Author: Pallavi Iyer
Genre: NonFiction, Cultural
Rating: 3/5
Verdict: The book has good content but the chapters felt disconnected and failed to keep up my interest. (May be the original English version might have been better)
I got this book from a friend during my last trip to India. I picked up this book for all the reasons except reading or knowing more about China as a country :) Yes, I didn't even read the foreword. I love short books, the color red and reading in Tamizh. This one checked off all those boxes.
The book was written by Pallavi Iyer, a journalist who stayed in China for 5 years, travelled through all different parts of China and met with people from all classes of the society. The Tamil version was translated in Tamil by Raman Raja. The book documents Pallavi's experiences in China and provides insights into the country from an entirely different perspective. I love books that are not the usual travellogue types describing just the touristy places and take an entirely different approach to give interesting facts about the little known things that are unique to a country. Although I did not like the translated version as much, I enjoyed reading about the fact that there is no caste system, how the Marxist approach works and how the government operates. The chapter about SARS outbreak in China kept me hooked especially now when the world is battling Covid-19. At every chapter, I could not help but compare China against India.
Overall the book has great content but the translation didnt work well for me. I might have given this a higher rating if I had read the original one in English.
