Michael Levy (2)Reseñas

Imperfectly edited, but an amusing, quick read. Who knew that Chinese men would have John Denver 'Country Roads' sing-alongs in a restroom?

Fun to read but not very well developed.

As "Western person travels to "exotic" location and writes about it" books go, this was a good one. I'm neither very familiar with Jewish culture in the US nor rural Chinese culture, and the book offered both. The cultural divide and the difficulties the characters met bridging them were fascinating as well.

Another in the Tales of the Peace Corps/Tales of China categories, though a reasonable rendering of both. More like [b:River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze|94053|River Town Two Years on the Yangtze (P.S.)|Peter Hessler|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171271609s/94053.jpg|1441686] than [b:Iron and Silk|685391|Iron and Silk|Mark Salzman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177178537s/685391.jpg|144931], Levy's memoir manages to be both entertaining and educational. Like Hessler, Levy captures the absurdity and at times the horror of living in an unfamiliar culture. Unlike Salzman, he describes what he's doing in the classroom ands his relationships with his students. The Chinese fascination with Judaism allows Levy certain outs of the "I'm not an American, I'm a Jew" variety. These are often useful when he needs to distance himself from inaccurate assertions about US culture. The statements about Jews are also often stereotypical or incorrect, but they are more admiring than vitriolic.

Levy wrestles with questions of identity and how to balance Peace Corps ideals with his own beliefs and practices. In this regard he does a better job than many, and I'd have wished for even more. Though not stylistically the best of the Returned Peace Corps authors, his writing is straightforward and flows without awkwardness. This and his self-reflection make this memoir better than some others for teaching international studies/field work preparatory classes.

When a Jewish-American Peace Corps volunteer is sent to a rural area of China to teach English, cultures clash and mesh in comical ways. Both teacher and students learn to expand their ideas of the world and themselves.½

Entertaining memoir of a Peace Corps volunteer’s experience in the interior city of Guiyang, which was growing but still a comparative backwater. There’s a lot of mutual incomprehension and good-faith but often insufficient attempts to understand on both sides. Levy’s students are smart, but/and they see no alternatives to one-party rule, while recognizing that it’s at least as much crony capitalism as Communism; most of them seem very worried about their futures, and not unreasonably so. Levy adopts a running joke about “x with Chinese characteristics” for many things, including his Judaism, which ends up becoming a reason to have pizza night. Slight but enjoyable.

I have have been living in China for the past few years having spent the previous 18 years travelling here regularly. Kosher Chinese is one of a whole sub-genre of books about China which are written by Westerners who have lived here for a few years - usually working as teachers.
Michael Levy was a Peace Corps Volunteer who finds himself teaching English in what would be described as a 3rd tier city way out in the back of beyond, where -as he says- the other billion Chinese live.
He describes the learning curve he faces in coming to some kind of understanding of how life can be for young people in China, what they think and feel, and how the system works (or doesn't work). The book rings absolutely true, and any reader will get a very accurate snap-shot of what life here can be like for both local people and an ex-pat. At times he finds it difficult not to make moral judgements on the society - and I applaud him for his self-restraint in not trying to impose American values on his students and fellow teachers, but trying to understand the world they live in from their point of view.
The book is full of interesting people and situations, and at times is both very funny and yet poignant. Because I live here it didn't really teach me anything about China that I didn't already know, but for anyone interested in this huge and extraordinary nation it is well worth reading.

I laughed tears reading that book! I hope he writes more!½

It's possible I just wasn't in the mood for this book, but unlike most of the folks here I couldn't bring myself to finish it. As I was trying to read it, I kept thinking of Marc Salzman's "Iron and Silk," in which Salzman also spends time teaching in China, fully immerses himself in poetry and martial arts, and delivers some real insights about the culture. Compared to that, Levy's more superficial and repetitive anecdotes (yes, I get it -- *everyone* was saying you don't speak Chinese) and fixation on poop (way too much detail on squat toilets) just don't measure up in my book.

I read this book on recommendation from someone in the 75ers group (again, apologies as I can't recall who it was). The book was written by a Jewish American Peace Corps Volunteer, and chronicles the two years he spent teaching in rural China -- the location of "China's other billion" -- which is a very different area from the China most Westerners are familiar with (ie. Beijing, Shanghai). He presents his experiences and observations with humor, poignancy, and more than one anecdote of moral dilemmas he encountered along the way. I found his objectivity refreshing -- he never delves into cultural superiority on either side -- but at the same time sympathized with certain situations where I, too, would have been unable to stay quiet (ie. responding to horrific animal abuse, even though it made a bad situation even worse).

I found that the book is more than a travel memoir -- it's a rare insight into the goings-on of rural China and the shift between old and new. I believe this book wraps up around 2007, so it would be interesting to know how things have continued to change since Levy's time there.

I'm sure my little review here isn't doing this book the justice it deserves, so if this is a topic that interests you (world issues, memoirs, etc.), I really do encourage you to pick up this volume and give it a read.½

Informative, funny, well-done memoir of a Jewish Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in Guiyang China.

This non-fiction book is about an American Peace Corps volunteer who teaches high school and college courses in a rural Chinese community. Although usually I love books with a Chinese setting or Chinese people/characters, I felt this book was mediocre at best.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this memoir based on the title, but I was pleased to win it in the Early Reviewers program. And this book turns out to be both more fun and more informative than I had anticipated. When Mike is assigned to more rural China for his Peace Corps tour, he has no idea what to expect. As a reader, I was is a similar situation -- I know little of China beyond the major cities. I was surprised and charmed by how foreign but warm and accessible Levy finds his stay. Levy does a great job of balancing big-picture critiques of modern China with amusing detailing of the smaller quirks of everyday life. This is a great intro to life in a part of the word few Westerners know much about.

This book was not only extremely amusing, but it also, I think, gave me a look on what it's really like to live in China. Levy writes about China and the Chinese people, particularly its young people, with compassion and wit. And of course there's the typical travel stories of strange food -- he finally forced himself to eat dog but drew the line at fried millipedes -- and hilarious language mistakes. Levy got into a lot of strange situations in China -- I think the "Santa Claus and Silly String incident" was my favorite -- and he wasn't afraid to poke fun at/criticize himself as well as other people. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to know what it's like in the "real" China.½

Kosher Chinese is one of the hands-down best expat memoirs I've read. The genre is strewn with the wreckage of idealistic twenty-to-fifty-somethings who travel to exotic locales, ostensibly to do Big Things, but who merely end up trying to sleep with the locals or "find themselves" while complaining that the food is gross, the language is too hard to learn, and the culture is just so irritating compared to the logical, sane American//Australian/British/etc. way of doing things.

Michael Levy has not written one of those memoirs. A Peace Corp volunteer in rural China, he made a sincere effort to integrate into his community, and to do so without judging it out of hand. That he succeeded is in evidence on every page of Kosher Chinese. Levy is an astute observer of everything that makes life in China so wonderful, aggravating, uplifting, and heartbreaking to the Western eye. His prose is precise without being flat and his observations alternately wry and evocative. Simply put, this is a must read for anyone interested in life as an expat, China's modernization, or even just a good travel yarn. Read this book!

I feel bad writing a negative review of this book because Michael Levy had a unique experience worth writing about. But a tale of life as a Peace Corps volunteer teacher in China has already been done--and done extremely well--by Peter Hessler in River Town. Hessler has a mature voice and sophisticated writing style that's missing here. The religion angle didn't add much to the story, and the constant, and unnecessary, pop-culture references grew tiresome. Amusing but underwhelming.½

This is a very amusing but insightful look at life in a backwater town in China. Author Michael Levy goes to China (who knew the Peace Corps went to places like China?) as a Peace Corps volunteer and secures a placement as an English instructor at a somewhat second-rate university. He overcomes cultural taboos about food and some serious differences about educational philosophy and methodology.

We get an interesting and comical view of Chinese attitudes toward America. But the most important part of the book is the exploration of a culture in transition. Levy's students seem to feel rudderless and confused by all the changes taking place in their country. They are uneasy and uncertain about what the future might hold and how they should behave.

One of the sadder elements, for me, was the way in which the citizens would deny the evidence of their own eyes if it conflicted with what they had learned. An example of this is when the author would be speaking Chinese (not well, but still) and the Chinese would tell him that he was not speaking Chinese. Also, the Chinese have preconceived ideas about Jews that aren't realistic.
Highly recommended to anyone who wants to learn a bit about what China is really like, in a painless and enjoyable way.½

I enjoyed reading Michael Levy’s memoir, Kosher Chinese, much in the way I liked Troost’s Lost on Planet China. Both look at China through the eyes of a Westerner, although Levy, being a Peace Corps volunteer, seems much more immersed in the lives of the people of his village, rather than just a cynical (and witty) observer. Levy gives the reader insight into the thoughts of young, rural Chinese by relaying discussions with his students. Although these young people show conflicting emotions about communism and the new trends of modernization (which are very slow to reach rural Guiyang), and serious sociological questions are raised in the book, many parts of the memoir are plain laugh-out-loud funny. At one point, a government worker (and store manager) decides to have an “authentic” Christmas celebration and elects Levy as the expert. (This despite his protestations that he is Jewish and had never celebrated Christmas.) The celebration is to be held in the new store that is the pride of the village - Walmart. Levy is told to dress up as Santa and promote “...an American-style buying orgy [because] Christmas is about buying.” When he enters the store, there are mobs of people worked up to a frenzy in anticipation of the event. Levy, nonplussed, asks what exactly he’s supposed to do and is told, “Run around the store and scream at people…Scream at them to buy.” He spends the next couple of hours doing just that – sometimes chasing customers, sometimes being chased. Not quite a typical American Christmas event, but all in all, successful.
During his two year stint in Guiyang Village, Levy is often torn between the Peace Corps policy of volunteering without imposing his own beliefs on the local community and the desire to make changes he feels are right. It is an interesting dilemma. The advice he gets from the school coach is meaningful: “You cannot change the course of a river, but you can learn to appreciate its beauty and power.”
This book is an interesting reflection on life in modern day China.

I really enjoyed this book by Michael Levy. Sent to China to teach English as part of the Peace Corps, kosher-keeping (until he arrived) Michael was challenged and changed. He is heavy on the pop references, which was slightly irritating, until he made a hilarious reference to the infamous episode on Saved By The Bell involving Jesse and the speed, and then they were charming and relatively right on. He has an easy way of writing and you immediately like him. While there, he battles many stereotypes against Jews and especially Americans, it was fascinating and a bit disturbing. I especially appreciated the final follow up with the students which was a nice bit of closure to the whole story.

Mike is a vegetarian and Jewish and he keeps Kosher – he is tested on all accounts when after 9/11 he joins the Peace Corps and lands in rural China teaching English at a college. While playing basketball, hosting a cooking class, giving relationship advice, and explaining Christmas traditions he is learning about the Chinese Way and also testing his own values. Mike’s ability to find the charm and the humor gets him through the culture shocks and occasional discouragements. I really enjoyed this book.

Michael Levy documents his two year assignment in the Peace Corp as a teacher in China. He embarks on his adventurous experience in the summer of 2005 beginning with 10 weeks of Chinese language lessons with 57 other volunteer trainees, and then travels alone to the remote city of Guiyang where the Guizhou University is located. Through his personal experience teaching both undergraduates and postgraduates, we learn a lot about modern China’s culture and style of living; eating habits, shopping habits, work habits, how they dress and talk, and their taste in music, movies, and sports. And we learn how they think. Indoctrinated, from early childhood, into China’s communist standards and policies they do not question authority and do not complain…ever.

The one thing they all do have in common is they love anything that is American, however, because they are strictly taught that all American’s are racist, religious zealots, who are generally unhappy with life, they scorn American standards. They learn about America from their Chinese text books and the Chinese media…so for them, what they learn must be true. Michael quickly discovers that nothing he could say would change their minds or opinions. But he befriends the students, his colleagues, and some local residents adapting to the Chinese way. When he does speak up in defense of his beliefs, ideals, and standards Levy tries to be diplomatic and sensitive to the possibility of offending. In several situations where he could have ended up in arguments or a physical fight he maintains his cool and does an admirable job of representing the United States. He is honest with the students, caring about their futures, and considerate of their feelings. And he is a good sport.

This is not about the China that most foreigners view; Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong, westernized hotels and commercialized tourist sights. This is about a small city deep in the heart of China where children may be raised by grandparents so the parents could move to the large cities for factory jobs, where it is not uncommon for a twelve year old to drop out of school to do manual labor, and where people think it is sophisticated and worldly to shop at the local Wal-Mart and eat at Pizza Hut. With keen observation, Michael Levy’s writing is witty and laugh-out-loud funny. Anyone interested in learning about the contemporary culture of China’s "other billion" people would certainly enjoy this book.½

I really had not thought much about the Peace Corps since the 1960's and 70’s when it seemed that so many young Americans were joining to bring their idealist visions of a better world around the globe. In fact, I never even knew that the Peace Corps sent volunteers to China! I thought they all went to third world countries. In this memoir, though, China is indeed where Michael Levy, a Jewish man who observes kashrut (following the laws of keeping kosher) in America ends up. The story opens with him already in China and trying to decide whether or not to taste deep fried millipede.

It’s not only the food that makes this book fascinating. It’s also the way in which Levy describes his two years as an English teacher in the rural town of Guiyang. Having been a volunteer as a young professional in another country myself, I could relate to his story in many ways. Although our individual experiences were different, what I most liked the about reading Levy’s memoirs was his description of how he developed relationships with his professional colleagues, his students, and others in the town. He learned to immerse himself in their culture until he, too, felt a part of it.

In addition, I liked reading about how Chinese people’s ideology has perhaps not changed as much as everyone seems to think even though China is no longer under the control of Chairman Mao. A very beautiful part of the story (and probably the story of any Peace Corps volunteer) is how important and lovely it is for people of differing cultures to learn about one another. Through this book, I’ve become more aware of how individuals conduct their lives in China. I was surprised to discover the prevalence of heavy drinking, the remaining deferral to Communist ideology, and the “guanxi” (connections which produce favors) within contemporary Chinese culture.

Regarding the Chinese diet, I’d always heard that dog is eaten in China. Levy goes on to describe his experiences in this regard. As for whether or not he eats millipede, I’ll let you find that out yourself by reading his often very funny memoir.

This book was both hilarious and intellectually engaging. The author really conveyed the confusion among Chinese young adults regarding the conflict between Maoist ideology and western capitalism that is playing out in China today. The author's comedic timing is genius; this was quite a bit better than other peace corps memoirs I've read. I put it right up there with Maarten Troost's Lost on Planet China.