China candid: contemporary perspectives and observations

China Candid

Tell what the book is about. Do not give a summary of the story, but give the topic, geographic area, and timespan that the book covers. This should take only one mid-length paragraph.

China Candid: A People's Account of the People's Republic of China is an insider's look at the modern People's Republic of China. Through intimate conversations conducted over many years, China Candid provides an alternative history of the nation from its founding as a socialist state in 1949 up to the present. Artists, politicians, businessmen and -women, former Red Guards, migrant workers, prostitutes, teachers, computer geeks, hustlers, and other citizens of contemporary China all speak frankly about what it is like to live in a rising superpower under authoritarian rule. These citizens give new insights into the face of law and order in China as well as the changes that have occurred in modern China's transition from Mao's Red China to a market-oriented Socialist state.

Give the book's key argument/point.

The perceptions of China as a country where people enjoy abundant economic opportunity, while suffering atrocious human rights violations, are naive and shallow. Economic opportunity is restricted to a connected few and human rights issues are not detrimental to the lives of average Chinese. Furthermore, such pronouncements about a country as large and old as China ignores the inevitable diversity of human experience and the utter strangeness of daily life in favor of a neat national narrative.

3. Discuss the book's sources and methodology: what kind of evidence and methods the author uses to make his/her point.

The book relies on 26 separate interviews with people from a broad range of lifestyles and socioeconomic backgrounds. Representative respondents include a new tycoon, a worker coming to Beijing from the countryside, a young athlete, the founder of a private orphanage, a prostitute, and a computer hacker. Each respondent is selected to provide insight into a key area of modern China, e.g. The businessman and migrant worker for economics, the athlete for the 2008 Olympics, and the computer hacker for censorship.

Ye introduces each interview with some background about the respondent. He also uses the introduction to convey the dominant national narrative on each subject, extracted from mainstream media and histories. More importantly, he points out the areas and details about which the mainstream media and histories are silent. Finally, he guides the respondents with questions which gives the interviews a smoothness and coherency that it otherwise may not have had.

4. Analyze if the argument hold water. Is the point well made and supported with solid evidence and reasoning? If you were a juror, would you buy the author's argument/point or not? Why or why not?

Ye does not explicitly make arguments himself. The only writing Ye is responsible for in the book are the introductions to each interview. A bit of his thrust can be detected in these introductions. When introducing a rags-to-riches millionaire, he mentions a 1993 article in the China Business Times that celebrated the growth of China's uber-rich, before adding that "Few of the megawealthy in China are willing to talk about how they made their money. Here was one millionaire who was happy to tell his story." (13). From this, we can infer that Ye is not enamored with the China Business Times or the uber-rich.

Ye delivers most of his rhetoric in the way that he organizes the respondent's answers to his questions. He organizes the answers in a way that highlights the role of politics in the life of each respondent. For example, The problem here is that Ye does not include the questions which prompted each of these answers. Thus, it is hard to know whether the person chose to speak about political issues spontaneously or whether Ye prompted such a response by specifically asking him questions about politics.

The interviews flow very smoothly, making each person's response highly readable and coherent, almost like an essay. The respondents' answers sound very natural and believable. However, many of these interviews flow almost too smoothly, as if they had been edited very liberally.

Ye does not reveal how the respondents were selected. Thus, it is hard to determine whether they give an accurate representation of what modern China is like for most of the population. There may be a selection bias here because the type of people who would be willing devote their time and effort, and perhaps risk their personal and political security, are likely to be people with a strong agenda that they wish to promote to the public. It is possible that they have a grievance with the Chinese government.

Ye's editing of the interviews and the lack of detail about such editing make it difficult to make conclusions about the nature of modern China on the basis of these interviews. This is especially true in areas that are politically controversial. However, such omissions do not necessarily render Ye's work fruitless or unreliable. They merely compel the reader examine these interviews with added caution and a critical eye at times.

5. Your take. What did you think about the book? Did it interest or entertain you? Was it well written and clearly organized? This is the only openly subjective part of your review.

Putting aside its potential value and reliability as an academic source, the book was very readable and entertaining in itself. I really felt like I got to know the personalities in the book. The respondents came across as real people instead of caricatures.

Also, I like the way that Ye positioned the interviews. Each interview spoke on an aspect of modern China that has received a lot of publicity, such as its economy, its approach to civil liberties, and its lack of respect for intellectual property i.e. "bootlegging," All of my preconceived notions of what China was like in these regards have been punctured, likely for good.