Yin-Yang
American Perspectives on Living in China
Foreword by Terry Lautz Edited by Alice Renouf, Mary Beth Ryan-Maher
Publication date:
23 November 2011Length of book:
246 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9781442212701
China has become one of the largest study and teach-abroad, travel, and business destinations in the world. Yet few books offer a diversity of perspectives and locales for Westerners considering the leap. This unique collection of letters offers a rarely seen, intimate, and refreshingly honest view of living and working in China. Here, ordinary people—recent college graduates, teachers, professors, engineers, lawyers, computer whizzes, and parents— recount their experiences in venues ranging from classrooms to marketplaces to holy mountains. The writers are genuine participants in the daily life of their adopted country, and woven throughout their correspondence is the compelling theme of outsiders coping in a culture that is vastly foreign to them and the underlying love-hate struggle it engenders. We follow their initial highs; the shift to general discomfort and then to full-blown culture shock; and slowly, the return of a sense of balance, identity, and normalcy; and finally, the decision to return home or stay. Written in a down-to-earth, personal, often humorous, always authentic style, these tales of trials, successes, and failures offer invaluable insight into a country that remains endlessly fascinating.
[Ying-Yang] gives a sense of time passing, and shows these teachers moving from their initial astonishment and shock to understanding and enjoyment (in most cases) of a new culture. After finishing just the first chapter, I was wishing that I had had such a guide before coming to China; it would have saved me from many headaches. . . . I would highly recommend this book to anyone thinking about teaching in China, and even more so for those who already have. . . . As one teacher sums up his experience, ‘There are good China days and bad China days. The good far outnumber the bad, and even the bad have their good side.’