Author Peter Hessler's memoir charts change and Covid in China
He planned to contrast teaching two generations of students, but wound up a rare reporter with front-row seats to pandemic
By Ron Gluckman
For Nikkei
When Peter Hessler, a prominent chronicler of modern China, agreed to teach at Sichuan University, it looked like an odd move for a bestselling American author in his prime. Hessler, now 55, a longtime staff writer for the New Yorker magazine, had twin daughters in school in the U.S., and a wife who was working on a book about Egypt. But he also had a carefully scripted plan.
Early in his writing career, Hessler had soared to fame with his first book, "River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze," about serving with the U.S. Peace Corps in the 1990s as a teacher in Fuling, a small town on the Yangtze River. In the ensuing decades he kept in touch with his students, referencing them regularly in subsequent books and long articles in the New Yorker.
His idea, as he told Nikkei Asia in a video call from his home in rural Colorado, was to teach again in China, and to write about nearly 25 years of change in the country, describing impacts on his former students and contrasting them with a new generation. Then rumors of an infectious disease in Wuhan began spreading, the population was locked down, and his well-laid plans were hijacked by a totally different story.
COVID-19 "complicated things," he said, though he wound up with every reporter's dream scenario -- a front-row seat to one of the world's biggest stories, with most international media banished from China. "I ended up reporting pretty intensively on COVID. And that had to be part of the story just because it's part of the years that we were there."
The pandemic surfaced about six months after he arrived in China in 2019 with his wife, the author Leslie T. Chang, and their daughters, planning to spend about five years in the country. "It turned out," he said, "to be a much more complicated story than I had expected."
His new book, "Other Rivers" is a complex but fascinating blend -- a memoir of his years in China, but much more. It offers intricate insights into the Chinese educational system, including the adjustments required of his non-Chinese-speaking daughters Natasha and Ariel in their Chinese school, and updates readers on the immense changes in China since "River Town," which won the Kiriyama Prize (for books about the Pacific Rim or Southeast Asia) in 2001.
It also contains meticulously researched sections on the emergence of COVID-19 in a wet market in Wuhan, where he takes readers, and unique information about how the news was quashed by the authorities -- along with brave Chinese whistleblowers -- but nevertheless spread throughout China, alongside the virus, often on secret online networks and chats.
The book provides illuminating coverage of the early impact of the virus, and the Chinese cover-up and censorship, from one of the few front-line reporters left in China. Then his teaching contract was abruptly canceled, and Hessler was sent packing after two years.
"Originally, I was going to teach there and write about the young people -- what I noticed about them. And I was going to report on Fuling, on the students I taught there. So, looking at these two generations, basically -- one of which I had been in touch with for nearly a quarter of a century. And then I was going to write about my daughters' experiences in [their] public school in Chengdu."
He quickly pivoted as the pandemic changed everything. "So that also became part of the story."
His work drew high praise from Michael Meyer, author of several books about China, and a fellow Peace Corps teacher in China at the same time as Hessler. "This type of reported nonfiction writing requires both the stubbornness to stick to your idea and the flexibility of changing your path to reach the final goal of a finished book," said Meyer.
"Pete once observed to me that to do this kind of work, you're always disappointing someone, either due to their expectations of what the book will be, or the large amount of time it requires to immerse yourself in the reporting and writing of something that is both novel in its subject matter but inventive and beautiful in its telling."
Hessler clearly invested the time, delivering storytelling that is rich in on-the-ground detail alongside surprising humor, considering the dire circumstances. As the mysterious infectious disease spreads in China, he meticulously details the draconian controls imposed, starting with temperature checks, then the unprecedented lockdown and the eruption of delivery services -- all long before the rest of the world follows suit.
Hessler clearly invested the time, delivering storytelling that is rich in on-the-ground detail alongside surprising humor, considering the dire circumstances. As the mysterious infectious disease spreads in China, he meticulously details the draconian controls imposed, starting with temperature checks, then the unprecedented lockdown and the eruption of delivery services -- all long before the rest of the world follows suit.
Later, he highlights the rupturing of China-U.S. relations, as if in a Cold-War spy saga, with increasingly heated accusations followed by tit-for-tat reproofs. After a Chinese consulate is forced to close in Houston, Texas, in July 2020, following spying accusations, Beijing contemplates an appropriate response. Again, you could hardly script a better spy novel -- the government chose to shut the U.S. consulate in Chengdu, where Hessler lived.
Amid this new Cold War, the plug is abruptly pulled on the Peace Corps by Washington -- just as a fresh set of volunteers arrives in China, having set aside normal life and packed to stay for years. Hessler transports readers to the chaotic scene. He had been scheduled to speak to the new volunteers to explain the ins and outs of China. But Peace Corps activities in China were canceled just before his talk -- a decision that he terms a tragic mistake.
Hessler said the program not only helped China but was "very much in the interest of the United States ... because we trained a lot of China experts." He added that many volunteers later served the U.S. government or became businesspeople in China or academics and writers. "It was a great program, and it didn't cost the U.S. very much. And closing it was an incredibly stupid move," he said.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Hessler fell victim to a similar fate, accused of anti-Chinese teaching in online criticism that gathered intensity, eventually prompting the cancelation of his contract and his abrupt departure. "Writing about China is not for the faint of heart," said Meyer. "You will often be accused of either being too sympathetic or too critical."
However, he praised Hessler's keen ability to remain a sensitive, non-partial observer. "Pete's books fill a much-needed gap on the bookshelf and in our understanding of the country because they capture an array of Chinese people undergoing personal -- not political -- changes in their lives. Readers learn what it's like to make your way in China at these moments, far away from the headlines and in the fabric of everyday life."
Forced to finish "Other Rivers" in Colorado, Hessler is now planning his next book, pondering projects in America. But as one of the rare Western authors whose books have been translated and published in China, he says he is not ready to close the book on the country.
"Other Rivers" is not likely to be published in China, he concedes, because of its criticism of China's record on COVID-19. But he will not term this memoir the final chapter of his China career.
"It could be a middle," he said. "I mean, it depends on if I go back at a later point. I don't see it as a permanent [issue], but at this particular time, it's not really possible for me to work in China as a writer." Meanwhile, he said, he remains optimistic about China, adding: "We'll just have to see."
"Other Rivers: A Chinese Education" by Peter Hessler (Penguin Press, 2024)H
This story was published by Nikkei on September 14, 2024