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Loading... Cina: viaggio nell'impero del futuroby Rob Gifford
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. marient | Feb 11, 2009 |   NPR Correspondent's road trip on China's route 66 is illuminating for the western reader, given our lack of exposure to China's long history and civilization. Gifford masterfully combines enough imformation about China's past to give an understanding of the extensive migration and rapid industrialization that has catapulted the sleeping giant into a major economic power. The narrative of his journey weaves interviews with ordinary citizens, from truckdrivers to the new yuppie elite becoming Communist party stalwarts, with descriptions of local culture and place, such as karoke bars and AIDS afflicted farming villages, leaving a stunning array of vistas and perspectives for the reader's contemplation. Eye-opening! (  )booksmartfool | Dec 8, 2008 | Review on my blog: http://sportygoat.net/blog//index.php... (  )astark | Jul 28, 2008 | this is an excellent account of china and gives a v well rounded view of china. highly recommend it . i have been influenced by it to change my view about tibet. in the past, i have been reading about what a bad thing it is, but now i read this, i can see it can bring in good things to a backward nation like tibet. it is nice to see its old culture nostalgically but when u read of the poverty that was there before, u begin to see why the new generation dont really want to go back to theold days, and prefer to abandon it to embrace chinese mandarin and the jobs and opportunities that chinese occupation can bring. it is the old dilemma of do u stay underdeveloped and poor or develop it with all it attendant loss of culture and diversity but have jobs and increased opportunities for ur young people ( )gametes69 | Jul 20, 2008 | A travelogue from the journey Robert Gifford made along Route 312- sort of Chinese Route 66- from Shanghai to Kazakhstan’s border, chronicling the changes the post Mao communist regime and globalization have brought to the country. He made the trip east to west and through the Gobi desert along the former Silk Road the way any local could do- mostly by bus, hailed truck, carpooling with others, or by taxi. On the way, he spoke to ordinary people he met: truck drivers, restaurant owners, fellow bus passengers, all of them as he says, sometimes able to explain the social phenomena better than many scholars and political analysts. It helps that Gifford speaks fluent Mandarin, and has spent the last twenty years on and off in China, first as a student and then most of the last five years as a reporter for British NPR. It’s a great book full of nice, clear insights and good basic background information. Gifford explains China very well, and has an ability to succinctly connect what’s happening in it right now to its political and cultural heritage. His writing is good, easy going, and unpretentious- it’s one of those books you hate to finish. I wrote a quote down early on, before I decided to buy the book- so here it is to give you a taste of it: ‘After the killing of the students in Tianamen Square in 1989, the Communist Party leaders made an unspoken deal with the people of China: stay out of politics and you can do anything you want. During the 1990s, for the first time in more than forty years (or perhaps four thousand), the Chinese government began to retreat from people’s everyday lives. This was a very clever move by the Party. The tiny birdcage in which Chinese people had previously lived became an aviary. You cannot yet fly up into a clear blue sky and they can still catch you if they want to, but there is plenty of room to fly around. First of all, yes, there is a consumer boom, but the majority of people have no access to it. If in the United States you need money to get power, in China you need power to get money.” P.15 ( )Niecierpek | Jul 9, 2008 | 0.100 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0812975243, Paperback)Route 312 is the Chinese Route 66. It flows three thousand miles from east to west, passing through the factory towns of the coastal areas, through the rural heart of China, then up into the Gobi Desert, where it merges with the Old Silk Road. The highway witnesses every part of the social and economic revolution that is turning China upside down.In this utterly surprising and deeply personal book, acclaimed National Public Radio reporter Rob Gifford, a fluent Mandarin speaker, takes the dramatic journey along Route 312 from its start in the boomtown of Shanghai to its end on the border with Kazakhstan. Gifford reveals the rich mosaic of modern Chinese life in all its contradictions, as he poses the crucial questions that all of us are asking about China: Will it really be the next global superpower? Is it as solid and as powerful as it looks from the outside? And who are the ordinary Chinese people, to whom the twenty-first century is supposed to belong? Gifford is not alone on his journey. The largest migration in human history is taking place along highways such as Route 312, as tens of millions of people leave their homes in search of work. He sees signs of the booming urban economy everywhere, but he also uncovers many of the country’s frailties, and some of the deep-seated problems that could derail China’s rise. The whole compelling adventure is told through the cast of colorful characters Gifford meets: garrulous talk-show hosts and ambitious yuppies, impoverished peasants and tragic prostitutes, cell-phone salesmen, AIDS patients, and Tibetan monks. He rides with members of a Shanghai jeep club, hitchhikes across the Gobi desert, and sings karaoke with migrant workers at truck stops along the way. As he recounts his travels along Route 312, Rob Gifford gives a face to what has historically, for Westerners, been a faceless country and breathes life into a nation that is so often reduced to economic statistics. Finally, he sounds a warning that all is not well in the Chinese heartlands, that serious problems lie ahead, and that the future of the West has become inextricably linked with the fate of 1.3 billion Chinese people. “Informative, delightful, and powerfully moving . . . Rob Gifford’s acute powers of observation, his sense of humor and adventure, and his determination to explore the wrenching dilemmas of China’s explosive development open readers’ eyes and reward their minds.” –Robert A. Kapp, president, U.S.-China Business Council, 1994-2004 From the Hardcover edition. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:17 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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the factory towns of the coastal areas, through the rural heart of China, then up into the Gobi Desert, where it merges with the Old Silk Road. The highway witnesses every part of the social and economic revolution that is turning China upside down.
In this utterrly surprising, deeply personal book, acclaimed NPR reposter Rob Gifford, a fluent Mandarin speaker, takes the dramatic journey along Rte 312 from its start in the boomtown of Shanghai to its end on the border with Kazakhstan. (