RiverTown

River Town Two Years on the Yangtze Peter Hessler for my parents Contents Maps Author’s Note Part I One: Downstream The City Two: Shakespeare with Chinese Characteristics Raise the Flag Mountain Three: Running The White Crane Ridge Four: The Dam The Wu River Five: Opium Wars White Flat Mountain Six: Storm Part II Seven: Summer The Priest Eight: Chinese Life The Restaurant Owner Nine: Money The Teacher Ten: Chinese New Year The Land Eleven: Spring Again The River Twelve: Upstream P.S. Insights, Interviews & More… Acknowledgments Praise Credits Copyright About the Publisher Maps AUTHOR’S NOTE THE CHAPTERS OF THIS BOOK describe my life in Fuling, while the interspersed sketches focus on the local landscape, its history, and the people. All of these sketches were written while I still lived there, and I’ve used this structure to give the reader some sense of the two roles that a foreigner plays in a town like Fuling. Sometimes I was an observer, while at other moments I was very much involved in local life, and this combination of distance and intimacy was part of what shaped my two years in Sichuan. A f......