Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China by John Pomfret - Extraordinary

A first-hand account of the remarkable transformation of China over the past forty years as seen through the life of an award-winning journalist and his four Chinese classmates
As a twenty-year-old exchange student from Stanford University, John Pomfret spent a year at Nanjing University in China. His fellow classmates were among those who survived the twin tragedies of Mao's rule—the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution—and whose success in government and private industry today are shaping China's future. Pomfret went on to a career in journalism, spending the bulk of his time in China. After attending the twentieth reunion of his class, he decided to reacquaint himself with some of his classmates. Chinese Lessons is their story and his own.
Beginning with Pomfret's first days in China, Chinese Lessons takes us back to the often torturous paths that brought together the Nanjing University History Class of 1982. One classmate's father was killed during the Cultural Revolution for the crime of being an intellectual; another classmate labored in the fields for years rather than agree to a Party-arranged marriage; a third was forced to publicly denounce and humiliate her father. As we watch Pomfret and his classmates begin to make their lives as adults, we see as never before the human cost and triumph of China's transition from near-feudal communism to first-world capitalism.

Extraordinary
This is one of those books which can change or challenge your perspective on a country. Being an overseas Chinese implant whose parents and herself have not lived through the Cultural Revolution or Great Leap Forward, this book has provided a cultural insight and understanding of my relatives back on the mainland. Reading this book had made me recall trips I have made to provinces in China and connected some dots to why people had to adapt to Chinese society in certain ways.
This book has also given me some interesting ideas to why my Chinese and Taiwanese roommate in New York are so different in ideology and culture.

It was an amazing feeling to see human behavior, the ugly and the good, played out in a way which was described in a book.

John's book is truly an extraordinarily honest insight to how the Chinese think. I would definitely recommend it for anyone who plans on doing business or embarking on a career in China, or simply, curious.

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