Reflections on Peter Hessler´s Country Driving

In Peter Hessler’s Country Driving, Hessler embarks on a voyage across China along the Great Wall. He also spends a significant amount of time living in various areas of China that reveal the culture and lifestyle of the people of China. The book takes place during the boom of the automobile industry as wells as the rise of the factory industry. The effect of both of these industries on the Chinese people is very interesting. The Chinese people undergo a transition that Hessler observes throughout the book. This transition also causes people to face challenges that affect their lifestyle. Many people move from rural to urban environments in order to find work. Also, while Hessler traverses throughout China, he experiences a lot of cultural interactions with the people around him that shed light on the mindset of the Chinese people. The transition that the Chinese go through and Hessler’s interactions reflect the effect of modernization in China. This effect is very interesting, and Hessler communicates this extremely well throughout his journey in China.

The people’s experience that Hessler observes exemplifies the transition that China has undergone in the past half-century. When Hessler is living in Sancha, a rural village, he experiences first-hand the effect of the transition that rural China underwent. The lineage of a family in Sancha is an example of the effects of the Cultural Revolution and the Reform years. During the Cultural Revolution, many of these documents were destroyed or hidden. Then, during the Reform, they were consolidated. This meant that there almost no possible way for the people to know where they came from and who their ancestors were. Another aspect of the transition was the effect of the government...

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...bcultures of China. Overall, I enjoyed Hessler’s book and I plan on reading Oracle Bones and River Town in the near future.

I think that this book very useful for the curriculum of the course. It allows the reader to experience what it is actually like in China. The book addresses topics that cannot be taught inside the classroom. Cultural identity is one of these topics. Hessler taught me a lot about the Chinese culture, and its intricacies, that I would not have learned if I did not read it. It also allows the reader to take Hessler’s journey and put it into a historical context that we learned in class. It personalized the history of the Chinese people. I would recommend this book to anyone that wants to learn more about the Chinese culture and history.

Works Cited

Hessler, Peter. Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip. New York: Harper Perennial, 2011. Print.