China on the Rise: Stories by Jeffrey Tayler and Peter Hessler
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 06.15.07 | 10:35 AM ET
The consequences of a rising China are many, and from our perspective one of the better ones is this: Talented Western writers and journalists just keep filing terrific stories from the country. The first I came across this week: Jeffrey Tayler writes in the Atlantic’s July/August issue about Kunming, China’s “City of Eternal Spring.” In Kunming, Tayler, whose The Woman in the Kuffiya is currently World Hum’s featured dispatch, found “a potpourri of ethnic and cultural flavors unfamiliar to Western and Han Chinese palates alike.” His story is available online only to Atlantic subscribers. However, a beautiful Tayler-narrated slideshow is free to all.
In National Geographic’s June issue, Peter Hessler writes about China’s boomtowns. It’s an epic tale, and it provides an excellent overview of the country’s economic growth. If you’re pressed for time, go straight to the sidebars. Photogapher Mark Leong’s slideshow captures the over-the-top nature of the The China Yiwu International Trade City, a mall in Yiwu with 30,000 stalls. “If you spend one minute at each shop, eight hours a day,” says Hessler, “you’ll leave two months later.”
Hessler’s field notes are as compelling as his story. They include a hilarious conversation with Jin Yang, a man whose business card reads: The Actor Who Plays the Role of the Great Leader Mao Zedong.
He’s not the only one gunning for the Mao role: A 51-year-old woman named Chen Yan, you can see from this Reuters photo and story, has a pretty good claim on the role.
Related on World Hum:
* Peter Hessler on World Hum’s Top 30 Travel Books
* Killing Yourself to Make a Living
* Secret Shanghai: Old Streets and Etched Faces Tell the Tale
* Burning Mao
* The Travels of Jiang Zemin
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
