
What Peter Hessler did in his memoir River Town, Tom Carter does with China: Portrait of a People. A new wave of camera-toting expats will soon come to China hoping to follow in Carter’s footsteps.
I write this within a week of coming back to America after a year of teaching English at university in southern Hunan. While it was a wonderful experience, I was eager to get back home and move on to bigger and better things. But then Carter’s book came in the mail from Amazon. My immediate reaction: every expat coming to China should have one for the inevitable day culture shock strikes; the book should come wrapped in white paper with a red cross and the instructions: “For prevention and treatment of culture shock. Open if you have any of the following symptoms…” Just paging through it compels me to return to see what I can see, do what I can do, and meet whoever I can meet.
















