Welcome to Litsy!

This is a comprehensive look at the lives of everyday Chinese people in the mid 2010s. It's super informative, but a bit dry. It reminded me of Pete Hessler's book The Buried, but without the spark and liveliness in each person. I'm still glad I read it, though.

He writes in the a clear and engaging New Yorker magazine style. The book opens with a series of stories about people he met during his eight years living in China. Then he introduces a theme or idea, adding a new layer to the story, sometimes new people as well. It is followed by another idea and story layer until he completes a non-judgmental view of China, how it got from Deng to Xi, and what it means to the everyday Chinese people.

This book changed my entire perspective on China, its rapid development, and the people who live there. I knew so very little about China and most of my thinking about the country (with over a BILLION people) was so influenced by my own western thinking. #24in48 #awholenewworld #hour12

📖 Age of Ambition
✏️ Alyssa Cole
📺 Archer
🥑 Avocados!!

#manicmonday (even though it‘s Tuesday, but this is fun!)

Learning a bit before I go to work with parents. #nonfiction #China

Wonderful, compassionate snapshot of China: the quirks & perils of a country getting rich quickly & in search of a faith or 'central melody' to replace communism. Follows key characters over 8 years: their fascinating stories woven into China's story. Explains corruption, oppression on a human scale without sensationalising. Ai Weiwei inspires me, not as artist per se but the way he distils ideas. Re-watching his Gangnam style under house arrest!

A perfect pre-read for Do Not Say We Have Nothing ?.

Riveting already and uses personal narratives. "...the deepest changes were intimate and perceptual, buried in daily rhythms in ways that were easy to overlook."

Like the small daily rhythms in A Woman Loved, which told so much about changes in Russia.

Reading this one for school.

Ah that classic childhood combo: ice skates and gunpowder