Anyone who lives in or has lived in China should read this book. And even if you have no real connection to China, it’s a fascinating contemplation and exploration of culture and history. I really value Hessler’s insights into the ordinary people of China. I wish my Chinese was strong enough to enable me to have real conversations with my neighbors and the people I encounter each day.

I can’t say enough about this author; I’m really enchanted with him. I feel as if he’s really grown as a writer since “River Town,” his first book. He’s only a little older than me and I hope to be able to keep coming back to him through his writing for my whole life and see how his thinking progresses.
I think when I started the book I was comparing it to “Eat, Pray, Love” because both are non-fiction works about living abroad. Elizabeth Gilbert’s journey around the world is a sort of outward manifestation of her inner journey into herself which she describes with so much openness that it can be painful (for me, anyway). I was initially finding Oracle Bones to be cold in comparison; it is a researched journalistic work about people in China – several longitudinal studies of Chinese people. But I guess by the end I came to feel that the author was extremely conscious of his presence in the work and deliberate about using it.
Like other, similar, “Chinahand” books, it uses the stories of everyday people to sort of paint a big picture of modern China and its psychological relationship with the weight of its recent and distant past.
I would say this book is about the process of researching the past. Hessler tries to reconstruct the life of an archeologist/linguist who was himself trying to reconstruct the way language came about in China thousands of years ago. I guess the book is about that process of reconstruction and unraveling but how the researcher affects his story and how many different sides there always are to one story.
The book is also about words, the importance of words – it was nice to read it after having read “Eats, Shoots and Leaves,” nice to be made to analyze language, how it comes into being, how it’s constantly evolving, the political ramifications of seeking to change or not change writing systems.
There was a lot of self-consciousness of process in it, self-consciousness of language, of the voice of the author. My mind felt really alive while I was reading it – I felt like I was always jumping around and trying to get at different layers of meaning in a sort of diffuse way.

Got through half pretty quickly then just couldn't finish it - kept turning a page and then putting it down. Left last 100 pages unread because it became so scattered, felt like random story after story that did not tie anything together. Was a bit like a thousand news articles put together in a book that did not necessarily fit together.
He's a great writer but I couldn't see the connections in latter half of book.

I don't know if I will pick this one back up or not. Not sure if it was the timing or the book itself, but this one just didn't grab me. For sure Hessler has the ability to find unique voices and tell their stories in a compelling way, but compared to his other books this one was less captivating for me. I didn't finish it, and I'm not sure if I will.

4.5 stars

A really excellent work combining memoir, reportage and history. Hessler, who previously served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Fuling, Sichuan, soon after moved to Beijing and became a freelance journalist there. This book follows his experiences living in and traveling around the country from 1999-2002 and the big events that went on at the time; the lives of several of his friends and former students, including a young couple making their way as teachers, a young woman who moved to Shenzhen to make her fortune, and a Uighur trader in exile; and some investigations into Chinese history both recent and ancient.

These last sections wind up merging with the author’s own journey, as he becomes interested in a book published during the Mao years, entitled “Our Country’s Shang and Zhou Bronzes Looted by the American Imperialists.” As it turns out that title was all about the political climate rather than the author’s preferences—he was a scholar of antiquities rather than a polemicist, and was hounded to suicide under murky circumstances at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Hessler is able to trace the human story of those involved through interviews with surviving relatives and students, along with visiting archaeological digs and writing about the sometimes surprising discoveries about China’s past.

While I found this book a little less initially engaging than Hessler’s previous, River Town—which was more strictly memoir, and in which everything was new—I ultimately enjoyed and admire it a lot. Hessler is an excellent writer and storyteller, weaving together a variety of events and people in a consistently fascinating way. He’s always questioning, always seeking out complexities and recognizing absurdity. And he doesn’t disengage himself and his own influence from what’s going on around him, or pretend to be more virtuous than he is; the bit where he assaults a thief in his hotel room along the North Korean border feels particularly real.

It’s also interesting here to see Hessler struggle with his own profession, trying to figure out how to do it ethically and ultimately landing on long-form content. His criticisms of the news media are ones I’ll be thinking about for awhile: not only that it chases horror stories, but that it presents the point-of-view of a single journalist or small handful of people in an objective third-person voice, making it seem less fallible than it is. And also that there’s something voyeuristic about the production and consumption of horror stories by people too far away to make change, as opposed to reporting on problems in one’s own community.

Most of this book is in the detail and the specifics, but toward the end, when the author is visiting an immigrant from China living in Washington D.C., there’s a bit that struck me as particularly insightful, so I’ll leave you with that:

“When I first lived in China, I was mostly struck by differences, but over time the similarities became more obvious. Americans and Chinese shared a number of characteristics: they were pragmatic and informal, and they had an easy sense of humor. In both nations, people tended to be optimistic, sometimes to a fault. They worked hard—business success came naturally, and so did materialism. They were deeply patriotic, but it was a patriotism based on faith rather than experience: relatively few people had spent much time abroad, but they still loved their country deeply. When they did leave, they tended to be bad travelers—quick to complain, slow to adjust. Their first question about a foreign country was usually: What do they think of us? Both China and the United States were geographically isolated, and their cultures were so powerful that it was hard for people to imagine other perspectives.

“But each nation held together remarkably well. They encompassed a huge range of territory, ethnic groups, and languages, and no strictly military or political force could have achieved this for long. Instead, certain ideas brought people together. When the Han Chinese talked about culture and history, it reminded me of the way Americans talked about democracy and freedom. These were fundamental values, but they also had a quality of faith, because if you actually investigated—if you poked around an archaeological site in Gansu, or an election in Florida—then you saw the element of disorder that lay just beneath the surface. Some of the power of each nation was narrative: they smoothed over the irregularities, creating good stories about themselves.

“That was one reason why each country coped so badly with failure. When things went wrong, people were startled by the chaos—the outlandish impact of some boats carrying opium or a few men armed with box cutters. For cultures accustomed to controlling and organizing their world, it was deeply traumatic. And it was probably natural that in extreme crisis, the Americans took steps that undermined democracy and freedom, just as the Chinese had turned against their own history and culture.”

At any rate, overall I found this fascinating and would highly recommend. I look forward to reading Hessler’s other books soon.

As an American, when I think about China, I think about a country filled with faceless individuals who for some reason I am not supposed to get along with. They worship differently than us. They create more pollution than us. They have a different government than we do. There is no way that anybody that lives in the country can be anything like me. This is why reading Peter Hessler's book was so important for me. I gained not only insight into the history, society, and culture of this hidden country, but I also gained a human connection with many of the people who live there. Peter used to teach English to students in the country, but eventually gave that up to start reporting for magazines and newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and National Geographic. He was their man in Beijing, and through both of these experiences, he was able to meet many different common people who lived and loved in this part of the world. It is these stories that he tells, and it really shows what these people have to go through in order to try and make it in this country. It is a fascinating read, and anyone with a sense of history or world cultures should spend the time to learn from Hessler's perspective.

This book was one of the best ones I read last year. Peter Hessler manages to give an insider and outsider's view of China. He first arrived in China as a teacher and then stayed in contact with his students when he moved to Beijing as a journalist. What makes this book fascinating and a pleasure to read is the way he sympathetically tells the stories of his Chinese friends.

Oracle Bones may be one of --if not the-- best nonfiction book I have ever read. It is insightful, funny, well-researched, and a load of other positive adjectives.

At the heart of this story lies three contemporary characters and one of history. Through them we explore the journey to contemporary China. Almost every chapter relates to one of these four and also to Chinese history. Two of them are former students of Hessler's from his time teaching English in Fuling. Another a black market currency exchange-r who flees the country and takes asylum in China over the course of the book. Chen Mengjia is the historical character. A poet and scholar of the titular oracle bones, Hessler spends much of his time uncovering the incomplete story of Chen Mengjia and his life.

It is a testament to Hessler's writing that I cannot easily pick a favorite narrative. Both of his students(going by their chosen English names) gave us insight into the first generation raised in this new economic powerhouse China. William Jefferson Foster, one of Hessler's students, has his narrative revolve around his journey as an English teacher and obsession with America. Through him we learned of the common people left behind from the economic reform and his journey to absorb as much American culture as possible. Emily Bronte was another of his students, and we saw the isolation that the economic reforms created. Another narrative revolves around Hessler's Uyghur friend known as Polat. Starting off as a black market currency exchange in the underbelly of Beijing and ending alone in America as a refugee. The Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic group in China currently facing extreme persecution and ethnic cleansing, played a central role in this narrative. One of the best parts of the book was Polat's story after 9/11, which occurred a few months after he was granted political asylum in the United States. Finally there is Chen Mengjia. A poet and scholar of the oracle bones, Mengjia lived during a tumultuous time to be an academic in China and ending up committing suicide. Hessler pieces together his story through countless interviews and research trips, and it is my personal highlight of the book, I cannot do it justice.

Oracle Bones focuses on the culture of China lost during the cultural revolution. The cultural analysis is top tier and subtle. All four narratives paint a broader macro-narrative of a history of culture that I strongly recommend. If you are at all interested in Chinese culture or history I would strongly recommend this book. Even if you aren't give it a try, it will pull you in quicker than you think.

Wonderfully written. I loved The structure of the narrative ---genius.
A rich tale of ancient and modern china.
I recently visited the Chicago art institute and was thrilled to see actual oracle bones.
Recommend this book most highly.

this book reeeeeeeally cemented me as a fan of peter hessler. he has a way of articulating in words the humanity of people with vastly different life experiences and at times objectionable viewpoints that i find remarkable and admirable. my favourite sections were about the trials and tribulations of one of his former students from fuling, william jefferson foster (lol), who moves to the east coast (of china) after graduation to work as a teacher. things do not go as planned. the first school he teaches at turns out to be a scam (the 'school' in question doesn't even have a fixed address); he fares better at the second school, but in a hypercompetitive society where education is viewed primarily as a tool for achieving economic success and stability, teachers find themselves under tremendous pressure to adapt, often having to bribe corrupt local government officials into leaking exam tips. william keeps an extremely entertaining journal (of sorts) in english, which hessler excerpts throughout the book. he also writes letters to peter in english:

'Hi yagao [toothpaste],

I am sure that this Spring Festical I will stay in Zhejiang. We are required to give so-called extra lessons to the Yahoo students.... The year 2002 this school will have fierce competition and challenges from the fucking Public Boarding school that I hoped will be bombed by Osama Bin Laden. by the way, how is your family? And what's new in there?
I want to bye to you now. Right now I have to coach my top students who are my money and hope in the new year of 2002.'

other threads in this book include: the struggles of a persecuted uyghur intellectual who eventually seeks asylum in the unites states, the history and development of chinese script as told through archaeology, unresolved cultural revolution trauma, the invention of shenzhen, and hilariously offensive bootleg 9/11 memorabilia.

A friend recommended this book to, partially because of my interest in China and my very nerdy obsession of carving seals, many using the oracle bone script(甲骨文). It's a fun narrative history that covers a wide variety of topics from the mass migration of workers, the cultural revolution, Falun Gong and of course the bones. Most of these are the stories of individuals caught in the waves of change, your not going to find the traditional objective? (and boring) analysis that afflicts some China books.

One character I found interesting was Polat, a Uighur dissident who wound up as a black market money changer in Beijing and later made his way to the US and was granted asylum. Hessler visits Polat often both in Beijing and Washington DC, Polat is having a tough time in the US, but he studies English and is getting better jobs and improving his living conditions.

This book has some overlap with the work Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China but it covers a much broader range of people and places. A good read.


Horse deer aka baka (idiot)

An excellent read that effectively develops a narrative encompassing modern and ancient components of China. China is a nation that has been on the rise economically, politically and militarily for some time but how does this rapid change impact the lives of individuals?

Author Peter Hessler investigates human stories that demonstrate China's transformation, depicting China's modern relationship with the West through the lives of Chinese students, academics and every day workers. The lives of his former English language students are a particular highlight. To witness the changing nature of their lives as they navigate a rapidly changing world is truly fascinating and thought provoking.

Hessler's articulation of the vast cultural, ethnic and economic discrepancies that exist across China is a welcome perspective especially with China commonly depicted as a monolithic nation set on a single purpose of progress. Despite being published over ten years ago topics related to Taiwan, the Uighur population and the contested nature of Chinese history have significant relevance in regards to issues facing China and it's place in the world today.

Hessler incorporates an interesting analysis of the development of Chinese writing and it's influence on identity. This book is part two of a trilogy. I look forward to exploring the other books in the future.