China Road

A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power

By: Rob Gifford

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

National Public Radio's Beijing correspondent Rob Gifford recounts his travels along Route 312, the Chinese Mother Road, the longest route in the world's most populous nation. Based on his successful NPR radio series, China Road draws on Gifford's 20 years of observing first-hand this rapidly transforming country, as he travels east to west, from Shanghai to China's border with Kazakhstan. As he takes listeners on this journey, he also takes them through China's past and present while he tries to make sense of this complex nation's potential future.

©2007 Robert Gifford (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Accurate, telling...

From spending time in many of these places myself I can say that the book is well-done in its portrait of China, its politics, and its cultural temperament. There are fascinating stories in here and poignant ones. If you have any interest in China you will love this book, and if you are IN China, you should be listening to it.

Very insightful

As an Asian-American with Chinese heritage, I surely touched by this insightful "sea-people" author. He had expertly exposed the spyche of the Asian race. Our oppressive desire to be respected/expressive is constantly tampered by the practical reality of external constrains. IE, as an Asian in America or as a Chinese/Vietnamese in a communist regime. Well done... Thank you.

In audio format, however, it is hard to visually related to the mentioned locality/demographically. Hope your written book include some of that.Spell checkResume Words: 84 | Characters: 521

Good history!

I buy non fiction on sales and then they languish in my library while I escape into fiction. I finally got to this one and it was well worth the read. About 10 yrs out of date now but the history does not change. Well read by the author as sort of a travelogue. Gives you a good understanding of China’s past that brought them to the present. Glad to know that even though it appears they are kicking US butt, they still have massive internal problems to conquer.

An Outstanding Book on China

I throughly enjoyed this book on China Today. The author doesn't bother trying to explain the political system, he is interested in the common people and their every day lives. His journey into the heart of China, and the people he spoke with, answered many questions I had about the people and the culture of today's China. His own curiosity, his empathy, and his sense of wonder drew me along on the journey. Even the narrator seemed to fit the story perfectly.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who seeks more information about China than can be gleened on TV or magazines.

Best book on China I have read.

Would you consider the audio edition of China Road to be better than the print version?

It provides an alternate way to experience the book. Convenience, drive time, walking, etc.

What did you like best about this story?

Personal experiences shared and beautiful writing.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

The constraints of time don't allow this luxury. I also don't like to absorb too much at once.

Any additional comments?

Tackling a theme for a book as complex as China requires an enormous about of skill and knowledge and most of all sensitive objective approach. While deciding to purchase this book, I was a little wary because I did not want to become overwhelmed with academic and generalized discussions on how China???s rise is imminent and threatening. As it turned out, however, the book was a very enlightening experience. Not only did it provide a great deal of insights into China, it boosted my fascination with the topic even more. The author shares his experiences of traveling on route 312 from Shanghai all the way to the Kazakhstan border. Many of those experiences include candid conversations - not interviews - with the myriad of everyday Chinese. It often felt like I was part of the conversations. The author, Rob Gifford, skillfully weaves Chinese history, politics, and culture into a comprehensive story that reads like fiction but is actually a primary account of his time there. He shares his personal views in a manner that is thoughtful and credible, which includes his appreciation, as well as abhorrence of various aspects of Chinese society today. Having never visited China and now desiring to go there even more so, I feel like I could visit China with some important insights gained from reading ???China Road???. The author???s skill with words brings the land and people right into the mind from the high energy bustle to the tranquil and serene. I highly recommend this book for just about anyone. It is an easy and delightful read.

Great narration, rich info, fantastic writing

Would you listen to China Road again? Why?

Yes - I've read the book and have now listened to it. I'd do it again, because (as someone who lives in China) this is the best book on modern China that I've ever read. It is my first recommendation to anyone wanting to understand China today.

What does Simon Vance bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Simon Vance actually pronounces Chinese correctly. It is really horrible that so many great books on China have audiobooks with the most basic pronunciation errors, making it a constant cringe-inducing experience to anyone who knows even the most basic Chinese. The readers of Wild Swans, Factory Girls, and Peter Hessler's books all make these mistakes. It's as if someone read Les Miserables, and pronounced it "LESS MISERABLE-S" and the main villain "JAY-VERT". I'm not asking for the subtle consonants, or tones, or native pronunciation, but just the absence of the most basic errors - things a reader could learn with a ten minute "basic Chinese pronucniation" intro. Heck, just learning the following rules would solve 95% of the problems:

- Pronounce the "x" as an "sh", not a "z".
- Pronounce the "q" as a "ch", not a "k".
- Pronounce the "zh" as a "j", not a "z".

We wouldn't put up with this sort of thing for a minute from narrators of books in European settings. We wouldn't tolerate a reader who read the spanish-double "L" as a standard L and not a "Y". So why are these incompetent readers not screened out?

Great educational and entertaining book

What did you like best about this story?

Imagine documenting a multi-month road trip across the USA by car, bus, train and foot. The people you meet, places you have seen, local customs, geography, foods, current conditions and future prognostications. Rob Gifford manages to give me his personal trip across China described in that way.

What does Simon Vance bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Pleasurable and well paced voice that manages to easily flow those impossible Chinese language pronunciations.

Any additional comments?

This book made me feel like I was sitting with a grandparent reviewing pages of their family photo album. Each picture is a place with people, told in the first person and in a most entertaining way. A great well rounded expose of a foreign culture, its people and the land they live in.

True Observations

I relived my own China experiences with Rob Gifford's trip, especially the mixture of admiration and frustration that was my, and seemed to be his, reaction to the country. His insights, and well summarized historical background, helped me to understand some of why China is the way it is. The narrator was very good except for not pronouncing Chinese words properly, which drove me crazy.

Fascinating, relevant, and well-balanced

Route 312 goes from Shanghai on the coast to the Kazakhstan border, and the author's trip down this road by bus, taxi, and foot provides a fascinating slice throught 21st century China. Gifford's views balance the tremendous optimism and change in China today to its fragility, lack of political checks and balances, and social inequity. Required reading for anyone who thinks China's ascendancy is guaranteed.

Entertaining travelog style view of China

I truly enjoyed this book and found it entertaining and painlessly educational. I could see it as a PBS series - and hope that I do. Gifford clearly has a love of China and its people. He's critical the aspects of China's government that are stifling to its citizenry, but his view that people are more alike than different, despite huge cultural dissimilarities, shines through this book. A note on the performance: though I found the reader good, his voice seemed much older than the author, a runner with a young family, must have been. Since the narrative was non-fiction and voiced in 1st person, the older voice took some getting used to.