“ He writes better than he talks, ” Zhang Bowen says of Hessler. “ This is a commercial event, so he won’t have prepared for it very much. There isn’t much in Hessler’s talk that stirred me. I think I’ll stick to his books. ”
Zhang Bowen spent three or four months reading all three books in Hessler’s China trilogy in English. He read them faster than his teacher, spending nearly 100 yuan on each book. For his extended reading class, which assigns a classic novel by an author like Dickens every week, he’s become adept at saving money by finding electronic copies online or using photocopies. But Zhang Bowen feels that Hessler’s books are worth buying and keeping. He thinks studying Hessler’s terse prose style can improve his English, and motivate him for a future career in journalism. He is a little leery of calling it “ my journalism dream, ” however.
While he was preparing for the entrance exam, he came across a thesis focusing on China’s national image. Hessler’s work, in particular the reference to the “barbaric” rat-eating story in Strange Stones, was cited as an example of foreigners’ bias when it comes to China. Naturally, Zhang doesn’t agree with this assessment. He thinks Hessler is full of affection for the Chinese. As well as learning by heart specialist topics like the history of journalism, journalism theory and broadcasting studies, Zhang Bowen also read Leslie T. Chang’s Factory Girls in English, hoping to improve his grasp of the language.
At his graduate school interview, he made a point of referring to The New Yorker. He is a regular reader, having subscribed to the electronic edition for a whole year via the online marketplace Taobao for less than 100 yuan. His interviewers were surprised by this, because it isn’t a very mainstream publication. But Hessler is well aware that many of his Chinese readers got to know him through Taobao, and he always asks them which editions of his books they own (English? Traditional characters?) and where they bought them. He even met with the owner of one of the Taobao stores that sells his books.
The next time I see Zhang Bowen is on the campus of the Communication University of China, where he has now enrolled as a graduate student specializing in international journalism. The university is celebrating its 60th anniversary; a lot of the roads and paths on campus have been dug up and resurfaced, and Zhang has arrived early to join in the celebrations. The main anniversary gala was just the day before; he watched a live feed of the event from the main lecture hall. The party ran from 8:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., and just like CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala, there were lots of lively presenters and celebrities returning to grace the stage at their alma mater.
中國傳媒大學校園
“ These sorts of events are all about creating a spectacle, ” Zhang says. He isn’t very interested in television as a medium. The way Hessler uses words to record the stories of ordinary people resonates much more with him. Just as I’m about to ask more, a man and two women sit down at the table beside us. The women ask the man to take a picture of them. A little while later, I notice the man has started playing poker on his phone.
Hessler writes that individualism in China is becoming more and more common, and young people often talk about their ideas and plans. Zhang Bowen is no exception; he wants to better himself. When he graduated, he was just one mark away from a first class degree. He is now hoping to win an internship at a foreign media organization. When he saw that the Wall Street Journal was advertising for an intern, he didn’t apply though, because he was too busy preparing for his driving test.
At the book signing, Hessler told Zhang Bowen: “Study hard; get a good job.”
Even though Zhang is afraid there won’t be any openings for the kind of work that Hessler does, he is patient, willing to wait to be able to write what he wants to write. “But getting a household registration will be a problem if I stay in Beijing,” he says. Most of his undergraduate classmates have gone to work for state-owned enterprises and foreign trading companies as interpreters and translators, or as English-language trainers.
Tomorrow is the first day of class, and the first lesson is politics. His schedule also lists international relations, research into the world’s top news organizations, international news editing and a comparative study of different media organizations. They are all substantial , globe-spanning topics, and some of the classes are taught in English. The school also arranges for them to work as news translators and editors for China Central Television’s international channel, covering foreign affairs, where they will be paid 100 yuan a day.
Zhang Bowen has also entered an English-language essay competition with the theme of “ the Chinese dream ” – he is always on the lookout for ways to practice his English – so he wrote 1,800 words on why he wants to be a journalist. In the end, he didn’t win anything. The winners wrote about cleaning up environmental pollution and helping the most vulnerable people in society.
I ask him to send me his essay, telling him I will share an extract in my finished piece:
Witnessing the things that happen around me, in China, and even in the wider world, I am reminded that life is far more than just a series of basketball games, and that there are many things that are far more important than sports. For this reason, I have changed my dream yet again. I now wish to become a journalist with a much broader scope. I don’t just want to write about sports: I want to write about China, and the rest of the world. I feel that this is my mission, to document the breakneck change that is happening in China and overseas, before our very eyes. It’s as if the human race is trying to negotiate a labyrinth that is changing shape at every moment. They are dazzled, confused, and at a total loss.
Author:
Wu Qi is the managing editor of OWMagazine. He previously worked as an journalist for Across and Southern People Weekly.
Luisetta Mudie is a Chinese-to-English translator living in a small town just north of London, specializing in contemporary Chinese literature and current affairs.
This piece was originallypublished in OWMagazine (單讀) , and translated in collaboration with Read Paper Republic.
You can read it now on:
https://chinachannel.org/2018/09/14/three-sketches-peter-hessler/
https://www.patreon.com/chinachannel
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