In the People's Republic

Orville Schell, an American journalist with liberal credentials, went to China as a politically engage tourist, pitching in at farm and factory. Aware of the traps that await the friendly journalist ("Leftists in particular . . . have a willingness to believe that China works perfectly”), he frequently falls into them anyway. He settles for polite evasions in answer to his occasionally impertinent questions (largely about sex and deviant social behavior), is constantly being herded away from promising encounters by his vigilant guides, and is forever urging workers and cadres to rap about their personal feelings, an indulgence apparently unimaginable to the Chinese.

There are memorable moments scattered snapshot-style throughout the book: an old woman recalling hard times; commune children at work and play; doctors performing brain surgery with the help of acupuncture. Nevertheless they are scenes by now familiar from the literature of Chinawatching.

What this book seems chiefly to demonstrate is the sheer stupefaction China can inspire in Western minds. The Chinese, with their concern for taking the ideologically “correct" line at all times, their life of hard cooperative work, and their denial of self, often seem incomprehensible. It’s all too easy a step from lack of understanding to boredom. Ennui seems to have infected Schell himself by the end of his journey; it gets to the reader too.