
Snakes hide in the curves of winding wisteria. 
Words and verse, there is no profit from this work,
I have never been far from mountains and forests.
So I take my books and sell them all,
I come in search of the landlord.