Do You like book Will The Boat Sink The Water?: The Life Of China's Peasants (2007)?
The book gets 3-stars b/c it is a "black market" book in China about Chinese peasants written by Chinese peasants who lived it. If it was some pencilneck, ivory tower dweeb who wrote it, it would be 2-stars. It's interesting and very enlightening to the plight of the Chinese peasantry (numbering 900million) and tells quite a bit about the HOW and WHY of the Chinese economic boom (as well as the brutal costs). But, it spends too much time "storytelling" about "this bad thing" and "that bad thing" that happened to various people in various villages. There's not nearly enough overarching analysis, though I'm not 100% sure that was/is the point. The last chapter wraps a nice bow around all of it to give some analysis, but it is too little too late. A VERY important read for a greater understanding of the brutalities of China today and the "dark side" of their economic "boom". The title comes from the saying that "Water holds up the boat, but it can also sink the boat" with the "water" being the peasants. It seems China's policies are intent on "sinking the water". Sucks to be a Chinese rural peasant, that's for sure.
—Christopher Rex
"Will the Boat Sink the Water?" är en bok jag inte skulle ha läst på fritiden främst på grund av att boken behandlar ett ämne jag inte är jätteintresserad av att läsa om. Med denna inställning till boken kanske det inte är så konstigt att jag blev positivt överraskad. Trots att boken innehåller en del krångliga ord är den lättläst tack vare alla utförliga exempel. Dessutom blir boken intressant när man får exempel att relatera till för att förstå problemet. Det gör att boken kommer närmare och att man kan känna starkare känslor inför orättvisorna som annars inte skulle betyda mer än siffror och procenttal på ett papper.Den som är det minsta intresserad av att lära sig lite om de kinesiska böndernas liv och deras ekonomiska tillstånd bör absolut läsa den här boken. Det är en lättläst och intressant bok, om ett ganska tungt ämne, som jag absolut rekommenderar!
—Foxears
Started and finished this book yesterday (silly due dates at silly libraries). This is the English translation of a book called 中国农民问题调查 that made waves in China a few years ago (2004-ish I think). It was banned a month after it was released on the mainland but went on to sell something like 7 million copies in pirated form. Really interesting and heart breaking, the authors investigated cases of local corruption in tax and fee collection in villages across Anhui Province, one of China's poorest. Long story short: peasants have it worse now in many ways than they had before the so-called People's Revolution because of exploiting cadres and their heavy taxes and fees (much heavier than city people's tax burden).
—Meiqimichelle
