Colin Thubron esplora la Cina pochi anni dopo la morte di Mao Zedong. Le macerie sanguinanti della rivoluzione culturale sono ancora fumanti, e la Cina si muove ancora in un limbo tra la paura del passato e la speranza per il futuro. Il ragazzo che ferma il carro armato a piazza Tienament è ancora un bambino; ed il modello capitalista che garantirà negli anni a seguire uno sviluppo del Pil a due cifre è ancora in incubazione; l’immensa Cina che Thubron racconta è povera, la nutrizione un problema, mancano le infrastrutture, l’unico sintomo del moderno è l’inquinamento: ma il fascino di una grande cultura millenaria permea le pagine, edulcora gli odori di treni pieni all’inverosimile, rende accettabili le file cinesi, gli sputi per terra. Il viaggio di Thubron è lungo, impegnativo, parte da Pechino, arriva alla muraglia e da lì fino a Nanchino e poi Shangai, per scendere poi verso il sud, Xiamen, Canton, l’Hunan e poi verso ovest, il confine con il Vietnam e poi di nuovo verso il nord, Xian il Sichuan, fino ad arrivare a Lanzhou, per chiudersi sulla vastità del deserto del Gobi. Un bel diario di viaggio che aiuta a decifrare la cultura di un popolo enigmatico, complesso, impossibile da comprendere se non si riesce ad andare oltre alle apparenze. ( )

I've been reading this book on and off, now and then, over a long period. I finally decided to just finish it. It's not that I didn't like the book. It is excellent, really. Thubron is a very observant outsider, and he is very knowledgable about China and its recent and ancient history. He reports on observed details that I know I would have missed if I had been in his place. And his writing is superb. It's just that without a continuing story, it was easy to put this one down when something more plot driven came along and caught my interest. But, everytime I'd pick this one up again, I would be amazed at how good it is.
I kept looking for something placing Thubron's China trip in a particular year, but I could not find it. It is sometime in the middle part of the 1980's (the copyright is 1987, so probably shortly before then). Thubron travels all over China, starting in the Northeast, then he travels South down the coast to Hong Kong, and winds his way through the interior of the country to the far Northwest, where the Great Wall ends. (There is a map showing his route at the front of the book, which I went back to frequently.) He travels by train mostly, sometimes a bus. He meets locals and other travelers along the way (he speaks Chinese and some locals speak English). He is primarily interested in the people, the religious sites, the natural beauty, and the effects of the Cultural Revolution and other major historical and political events.
I read another of his books a few years ago, To A Mountain in Tibet, which I enjoyed and led me to pick this book up at a library sale. I have another of his, which I also got at a library sale, but I think I'll try to read it straight through. I expect that I will get more out of it that way. ( )

Colin Thubron is not my favorite travel writer -- he seems to think he knows how to travel better than anyone else, so it's easy to spend your reading time feeling annoyed with his attitude rather than appreciative of the places he's been. Still, this look at China immediately after the Cultural Revolution is an informative and sometimes touching read. ( )

I went to China for our honeymoon in 1991 with our son then 6 months old who took his first steps on the Great Wall of China. Another story is that we got lost one day as the taxi dropped us off at the wrong end of some side streets. Not being able to speak a single word of Chinese we managed to stumble into greengrocers and waved the telephone number of the compound we were staying at. After a long mime he rang them and then once he was clear that he was lost we were put on the back of his cycle truck and toured round the corner where we realised then we were 2 minutes ways down a side street.

My son’s uncle speaks fluent Chinese and lives in Beijing with his family who have a Chinese mother so my son went out for three weeks last summer. Hence this book evokes happy memories and I have the experience to know what an accurate and observant book it is. ( )