Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present

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Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present

4.08 of 5 stars 4.08 · rating details · 2,561 ratings · 390 reviews

From the acclaimed author of River Town comes a rare portrait, both intimate and epic, of twenty-first-century China as it opens its doors to the outside world.

A century ago, outsiders saw China as a place where nothing ever changes. Today the coun-try has become one of the most dynamic regions on earth. That sense of time—the contrast between past and present, and the

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Hardcover, 512 pages

Published April 25th 2006 by Harper (first published January 1st 2006)

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Nov 03, 2007 Panther rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: asia, top-5-2007

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 ma...more 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.
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Apr 24, 2012 Lorenzo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: american, aaa-my-library, 2012-readings

From the tiny photo on the back cover of "Oracle Bones", Peter Hassler looks like a friend of mine, A., when I was at the university.

One day, around 10 years ago, I met this fellow out of our "Media and communication" department and I told him that he should have tried doing some internship in order to get the 5 credits he missed before getting his degree.

I remember how he originally wanted to take part to some sort of seminar on semiotics or something and I insisted that it was a waste of time....more

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May 06, 2008 Sandra rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: girls-a-boy

This is a book I would never had picked up but I am surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

Hessler journeys between China's past and present through the parallel stories of oracle bones (pieces of bone used in royal divination and some of the first chinese writings in history),3 the students he once taught in his english class in China and other Chinese people he meets along the way. It is very interesting to follow the lives of his 3 students and the hardships they face as young migrant workers i...more

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Dec 22, 2007 Matthew rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: lovers of travel writing

Shelves: essaysjournalism

Hessler's portrait of China is humbling, especially reading it as a Singaporean Chinese. We have many preconceptions of how materialistic or coarse the mainland Chinese are: the book does not deny it, but emphasizes a very different side of China. In the chapter on Shenzhen, in particular, when he profiles a former factory worker turned talk show host who sticks to her moral guns, and becomes an inspiration for many blue collar factory girls, in sharp contrast to the white collar Chinese novelis...more

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Dec 18, 2007 John rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I didn't know much about China before so I found the various glimpses this book provides interesting. It's focused on three things-- a) Chinese archaeologists of the 20th century and some of their discoveries, b) a Uighur trader, and c) recent students of the author who taught English for a while and how they're lives in some of China that has opened up to capitalism. It seems that everything in China that is suppose to help move it forward (whether communism or capitalism and the government pr...more

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Dec 20, 2008 Sharm Alagaratnam rated it 4 of 5 stars

Oracle Bones is Peter Hessler's second book on China. His first, the wonderful River Town, won the 2001 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize for non-fiction, and was an unassuming poignant account of the two years he spent teaching English at the Fuling Teacher Training College in Sichuan. By the end of his stay he had gotten a good taste of local life and language, down to the worst names you can call a person, bafflingly in Fuling, yashua, or a toothbrush.

His new book is a curious hybrid of casual...more

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Apr 07, 2013 Pizoozoo rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book was an enthralling journey through time in China. Okay that is pretty much the same thing the back of the book says. So what does that mean? In this case, it means a compilation of stories that personalizes the migratory lives of the Chinese population. Recently, over the past 20(?) years there has been a trend where the youth in the rural areas of China migrate to industrial centers to find better pay. They often end up finding a much more difficult life than they expect, wrought with...more

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Aug 26, 2012 Troy Parfitt rated it 4 of 5 stars

Oracle Bones, Peter Hessler’s second effort, or Part II, as it were, of his China trilogy, chronicles, mainly, the lives of various Chinese people, from archeologists and intellectuals to the author’s friends and former students. Many of the narratives seem to be more detailed and more rewarding versions of his newspaper and magazine articles. Themes and “characters” recur and are given a sort of chronological treatment. The glue that binds the book together, the oracle bones, is also a sort of...more Oracle Bones, Peter Hessler’s second effort, or Part II, as it were, of his China trilogy, chronicles, mainly, the lives of various Chinese people, from archeologists and intellectuals to the author’s friends and former students. Many of the narratives seem to be more detailed and more rewarding versions of his newspaper and magazine articles. Themes and “characters” recur and are given a sort of chronological treatment. The glue that binds the book together, the oracle bones, is also a sort of loose symbol for the volume in total. The oracle bones convey meaning; their messages and the stories surrounding the people who excavate, study, and try to make sense of them attempt to tell us something about Chinese culture. The people Hessler writes about, and the yarns pertaining to his effort to do so, also try to tell us something about Chinese culture.

Oracle Bones is a long book, about 470 pages of text. Some of the topics are interesting; others are not. But what was not interesting to me would be interesting to someone else. What’s important is that the subjects were interesting to the author. That’s what a good writer does: he writes for himself. If others like it, fine; if not, that’s fine, too. Readers like me are going to criticize no matter what you do, so you may as well scribble about your own interests.

And Hessler is a good writer. His sentences are crisp, his paragraphs economical. His writing is better than in his first book, River Town, even if River Town is a better, or at least more coherent, story. (I suppose it’s fair to clarify that whereas River Town is a story, Oracle Bones is a series of vignettes.) In any event, it’s always interesting, to me at least, to plot an author’s development.

And Peter deserves credit in general. In the sea of China experts, i.e. know-it-all expatriates who write thousands of words in poorly-formed blogs and internet forums, he got off his duff and wrote, seriously, about his experiences in China and what he learned from them. He dug deeply, he researched, he became a journalist, and he travelled extensively (sometimes at considerable risk) to talk to people and record what they had to say. He got published, and his China trilogy continues to sell. Hessler proved that there’s always room for one more voice, provided that voice is reasoned, informed, and intelligent. He’s got much more to say than Henry Kissinger, for instance. He’s got much more to say than a lot of China writers.

That said, I wish the book were a bit more passionate. In places, I found Hessler’s style a little too, well, journalistic. He removes himself from the stories, but in the places where he inserts himself, i.e. expresses his opinion, or shows his frustration (as he does with the “struggle session” he faced after being detained for camping on the Great Wall, or, so the authorities thought, reporting illegally on a village election) it’s quite satisfying. But again, this is a matter of personal taste.

A recurring comment about Hessler’s writing is that he is so very sympathetic toward Chinese people, but I don’t see this as being the case, especially in this book. As there is in any China book worth its salt, there are heaps of send-ups and bucketfuls of criticism, though they are rendered in a flat, ironical fashion. I don’t see Hessler as being eminently empathetic; at one point he describes himself as coldly pragmatic – a journalist getting his scoop.

Oracle Bones did what it was supposed to; it made me want to read his third book, Country Driving. I’m curious as to whether there is (and I hope there isn’t) as much detachment in that book as there is in this one.

In total, a very good read. China at the microcosmic level is infinitely more rewarding than books on China’s dynastic history or soporific tomes on, say, the history of Chinese diplomacy. And, among the dozens of intriguing and memorable stories, there are excellent tips for would-be journalists and aspiring writers. Oracle Bones works as a starting-point for neophytes or a refresher for old China hands. I recommend it.

Troy Parfitt is the author of Why China Will Never Rule the World

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May 24, 2012 Zhifei Ge rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: travelogue

The topic of the book is serious. It's about how we Chinese are treating the ancient and the near history. But the tone of the book is condescending. The author, Peter Hessler, does not give a specific answer to the question how we should treat our history. Rather, he tells a lot of stories. Although superficial on the surface, they reflect the contradictions in contemporary China and stimulates us to rethink about our history and ourselves.

The first story is the study of oracle bones. Our wor...more 　　The topic of the book is serious. It's about how we Chinese are treating the ancient and the near history. But the tone of the book is condescending. The author, Peter Hessler, does not give a specific answer to the question how we should treat our history. Rather, he tells a lot of stories. Although superficial on the surface, they reflect the contradictions in contemporary China and stimulates us to rethink about our history and ourselves.
　　
　　The first story is the study of oracle bones. Our worship of ancestors drives us to study the oracle bones. Nonetheless, most of the oracle bones are about future, such as, "in the next ten days, there will be no disaster". It feels so contradictory that while we're digging holes to unearth our origins, our ancestors seem more concerned with their immediate future than their ancestors. Then, why shall we worship those who do even share our philosophy?
　　
　　The second story comes with the people studying oracle bones. The knot of this story is Mengjia Chen, a famous archaeologist. He committed suicide just before the Culture Revolution. One obvious reason is that he felt irritable but hopeless of the destruction of history by the then contemporaries. Associated with him are his friends, relatives and colleagues. After so many years, how those people think of his suicide? Guilty or innocent? We'll realize that the boundary between these two contradicting feelings are just not so clear when we read the book.
　　
　　The third story is about Polat. Polat is a Uighur, a minority ethnic group of China. Polat is an intellectual and also a business man. He resents China for her single-handed claim of Xinjiang and disrespect of Uighur's culture and natural rights. From Polat's perspective, China has ignored the major part Uighur's history or has lied to herself that Xinjiang is historically part of China. His resentment is probably the ultimate reason why he would take every risk to immigrate to the US. But from Peter's writings, we still find Polat connected in every way with China and the Chinese ways.(less)

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Jan 04, 2012 Bob Reed rated it 3 of 5 stars

I loved Peter Hessler's first book, River Town. In fact, it was the first book I gave a 5-star rating. Oracle Bones fits into the same genre, but for me it fell somewhat flat. What made River Town so appealing to me was the personal stories of the people in Hessler's life. Oracle Bones has some of that, but it is set within a larger context. Hessler tries to superimpose his various experiences and the experiences of the Chinese people he knows onto the canvas of China's history. This obviously a...more

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Aug 10, 2011 James Mak rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In many ways, this is an important book for me, a native Chinese. And it comes from an unexpected author, an ivy-educated WASP (almost, Hessler is a Catholic). When you learn about your own country and its contemporary social phenomenon in vivid details and a deeply personal narrative from a foreigner, it's globalization on a whole new dimension.

Hessler is engaging and insightful. His stories about migrant workers invoke images from a Dickens' world. (not that China has become a land of exploit...more

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Jan 28, 2011 Gerry Claes rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Gerry by: gclaes@comcast.net

My wife and I will be touring China in the Spring and our daughter thought we needed to learn a bit about this mysterious and intriguing country. Peter Hessler is a Midwesterner who went to China to teach, write and experience this vast land. The book is mainly about current conditions in China but it does give some historical information as well.

Boy did I learn a lot. I didn't know there were so many ethnic groups and languages in China. The country is going through some major upheavals as it m...more

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Jan 24, 2011 Daniel Silveyra rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a good book to read while travelling through China - especially as a break from Chinese history. Hessler does a good job of communicating the disjointed feeling of the Chinese boom-towns and the mixture of cynicism and indoctrination in many Chinese people's appraisal of politics. I mean indoctrination as one different from our own, of course.

There is a palpable sense of loneliness amidst the crowd, which I guess is unavoidable when there is so much change and movement (and especially wh...more

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Jan 21, 2011 Cheryl rated it 4 of 5 stars

I ran into Hessler's narration on his teaching experience in Fuling two years ago. It was just an excerpt of his book in Chinese, translated by an unknown writer, published in a magazine named BOOK TOWN that cater to the taste of new intellectuals in China by imitating the style and design of NEW YORKER. I read it all through, non-stopped, which is rare for my reading style, and found myself somewhat lost in the delicacy and poetic nature of his writing. Also did I feel a sense of nostalgia and...more

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Oct 07, 2010 Margaret rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

I loved Peter Hessler's first book, "River Town," and his second book does not disappoint. Mr. Hessler studied writing both undergrad and grad, and has settled nicely into writing "narrative non-fiction," what I would, probably stupidly, simply call darn good journalistic writing. Following graduate school he volunteered for the Peace Corps and was assigned to the central China city of Fuling, the "River Town" of the that book's title. "River Town" is his chronicle of living in Fuling and teachi...more I loved Peter Hessler's first book, "River Town," and his second book does not disappoint. Mr. Hessler studied writing both undergrad and grad, and has settled nicely into writing "narrative non-fiction," what I would, probably stupidly, simply call darn good journalistic writing. Following graduate school he volunteered for the Peace Corps and was assigned to the central China city of Fuling, the "River Town" of the that book's title. "River Town" is his chronicle of living in Fuling and teaching English at a local teachers' college, and also the story of his growing interest in China, its people, history, and languages. He now speaks reasonably fluently (I assume Mandarin - I likely missed him specifying this; it's been awhile since I read "River Town") and apparently also knows his way fairly well around Chinese characters. Following his Peace Corps stint he remained in China, excepting some intervals back in the USA, and he now lives and works in Peking but with lots and lots of traveling around China.

"Oracle Bones" generally covers the period from 2000 to about 2002 or 2003. However, this is no mere memoire or autobiography - while some details of his life emerge, the real purpose is his many, many stories of both modern China, written from, literally, all over the country, as well as various details from Chinese history that bear upon modern times. Mr. Hessler has written at least one "National Geographic" article that I've seen (regarding the excavation of the terracotta soldiers) and I believe has written other "National Geographic" articles as well - he is perfectly suited to this type of writing. Ditto his writing for "The New Yorker." Several of the chapters in this book have appeared as published magazine articles in various magazines, sometimes leading to him repeating the same noted facts in two or more chapters in the book given the sometime lack of continuity, but who cares - the guy is brilliant.

Mr. Hessler is an excellent writer and clearly knows his craft, and while he's a present "character" in the book, he writes in a way that he does not take center stage - this is not an ego driven book. To the contrary, what jumps out at the reader is his endless fascination with and respect for China and its people. I highly recommend this book, in particular to anyone with any interest in China and the Far East.(less)

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Aug 08, 2010 Neelroop rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this book while visiting China for the first time and finished it a little while after I returned to the US. It's extremely insightful and seems to give a fairly accurate interpretation of China's cultural and political environment through various major historical periods. He tends to talk a lot about the Cultural Revolution and September 11th, and he puts particular emphasis on the lives of some of his personal friends and how they were affected by pivotal historical events or changes in...more

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Aug 03, 2010 Joe rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Second book of his I've read. Anyone new to him should start with his Peace Corps memoir "River Town" because many of his friends and former students reappear in this one, which is more of an amatuer book about Chinese archeology and the way it survived the country's tumultuous 20th century history. One fact bouncing around in my head still is that Chinese writing has changed relatively little in 3,000 years. Hessler's writing is clear and emotional, but never overdone. You care for the people h...more

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Jan 21, 2010 Tony Taylor rated it 2 of 5 stars

From the acclaimed author of River Town comes a rare portrait, both intimate and epic, of twenty-first-century China as it opens its doors to the outside world.

A century ago, outsiders saw Chinaas a place where nothing ever changes. Today the coun-try has become one of the most dynamic regions on earth. That sense of time—the contrast between past and present, and the rhythms that emerge in a vast, ever-evolving country—is brilliantly illuminated by Peter Hessler in Oracle Bones, a book that exp...more

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May 23, 2010 Xddxmmx10 rated it 5 of 5 stars

Amazing stories told of the author's students - tracing the students progress in learning English and adaption to life after college in a fast changing environment, both culturally and socially, in China. His friendship and street-wise interaction with Polat, the ex-teacher from Sinkiang added a degree of excitement to the book factual account.

The author's research into oracle bones, the archeological exploration and excavation, transportation from mainland China to Taiwan and other western coun...more

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Jun 28, 2011 Gail rated it 4 of 5 stars

one of the few books on china that gives you a perspective of how the chinese view the rest of the world.
fascinating analysis on various levels. first, the author relates his experience of teaching in western
china as a peace corp volunteer and the book follows two of his students as they graduate and mature.
then, the author begins to work in the bejing bureau office of the wall street journal and his own perspective
changes, from teacher to journalist. at the same time, he also follows the life o...more

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Apr 03, 2011 Marks54 rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the second of Peter Hessler's books that I read. The first was Country Driving. This is a series of chapter/stories about cultural changes in China and the struggle to maintain a sense of history while everything is changing. The central part of the book focuses on the discoveries of the Oracle Bones that shed light on early Chinese dynasties, how rulers governed, what life was like, etc. Related stories concern the lives of the various historians and anthropologists and how the lives of...more

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Jan 20, 2009 Jean rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I’m bothering to write a review because this is worth reading. The narrative is always personal, absorbing, authentic and often very funny. A lot of the people Peter Hessler writes about and the situations he encounters rang quite true because they are stories of the young and old Chinese not unlike my own family and the people we know. They are fascinating because they are so ordinary. I like the way he shifts from the general to the specific, from the past to the present and tells the story of...more

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it

Hessler, Beijing correspondent for the New Yorker, freelance journalist, and the author of River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (2001), a memoir of his experiences as an English teacher for the Peace Corps in China's Sichuan Province, describes a world closed to most Westerners. The writing is smart and engaging, and Hessler uses an archaeological framework (chapters on the past, for instance, are deemed "Artifacts") to organize his narrative, a hook that reminds the reader always of the past's

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Jun 15, 2012 Katie rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a nonfiction book about China's past and present and how they interrelate, specifically focusing on linguistics and archaeology. I found the history parts a bit dry (lots of small, dense text, no pictures, etc.) but that's partially because I'm not a big history person. But I really liked the anecdotal parts, where the author talks in depth about people's lives who were friends and acquaintances of his. I particularly liked Polat, the Uighur businessman friend who emigrates to America an...more

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May 19, 2012 LJ is currently reading it

If you read Oracle Bones while you are living in China, as I did, Hessler's insights and observations concerning the culture create a context for your own personal emotional reactions to the country and the people.

For example, I asked several ex-pats about their adjustment experience during their first three months of life in China, and I received a similar response from each one of these ex-pats. Everyone, including me, shared a feeling of isolation and depression for that initial period of ad...more If you read Oracle Bones while you are living in China, as I did, Hessler's insights and observations concerning the culture create a context for your own personal emotional reactions to the country and the people.

For example, I asked several ex-pats about their adjustment experience during their first three months of life in China, and I received a similar response from each one of these ex-pats. Everyone, including me, shared a feeling of isolation and depression for that initial period of adjustment. Unlike other countries where I have lived, no Chinese co-worker or acquaintance extended a hand of friendship or a bridge of cultural support. Everyone I met seemed too busy with work or family concerns to notice me. Hessler's passage from the chapter "Hollywood" expresses my exact thoughts on the matter.

"Without a sense of a rational system, people rarely felt connected to the troubles of others... In part, this was cultural- the Chinese had never stressed strong community bonds; the family and other more immediate groups were the ones that mattered most. But the lack of a rational legal climate also encouraged people to focus strictly on their own problems... A foreigner inevitably felt even more isolated."

I decided not to study Chinese until I knew I would be in the country for more than one year, but the sadness of being linguistically alienated from the company of over a billion people by a barrier of words and characters is overwhelming at times. I admire Hessler’s acquisition of the Chinese language during his Peace Corps training and his description of the language learning process in the chapter “The Voice of America.”

“First, you established basic sentence structures and vocabulary, the way a painter might initially outline a portrait’s fundamental elements. Over time, you acquired more sophisticated words and phrases, attaching them to the existing foundation. It felt like living in a rough sketch of the world where new details appeared day by day.”

Overall, if you are an ex-pat living in China, enjoy the insight Hessler will give you on your own experiences- enriching the time you spend in the country.

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Nov 19, 2011 Andrew Martin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Structurally interesting but frustratingly inconsistent. Hessler is an excellent craftsman and the structure of the book (narratives of present-day migrants divided by interstitial meditations on the politics surrounding interpretation of ancient written artifacts, the eponymous oracle bones) gives the book a measure of coherence, even though Hessler pointedly avoids developing any particular thesis about the Experience and Character of Modern China.

Hessler's skills as a writer can't make up fo...more

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Dec 09, 2010 Chelsea Szendi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: east-asia, current-events

I don't think Hessler knows what "Marxism" is, but he does seem to know "China." Like any good piece of narrative nonfiction, the best thing about this book is the access it gives the reader to people and places they would otherwise never have the time and energy and fortune to meet. It's also very well written (I expect nothing less from a correspondent for The New Yorker), and yet some of the flattening inherent to the journalist's craft (also, I expect nothing less from The New Yorker). For e...more

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Jul 27, 2010 helen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2010

outstanding! I have read many of peter hessler's essays in the new yorker, and was worried that this collection would be too familiar and repetitive. instead, it felt completely new - I may have recognized a few characters or details, but they were presented in a very different context and with much more surrounding information. In addition to the various essays recounting his personal experiences living in beijing, hesller has a parallel narrative which examines china's linguistic history, even...more

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Mar 27, 2007 Steve rated it 3 of 5 stars

The author truly immersed himself in the Chinese experience, living the life and speaking the language. Like any great journalist, he has an immense interest in and love of people. He reveals much about a country that's still largely a mystery to me by revealing a few of the interesting individuals he's known. The run in with the Chinese police is a great story!

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Dec 05, 2012 Melissa Mcdonald marked it as to-read

Shelves: sociology, history

Hessler, who first wrote about China in his 2001 bestseller, River Town, a portrait of his Peace Corps years in Fuling, continues his conflicted affair with that complex country in a second book that reflects the maturity of time and experience. Having lived in China for a decade now, fluent in Mandarin and working as a correspondent in Beijing, Hessler displays impressive knowledge, research and personal encounters as he brings the country's peoples, foibles and history into sharp focus. He fra...more

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About Peter Hessler

Peter Hessler is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he served as Beijing correspondent from 2000-2007, and is also a contributing writer for National Geographic. He is the author of River Town, which won the Kiriyama Book Prize, and Oracle Bones, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. He won the 2008 National Magazine Award for excellence in reporting.

More about Peter Hessler...

Books by Peter Hessler

Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory

Strange Stones: Dispatches from East and West

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“Every always says that their product is the best," said Mr.Wang. "They have to talk about how much better they are than the competition, and usually they believe it. But the truth is that it's much easier once you realize that your product is inferior. Then you can focus on just doing business!” — 1 person liked it

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