One Russia, Two Chinas

by Fetherling, George

• ISBN13: 9780888784339
• ISBN10: 0888784333
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-03-01
• Publisher: Dundurn Pr Ltd

Summary

A travel narrative written over the course of ten years, One Russia, Two Chinas is about change and resistance to change in the postmodern world. In 1991, when the Soviet Union was about to morph into the Russian Federation, George Fetherling found himself in Moscow. He both marched with the workers in the last-ever Communist May Day parade and observed, at ground level, the new Russia's love of the marketplace.Fetherling then went overland to China. His entry point was Beijing, which at that moment was girding itself for the first anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Later that same year he journeyed to Taiwan, then in its final days as a dictatorship. He returned there mid-decade when the "Other China" had become a democracy, in order to note the differences--and similarities.This is old-fashioned travel writing, with vivid prose, bizarre characters, and crystallizing descriptions. But it's also a valuable document that freezes some important world events for close inspection.

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii
Russia 1990	1	(70)
On the Loose in Moscow	3	(18)
Arts and Letters	21	(11)
Red Arrow, Red Square	32	(15)
Diseases of the Soul	47	(7)
Transsib	54	(17)
China 1990	71	(50)
Comparative Embalming	73	(8)
Chongqing!	81	(13)
Downriver	94	(13)
The Buzz on the Shanghai Bund	107	(14)
Indochina 1990	121	(20)
Taiwan	141	(62)
Prologue	143	(4)
Taiwan 1991	147	(32)
Taiwan 1995	179	(20)
Epilogue	199	(4)
Afterword 2004	203