Written about a journey across China in about 1983 Behind the Wall by Colin Thubron [ISBN 978 0 099 45932 3] gives a bleak picture of China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. Thubron is such a gifted writer that he takes the reader with him and lifts the cover off Chinese life in a not-yet-recovering China. For those not conversant with the aftermath of the works of Mao Zedong this is a must-read.
Written about a journey across China in about 1983 Behind the Wall by Colin Thubron [ISBN 978 0 099 45932 3] gives a bleak picture of China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. Thubron is such a gifted writer that he takes the reader with him and lifts the cover off Chinese life in a not-yet-recovering China. For those not conversant with the aftermath of the works of Mao Zedong this is a must-read.
Thubron spent a year learning Mandarin before embarking on this 10,000 mile journey overland from Beijing to the borders of Burma, travelling mostly by rail across the Gobi desert and ending up at the end of the Great Wall. The book is often gruesome revealing the diet forced on this huge population after a devastating time where the countryside was mismanaged. With little protein the people eat variously snakes, cats and dogs and stuff seriously nauseating to you and me. Even the laid-back Thubron reveals his distaste and difficulties with the food and hygiene – and the strange rudeness he meets everywhere where he is the first foreigner the people have seen. How so much different it must have been for visitors this year to the Olympics – how many realised how far china has come from these low points ?
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