Iron and Silk by Mark Salzman

Just finished this book for my Asian History class. Excellent book. This is a non-fiction account of a Yale graduate's first teaching job--in the Hunan Province of China.

This book is extremely accessible. Many people aren't fans of non-fiction books on other cultures, as they can often be "heavy" collections of historical dates and dry information. This book is not like this at all. It is broken into small but powerful anecdotes of his experiences with Chinese students, mentors, colleagues, and random strangers. The stories explore subjects such as martial arts, "cultural exchange," Chinese hospitality, ancient lore and superstition, and the Communist regime. This book is barely 200 pages, and each story lasts for no more than 8 pages, but it is extremely powerful nonetheless. I found myself laughing out loud at parts, while other passages were extremely touching.

Readers will find themselves gaining great insight into Chinese culture without ever feeling as if they're being lectured to. I read this book in less than 3 days--as busy as I am, I made time to devour this entertaining and intriguing memoir.

"It started with an argument about Nastassia Kinski's lips...

THey seemed in a fine mood for cultural exchange, so I mentioned that, since coming to China, I had never seen two people kiss each other, even in the movies, except for mothers kissing their infant children. Their eyes opened wide and they nodded vigorously. 'Of course not! Here in China, it is very different from your country. People don't kiss here...And you must only kiss your children when they are infants, not after the age of two or three...

By ten o'clock, most of the guests had gone home, leaving only myself and Teacher Liu. I thougth it odd that Teacher Liu remained, for of all the students in that class, he was the most shy and self-concious about speaking English....

I could see that Teacher Liu was thinking about something and trying to form the words silently. I said in Chinese that he could speak Chinese now, the English party was over, but he gestured for me to be patient. Then very slowly, and with great precision, he said, "Teacher Mark. Do you remember? We said that we do not kiss our children after they are big. You are an honest, and my teacher. So I must be an honest, your student. From kissing, this is not always true. I have two daughters. One is twelve and one is ten. I cannot kiss them, they would feel embarass and they would call me foolish. But every night, after they are asleep, I go into their room to turn off the light. Very quiet, very soft, I kiss them and they don't know." -"Kissing", page 76