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REAL CHINA: FROM CANNIBALISM TO KARAOKE by John Gittings (London: Simon and Schuster, 1996)
THE MAKING OF MODERN TIBET by A. Tom Grunfeld (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996)
China in the 1990s is a country of dichotomies. On a national level, the most visible divergence exists between the thriving coastal regions and the less prosperous interior. In the interior, larger cities prosper where the smaller cities falter; beyond the smaller cities lies the poorer countryside. In the countryside, more bifurcation: rich farmers enjoy new houses and television sets while the poor struggle to buy seeds for the year's crops. China reveals itself like a Russian nested doll, as each level reproduces the patterns of previous one, with slight variations based on local circumstances.
Journalists and scholars have focused most of their attention on the first part of these dichotomies, on China's coast and cities and the newly rich. John Gittings' book focuses on the parts of China that have not caught the attention of outsiders. This is the China where travel between towns still might require a combination of trains, boats, and animal power. It is a part of China that largely reacts to reform rather than leads it. Gittings makes a compelling case for the importance of this other, "real" China. Like others, he is concerned about the polarizing effects of reform, but Gittings is no alarmist. Instead, he shows us a world apart from, but created in response to, the surging economies of China's coast and cities.
Gittings' stories come from Middle China as he has defined it - the Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangxi and Hainan provinces. With a combined population of about 260 million, if they were to form a separate country it would be the fifth most populous nation on earth. This part of China is still very poor. Migrant laborers from these provinces, escaping grinding poverty and lack of opportunity at home, provide much of the labor power for the coastal export economy. By focusing on areas away from the spotlight of economic growth, Gittings brings us remarkable stories of personal difficulty and triumph. If China is like a nested doll, Gittings' stories show us the tiniest doll, the one that doesn't come apart and on which the whole edifice...