River Town_ Two Years On The Yangtze Part 27

One evening that winter, Polat tried to call his mother in Xinjiang, but the apartment's phone service was cut off. He decided to use the public telephone near the corner of Rhode Island and Franklin. It was almost midnight. The pay phone was right across the street from the Good Ole Reliable Liquor Store.

While he was punching the numbers, a man came up from behind and said something that Polat didn't understand. He ignored the man and kept dialing Xinjiang. Before Polat could finish, he felt something pressed against his back. He whirled around and saw that the object was a handgun.

Two men: one with the gun, one in a car. "Lay down," said the gunman, and this time Polat understood. He dropped down; the gunman searched him. He found seventy dollars in a front pocket but somehow missed the three hundred that Polat had stashed in another pocket. The two muggers drove away on Rhode Island Avenue. Polat picked himself up and hurried back to the apartment. He had been outside for less than five minutes.

THAT WINTER, I visited the United States for a month. I spent Christmas with my parents and sisters in Missouri, and I saw friends and editors in various cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Washington, D.C. None of these places felt truly familiar. I had grown up in one American small town and attended college in another; since graduation I had lived overseas. There wasn't a single big city in America that I could negotiate without a map.

To me, the capital felt the most foreign. The layout was intimidating; there never seemed to be enough people to fill the District. In January, the monuments looked particularly deserted: empty paths, yellowed gra.s.s. The sky was the color of cold metal; the forecast called for snow. I took the metro to Rhode Island Avenue, surrounded by unfamiliar faces. The first person I recognized was a Uighur.

He had waited outside the station, on foot-his Honda was in the shop. We grinned and shook hands, just like the old days in Yabaolu. His face looked thinner; he had lost weight since coming to America. He still chain-smoked, but now he bought Marlboro Lights instead of Hilton. Back in Beijing, he had preferred Marlboro but usually didn't buy them, because of all the fakes.

We walked to his apartment, and he laughed when I took off my coat.

"Your shirt's the same as mine," he said.

I looked down and realized that we had dressed identically: olive green Caterpillar-brand denim shirts.

"Did you buy that in Yabaolu?" he asked.

"Yes. In that new market in Chaoyangmenwai."

"It's jiade jiade," he said, laughing. "Fake. Same as mine. How much did you pay?"

That was a question that had no good answer in China; the moment anybody asked, you knew you had gotten ripped off.

"Maybe seventy yuan," I said, hopelessly.

"I paid forty," Polat said. "They probably charged you more because you're a foreigner."

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

THIS BOOK WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE without my family. I owe a great deal to all the Hesslers and Gundys who kept in touch during my two years in Sichuan, and thanks for your encouragement and support while I was writing. I promise that someday I'll find subjects closer to home. without my family. I owe a great deal to all the Hesslers and Gundys who kept in touch during my two years in Sichuan, and thanks for your encouragement and support while I was writing. I promise that someday I'll find subjects closer to home.

From the first trip downriver to the final revision of the ma.n.u.script, Adam Meier has been everything I could ask of a friend. In particular, thanks for being such a steadying influence in Fuling, and thanks for all your help with the editing-at times, a difficult and delicate process. We've tilted at our share of windmills together and not for a moment would I have rather been there with anybody else.

I was also fortunate to share the joys and challenges of Fuling life with Sunni Fa.s.s and Noreen Finnegan, who were great sitemates. I couldn't have started my time in Sichuan with a better group than Peace Corps China 3: Tamy Chapman, Sean Coady, Mike Goettig, Rose Karkoski, Karen Lauck, Lisa McCallum, Rob Schmitz, Craig Simons, Sarah Telford, Rebecca Steinle Wallihan, Andrew and Molly Watkins, and Adam Weiss. I also want to thank Travis Klingberg, Christopher Marquardt, Mike Meyer, and the Wolken family for their friendship, both in Sichuan and afterwards.

The Peace Corps China staff provided me with a perfect combination of support and freedom while I was in Fuling, especially Dr. William Speidel, Kandice Christian, Don McKay, and Zhan Yimei.

A number of editors helped me with revisions. In particular, I was fortunate to work with Doug Hunt of the University of Missouri, who was always generous with his time and good advice. I appreciated the comments and recommendations of Scott Kramer, Matt Metzger, Angela Hessler, Terzah Ewing of the Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal, and Ian Johnson of the Wall Street Journal's Wall Street Journal's Beijing bureau. I benefited from the recommendations of a former Fuling student who read the ma.n.u.script and gave me a local's reaction-I won't name you here, but I very much appreciate your help. And I want to thank John McPhee of Princeton University for both guidance and friendship; your encouragement while I was living in Fuling helped get this book started. Beijing bureau. I benefited from the recommendations of a former Fuling student who read the ma.n.u.script and gave me a local's reaction-I won't name you here, but I very much appreciate your help. And I want to thank John McPhee of Princeton University for both guidance and friendship; your encouragement while I was living in Fuling helped get this book started.

Thanks to Tim Duggan, my editor at HarperCollins, and William Clark, my agent, for your enthusiasm and support for this project.

My largest debt of grat.i.tude is to my friends in Fuling. I hope that my stories reflect your generosity, patience, and understanding. In particular I want to thank my former students, who are now working all across China, from the highlands of Tibet to southern boom towns like Shenzhen. Most of you are now teachers, and many of you are living in your own Sichuanese river towns, along the Yangtze, the Wu, the Longxi, the Changtou, the Meixi, the Yancang, the Quxi, the Daxi-all of the small and remote rivers that run through eastern Sichuan, where the schools are simple and the cla.s.ses crowded but the teachers do the best they can. I hope that you are blessed with students as wonderful as mine.

Credits Map Design by Annie Lee

Praise for for RIVER TOWN.

by PETER H HESSLER "A perceptive and engrossing account of an outsider in fast-changing China.... Elegant."

-Business Week "Fascinating.... Vivid.... Penetrating.... A valuable book for anyone interested in a.s.sessing the progress and future of China."

-Washington Post Book World "A work of grace and profundity."

-Esquire "Tender, intelligent, and insightful, [this] is the work of a writer of rare talent; it deserves to become a cla.s.sic."

-Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman The Professor and the Madman "Charming and insightful.... Poignant [and] hilarious.... Lively, intelligent.... You will learn a great deal about real life in contemporary China in River Town River Town, and about how that vast country appears in the eyes of a sensitive, aware, rugged young American who keeps both his eyes and his mind open."

-New York Times "A vivid and touching tribute to a place and its people."

-Kirkus Reviews "If you should read only one book about China, let it be this.... Hessler is a marvellous writer.... I am not the only China-watcher who will wish he had written this book."

-Jonathan Mirsky, The Literary Review The Literary Review (London) (London) "An intimate, humorous, true-to-life portrait of modern China."

-Vanity Fair "River Town is at once profoundly insightful, sharply critical, deeply admiring, thoroughly unsentimental, precisely written, and often very, very funny." is at once profoundly insightful, sharply critical, deeply admiring, thoroughly unsentimental, precisely written, and often very, very funny."

-Tim Cahill, author of Pa.s.s the b.u.t.terworms Pa.s.s the b.u.t.terworms and and Road Fever Road Fever "A lyrical account...larded with the tender tales and sweet insights of a personal journey.... A triumph of grace over artifice."

-San Francisco Chronicle "Richly nuanced.... Hessler tells his story in a prose that is both forceful and precise."

-Los Angeles Times "With patience and trust, Hessler sees that it is possible to partic.i.p.ate in and understand local life.... River Town River Town is a poignant and beautifully written account of a backwater about to face the onslaught of socialist modernity." is a poignant and beautifully written account of a backwater about to face the onslaught of socialist modernity."

-The Times Literary Supplement (London) (London) "Exquisitely reported.... Hessler describes the politics and the history of China in ways that I've never seen matched.... [He] writes beautifully and with balance."

-Gay Talese, Brill's Content Brill's Content "Never is Hessler's complex China, or his book, anything less than magnificent."

-Outside magazine magazine "Moving, mesmerizing.... Transcends the boundaries of the travel genre and will appeal to anyone wanting to learn more about the heart and soul of the Chinese people."

-Booklist "One of the most enchanting books I've read in a very long time.... The quality of the view is exhilarating."

-Anne Stephenson, USA Today USA Today "Hessler writes beautifully. River Town River Town is memoir, travelogue, and astute anthropological writing woven into a book that is difficult to put down." is memoir, travelogue, and astute anthropological writing woven into a book that is difficult to put down."

-Abraham Verghese, author of The Tennis Partner The Tennis Partner and and My Own Country My Own Country "Powerful.... Hessler makes poignant observations about the Chinese and the ways Communism and increasing openness affects them."

-Salon.com "Suffused with candor, compa.s.sion, insights, and intimate knowledge, River Town River Town is a wonderful read." is a wonderful read."

-Ha Jin, author of Waiting Waiting, winner of the National Book Award