River Town cover art

River Town

Two Years on the Yangtze

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River Town

By: Peter Hessler
Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
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About this listen

In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the complex processes of understanding that take place when one is immersed in a radically different society.

Poignant, thoughtful, funny, and enormously compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be.

©2006 Peter Hessler (P)2010 Audible, Inc. Travel Writing & Commentary China Funny Socialism Imperial Japan

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Critic reviews

"Hessler's writing is lovely. His observations are evocative, insightful, and often poignant--and just as often, funny. It's a pleasure to read of his (mis)adventures. Hessler returned to the U.S. with a new perspective on modern China and its people. After reading River Town, you'll have one, too." (Amazon.com review)
All stars
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I don't speak Chinese so I can't comment on the pronunciation by the narrator, but I do feel his performance aside from that was very good and he was believable as the voice of the author.
The commentary is interesting, insightful, highly observational and reflective. Very enjoyable, I will purchase other books in the series.

Very enjoyable

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River Town is both a heartfelt memoir and a rare insight into China of the late 1990s containing both memoirs of a lost China, and a China that still lives on.
While Hessler describes a part of Sichuan (or later Chongqing Municipality) that was greatly affected by the Three Gorges Dam, much of the China that Hessler describes remains ever present in today’s day and age.
As a teacher in China myself, I am all too familiar with the mindset and social phenomena that is every bit as real now (late 2019) as it was in Hessler’s 2 year stay in Fuling. While China may be less conservative, particularly with regard to relationships, much of the societal pressures, organizational approaches and political approach remain every bit a part of China now as it was back then.
Hessler writes with a personal touch, with a keen personal insight, creating an atmosphere which creates an emotional connection with the reader. The book maintains a balance between sentimentality and realism, though Hessler exhibits a deep emotional connection with Fu Ling and China, he makes no attempt to gloss over the negative social phenomena, the injustice, bullying and social ostracism he encounters during his stay.
There are many books on Chinese history, modern Chinese social phenomena, but if one wants a book on China with a personal touch, few come better than this.

An account of China with a personal touch

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I loved this book - I have listened to it numerous times and it is still as good! It takes you into China and you feel like you are there sharing the authors experiences with him. The narrator is excellent as well - it makes a big difference when they pronounce the words correctly and he has a lovely voice. The author has a very good way of explaining how he felt as an outsider in China, and how he also fitted in. I have since downloaded all his books on here and really wish there was more! If you want to know about Chinese culture and their everyday lives then this is the book for you. It has made me really want to visit this fascinating country.

very good book, highly recommend it

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The experiences of the teacher and his fellow teacher at the college where they were based for 2 years are fascinating. Because it was written about a time period when China was slowly beginning to open up but was very far from where it is now (2013), the book seems to span the two eras really effectively.

The writing is very straight-forward, journalistic in its style with limited descriptive passages but where they do appear, they are evocative.

The reader's voice took me a while to warm to but this was fine after about 1 hour. Others have mentioned that the way Chinese words are pronounced is wrong sometimes - but as I speak no Chinese at all, it didn't bother me!

Gentle yet also quite compelling

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Having lived in China for a year, many of my own experiences mirror Peter's, and so listening to this book has been an absolute pleasure. Peter's writing has a way of transporting you, taking you on a visual stroll through his memories, and slowly building a picture of the world. I never felt as though I was reading his account of China, but rather sharing the story with him, connecting through the emotional impact that China has on everyone who has been there for some period of time.

stunning

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I am a teacher in China and although my time is 20years on from Peter's, many of his experiences echo my own - or rather mine echo his, having been diluted somewhat by the increased external influences on China over the past two decades. The narrative really helps one comprehend the 'Chinese' approach to life and subtlety draws humour by highlighting authorial experiences from both America and China. The only problem I have with this audiobook is with the narrator's Mandarin pronunciation, however people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and I doubt my efforts would be more accurate.

Excellent, touching and funny.

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How did the narrator detract from the book?

He can't pronounce a single word of Chinese correctly. The city of Chengdu is refered to as Chengde about fifty times despite Chengde being a completely different city. At another point he reads the character Xue over and over again, during a section where the author discusses studying Chinese. He says Xue about 25 times in a row, slowly, over and over. He says it wrong every single time.

He's actually a decent narrator but somewhere between the pronunciation and his insistence on giving all the Chinese characters a semi-racist-sounding Chinaman-voice he ruins the whole thing.

It would have taken half an hour to learn how to say the fifty or so Chinese words in the book. He didn't bother. It's an insult to the author and an insult to the audience.

Great book, Appalling Narrator

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What made the experience of listening to River Town the most enjoyable?

Really great personal anecdotes from the author

What did you like best about this story?

Listening to the interactions between the author and his students and how their relationship developed.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

I don't personally like the Chinese accent used when reading out the lines from the Chinese characters and I think it would've been better to have someone who had better Mandarin tones for the Chinese names/words (but appreciate that's asking quite a lot)

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Listening to him recount Chinese students with names like "Mo' Money" act out Don Quixote

Any additional comments?

A great easy listen.

Great insight into rural China

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This is an engrossing, accessible but nonetheless perspicacious book, one of several on China written by Hessler. However, this recording is ruined by the narrator's lack of knowledge of the Chinese language. Although in English, the book includes references to many Chinese terms and sayings which are hopelessly mispronounced by Peter Berkrot. To anyone with even a superficial knowledge of how Chinese should sound, this is distracting and detracting. This may not be a problem for those with absolutely no knowledge of Chinese (Berkrot cannot even pronounce the most fundamental and basic of words), although it would nonetheless give such listeners a false impression of how Chinese is supposed to sound. While it is understandable that it would have been difficult to get a narrator who also spoke fluent Mandarin, it surely could not have been that difficult to find someone who had at least some familiarity with the language. A shame.

Absorbing book ruined by narrator

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