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David's Reviews > Street of Eternal Happiness: The Winding Road to the Chinese Dream
Street of Eternal Happiness: The Winding Road to the Chinese Dream
by
by
Won a copy of this fine book in a Goodreads giveaway – thanks!
This author often appears on National Public Radio. The stories in this book, about modern Shanghainese along a single street dealing with or failing to deal with life's changes, reads kind of like a string of those “texture of life” pieces that NPR runs during those short blessed periods, often on weekends, when the world is insufficiently full of horror and misery to fill up the allotted airtime. I enjoy this kind of reportage, usually much more than the allegedly more serious and pressing news that it appears with, because I feel it actually tells me more about the world than, for example, the excruciating details of some politician's latest faux pax. So I also liked this book. It told me things I didn't know, which is why one reason I read books in the first place, and made me feel as if I understood people far away and vastly different from me, which is another reason.
Sometimes the reportage is almost too real: the miserable and bickering old couple, straight out of some nightmarish Beckett play, made me cringe and think of similar people I knew. Generally, though, it's fun to read.
I also wished that all of those knuckleheads who insist that we in the West are all living under an intolerably oppressive regime could read this book and get a load of what a real oppressive regime is like, i.e., complete with plainclothes goons who kidnap elderly people and destroy their home of a lifetime so some corrupt official can enlarge his ill-gotten pile, and other similar lunacy. I mean, life in the West is not all unicorns and rainbows, but relatively few (hardly any, really) elderly people are treated in this manner.
This author often appears on National Public Radio. The stories in this book, about modern Shanghainese along a single street dealing with or failing to deal with life's changes, reads kind of like a string of those “texture of life” pieces that NPR runs during those short blessed periods, often on weekends, when the world is insufficiently full of horror and misery to fill up the allotted airtime. I enjoy this kind of reportage, usually much more than the allegedly more serious and pressing news that it appears with, because I feel it actually tells me more about the world than, for example, the excruciating details of some politician's latest faux pax. So I also liked this book. It told me things I didn't know, which is why one reason I read books in the first place, and made me feel as if I understood people far away and vastly different from me, which is another reason.
Sometimes the reportage is almost too real: the miserable and bickering old couple, straight out of some nightmarish Beckett play, made me cringe and think of similar people I knew. Generally, though, it's fun to read.
I also wished that all of those knuckleheads who insist that we in the West are all living under an intolerably oppressive regime could read this book and get a load of what a real oppressive regime is like, i.e., complete with plainclothes goons who kidnap elderly people and destroy their home of a lifetime so some corrupt official can enlarge his ill-gotten pile, and other similar lunacy. I mean, life in the West is not all unicorns and rainbows, but relatively few (hardly any, really) elderly people are treated in this manner.
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
May 1, 2016
– Shelved
