{"product_id":"9781429935180","title":"Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"A highly personal, honest, funny and well-informed account of China's \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ehyperactive effort to forget its past and reinvent its future.\"—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs one the first American students admitted to China after the communist revolution, John Pomfret was exposed to a country still emerging from the twin tragedies of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Crammed into a dorm room with seven Chinese men, Pomfret contended with all manner of cultural differences, from too-short beds and roommates intent on glimpsing a white man naked, to the need for cloak-and-dagger efforts to conceal his relationships with Chinese women. Amidst all that, he immersed himself in the remarkable lives of his classmates.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeginning with Pomfret's first day in China, \u003ci\u003eChinese Lessons\u003c\/i\u003e takes us down the often torturous paths that brought together the Nanjing University History Class of 1982: Old Wu's father was killed during the Cultural Revolution for the crime of being an intellectual; Book Idiot Zhou labored in the fields for years rather than agree to a Party-arranged marriage; and Little Guan was forced to publicly denounce and humiliate her father. As Pomfret follows his classmates from childhood to adulthood, he examines the effect of China's transition from near-feudal communism to first-world capitalism. The result is an illuminating report from present-day China, and a moving portrait of its extraordinary people.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Holt, Henry \u0026 Company, Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47141698306288,"sku":"9781429935180","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781429935180_p0.jpg?v=1769901778","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781429935180","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}