“At night I went for long bike rides. I liked the empty streets….[F]or the first time, I thought of a Chinese city as patient. Usually, Chengdu evening streets are heavy with the smell of hot pepper and huajiao….Their absence felt like part of the city’s silence.”
Understanding China is complicated, and restrictions on journalists in the country makes that more difficult, but Peter Hessler has a way of depicting the contemporary Chinese life while connecting it to history and personal experiences, making it accessible to readers and maintaining some levity that comes with life in general. As he has done in his other books, Hessler writes compelling stories of the people he has encountered and how they all fit together in one collection in Other Rivers.
Hessler’s Other Rivers continues to chronicle the lives of his students from Fuling, which was the focus of his first book River Town. For those who have read River Town and Oracle Bones, some of the names and stories will be familiar, but it’s not necessary to read those works to understand what and who he’s writing about. In many cases, he uses his former students’ career journeys as a contrast to what he sees in his new students at Sichuan University — it’s a new generation that has changed alongside China over the almost 30 years since he taught in Fuling. And though he sees significant changes, particularly on the surface, he recognizes that much remains the same. He refers to his mantra, “Nothing has changed; everything has changed.”
As most of his former students had spent at least some time teaching in China, Hessler is able to add their classroom experiences to his own at the university. It also provides additional context to the descriptions of his daughters’ education in the Chinese public school system — an experience that begins as a major linguistic challenge. There is a balance in the descriptions — the positivity of the structure and community and the negativity of the lack of individualism and creativity. He does, however, encounter some students (and former students) who try to break the mold and question authority, even if it’s done quietly.
As with his other works, Hessler covers a lot of topics connected to his life in China — his journey to finding a new teaching job while not officially working as a journalist in China, moving his wife and children, and enrolling his twin daughters in public school. Every step in the process is documented and includes all the hassles and bureaucracy involved. For readers who have spent time in China, a lot of what he describes is familiar, even if personal experiences are many years older.
He begins Other Rivers with descriptions of his course at Sichuan University and the students who apply to enroll. He also discusses his reasons for returning to China after years away without explicitly stating it. “When I told other China specialists that I planned to return to Sichuan as a teacher,…some people responded: Why would you go back there now?” He continues, “It was different from the last time….In 1996, I knew virtually nothing about China.” He goes on to write about his former students and what he’s learned about them over the years — he wants to return to experience the changes in China, the students, and the atmosphere surrounding politics between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump.
As with his other books, Hessler enjoys pointing out the humor in contradictions common in life in China, like the parking garage in the basement of the College of Marxism that housed mostly foreign-brand cars — the College of Marxism was also home to the journalism department. There’s also his encounter with River Town Golf in Fuling, which denied being inspired by the title of his book. The golf course and housing development that displaced farmers sat mostly empty in the mountains.
While Hessler alludes to censorship, he also mentions some published works that don’t appear to fit with the Chinese government’s views. As I noticed when I lived in Shenzhen, bookstores had plenty of surprisingly titles in translation like 1984, Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, and Jack Kerouac’s Desolation Angels (how did they translate a book that makes no sense in English?). He notes, “Once a book was published, it was rarely yanked from the shelves.” This explains why his first books and his wife’s are still available in China — they were published in Chinese before Xi Jinping purged the country of foreign journalists for allegedly undermining the government.
He also mentions online censorship numerous times in relation to student research, his own activities, and Chinese social media, particularly in relation to major anniversaries and Covid information — he even takes time to speak with Wuhan lockdown chronicler Fang Fang. The descriptions of “jumping the Great Firewall” reminded me of the simpler times when foreign websites were sometimes blocked and free VPN sites could easily maneuver around China’s Great Firewall. The online censorship in Hessler’s story turns into a physical metaphor later as students find ways to literally scale the university walls to escape Covid lockdowns, using the same Chinese euphemism as climbing the Great Firewall.
Other Rivers is, of course, about so much more than Peter Hessler’s students and his family’s life in Sichuan. He revels in nostalgia for his younger days in Fuling — he returns numerous times to see what has changed and revisits the memories he has of the town in late 1990s. And as many people can tell you, the return is never the same.
The chapters often veer into nostalgia for the 1990s when witnessing the changes in China. Between rediscovering the places of his past and reconnecting with students and colleagues, Hessler finds the recognizable points. He writes about certain foreign music for specific uses, noting, “In China, the plot often changed, but the soundtrack did not.” He still heard Kenny G as it was used to herd crowds out of performances and events.
As he reminisces with former students, they bring up a lesson about voting in the US election at the time. Hessler notes that he and his Peace Corps coworker got in trouble for the lesson. Reading about his lesson reminded me of conversations about the Obama-McCain election in a few graduate classes I taught — I did not get in trouble for discussing my opinions of the candidates and the electoral process. Aside from that, I avoided political discussions in classes; when a student inevitably brought up the question of Taiwan, I responded with a question about Puerto Rico.
What may be a deeper connection to readers with little or no experience in China, is the documentation of the years 2020-2022. Hessler writes extensively about the experience of living in Chengdu during COVID, with the soft lockdowns, health reporting, and daily routines. He writes more about adapting to teaching online as well as his twin daughters’ learning experience. He changes his assignments for class, which reflect his students’ experiences being stuck on campus or in their hometowns with family. And when it’s finally possible, he travels to Wuhan to investigate the origins of the pandemic.
Hessler’s literary craft goes much deeper than telling the story of his life in China. He manages to weave stories of his wife Leslie’s grandfather as well as his own grandfather — their divergent, yet similar paths across oceans — into his family’s life abroad and their place among historical events.
Peter Hessler’s Other Rivers is a great addition to his collection of work exploring other cultures. As it appears he likely won’t return to China, readers will have to wonder where he’ll explore next.
