Rating: 
Summary: A moving book about the state of humanity in China
Review: As a Chinese-American living in Minnesota, I found this book to be especially poignant, but I think it will appeal to anyone who is concerned with the freedom of the human spirit. Holm's descriptions of his students' energy and love of discovery, in contrast with his anger at the beauracratic pig-headedness of the Chinese government, captures the mixed emotions that most of us feel about the current Hong Kong situation. Above all, it brings one to the realization that we in America do not appreciate what we have enough
Rating: 
Summary: Having Lived In China I Enjoyed This Visit
Review: Bill brings back memories of life in China and the amazing difficulties people deal with daily.
My time in Guangzhou in the south only varied by climate with Bill's Xian existence, and his wish to return to these education-loving students is familiar as I observe the attitudes of American students falter. I could smell the baoudze and see the Overseas Chinese tai chi in the parks just from enveloping myself in the book on my Metro train. Missed a few stops, too. Thank you Bill for your caring rendition of the life and I wish you continued travel to China.
Rating:
Summary: A primer with humor for anyone traveling to China
Review: Bill Holm taught at a univeristy in Xian . He brought with him Mid-Anerican values and an appreciation for the people of China, yet didn't forget his occasional need for American comforts. His essage on the Swiss Army Knife justifies the entire book. Anyone who likes to travel will appreciate Holm's insight and humor.
Rating: 
Summary: Definitely not one of my favorite China reads...
Review: Bill Holm's book sits among the many I've read during my consistent and methodical research of China, and embarrassingly so. I struggled greatly just getting through the opening and could not help becoming irritated at Holms' seemingly pompous and egotistical views of Chinese culture. I've traveled to China and other parts of Asia and have managed to keep in mind that if one travels to another country with expectations born out of their own culture, they end up making sarcastic, pessimistic, negative remarks about their experience. Not all of this is true concerning Holm's work. Some parts of the book were fairly accurate, but nothing that in my opinion deserves a second glance. He appeared to sprinkle a heavy amount of egotism and fluff into the mix, regurgitating much of his past knowledge and studies in response to a culture over five thousand years older than our own. This left a very bad taste in my mouth and especially the fact that he has taught ESL in the country for only a year. I personally think that this book simply served as a stage on which to act out his superior attitude and like some so-called educated individuals, simply regurgitate memorized facts in which to impress his audience, adding rote references to his own egotism and clumsy, rude American ways, which do not make up for this embarrassment. I would not recommend this book to someone researching China culture but possibly to someone looking for entertainment by a pseudointellectual keeping the seesaw of low self-esteem versus ego balanced with his attempt at humor.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely not one of my favorite China reads...
Review: Bill Holm's book sits among the many I've read during my consistent and methodical research of China, and embarrassingly so. I struggled greatly just getting through the opening and could not help becoming irritated at Holms' seemingly pompous and egotistical views of Chinese culture. I've traveled to China and other parts of Asia and have managed to keep in mind that if one travels to another country with expectations born out of their own culture, they end up making sarcastic, pessimistic, negative remarks about their experience. Not all of this is true concerning Holm's work. Some parts of the book were fairly accurate, but nothing that in my opinion deserves a second glance. He appeared to sprinkle a heavy amount of egotism and fluff into the mix, regurgitating much of his past knowledge and studies in response to a culture over five thousand years older than our own. This left a very bad taste in my mouth and especially the fact that he has taught ESL in the country for only a year. I personally think that this book simply served as a stage on which to act out his superior attitude and like some so-called educated individuals, simply regurgitate memorized facts in which to impress his audience, adding rote references to his own egotism and clumsy, rude American ways, which do not make up for this embarrassment. I would not recommend this book to someone researching China culture but possibly to someone looking for entertainment by a pseudointellectual keeping the seesaw of low self-esteem versus ego balanced with his attempt at humor.
Rating:
Summary: Witty yet insightful
Review: China is not a mystery country anymore. Yet it still remains mystical to many ordinary foreigners (or "barbarians"). Well, Holm tells it well in a very down-to-earth fashion. His chronicle of life in China approaches you as real, uproariously hilarious at times, and remains insightful throughout the chapters.I have studied and worked in China over the past three years. This book has travelled with me on my many train rides over China. I simply could not think of a better companion. And I thoroughly enjoyed it every time I read/revisited a random chapter. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in China, and especially those who have their own China experiences and also who are set to commit some time exploring the country themselves.
Rating: 
Summary: Imaginative travel vignettes, sometimes irritating host
Review: English professor Bill Holm is a first-rate observer of travelscenes. He brings an incredibly rich artistic and liberal arts background to his season in China, and faithfully records the flying sparks of the encounter. China is not a simple culture, and Holm respectfully writes no more than what he personally learns. The thing that make this book different is that, instead of the usual slices of life + bigthink one finds in travel writing these days, he has organized his observations into a lexicon of essays. For instance, one essay entitled "Black Hair" relates the Chinese people's fascination with his red hair; another, "Tickets, Please" tells of his frustration at simultaneously having to have a Chinese factotum and being subjected to constant petty price gouges. Whimsy and offbeat insight abound, as his sense of irony and humor and humanity are touched seemingly at every turn. Ten years later, I'm still enjoying this unique little book. It takes a little bit of effort for a non-liberal to enjoy this book, if that is an issue for you. Prof. Holm is an academic culturatus of the first order, with little that's kind to say about less refined Americans. He seems to have a special contempt for his American students, as they come off the worse in comparison with his rapt Chinese pupils. Maybe if he transferred to a _college_, instead of teaching thirteenth grade at his state institution, he'd find more enthusiastic students. Most depressingly familiar is how, like so many other academics, he reckons his professional skill and artistic talent as translating into political perspicacity. This leads him into such nauseating statements as one in which he explicitly draws a moral parallel between the election of a Republican president of the U.S. in 1988, and the Tiananmen massacre the following year. His disgust at lumpenprole Americans is such that he records himself inwardly shouting at them, "I'm the American! Not you!" Prof. Holm is a member of America's cultural elite, and there's nothing wrong with that. But ideas that don't work tend to cluster in institutions where ideas don't have to work in order to survive. That's a reason why so many of his mindset are clustered in academia. But if none of this bothers you, or you agree with him, then this book is recommended heartily.
Rating:
Summary: Imaginative travel vignettes, sometimes irritating host
Review: English professor Bill Holm is a first-rate observer of travelscenes. He brings an incredibly rich artistic and liberal arts background to his season in China, and faithfully records the flying sparks of the encounter. China is not a simple culture, and Holm respectfully writes no more than what he personally learns. The thing that make this book different is that, instead of the usual slices of life + bigthink one finds in travel writing these days, he has organized his observations into a lexicon of essays. For instance, one essay entitled "Black Hair" relates the Chinese people's fascination with his red hair; another, "Tickets, Please" tells of his frustration at simultaneously having to have a Chinese factotum and being subjected to constant petty price gouges. Whimsy and offbeat insight abound, as his sense of irony and humor and humanity are touched seemingly at every turn. Ten years later, I'm still enjoying this unique little book. It takes a little bit of effort for a non-liberal to enjoy this book, if that is an issue for you. Prof. Holm is an academic culturatus of the first order, with little that's kind to say about less refined Americans. He seems to have a special contempt for his American students, as they come off the worse in comparison with his rapt Chinese pupils. Maybe if he transferred to a _college_, instead of teaching thirteenth grade at his state institution, he'd find more enthusiastic students. Most depressingly familiar is how, like so many other academics, he reckons his professional skill and artistic talent as translating into political perspicacity. This leads him into such nauseating statements as one in which he explicitly draws a moral parallel between the election of a Republican president of the U.S. in 1988, and the Tiananmen massacre the following year. His disgust at lumpenprole Americans is such that he records himself inwardly shouting at them, "I'm the American! Not you!" Prof. Holm is a member of America's cultural elite, and there's nothing wrong with that. But ideas that don't work tend to cluster in institutions where ideas don't have to work in order to survive. That's a reason why so many of his mindset are clustered in academia. But if none of this bothers you, or you agree with him, then this book is recommended heartily.
Rating:
Summary: Crazy like a fox.
Review: For a man who was only in China a year and doesn't speak Chinese, Helms saw a lot, and understood a surprising amount of what he saw. His writing is top-notch, and he comes across as a warm and congenial human being. (Granted, as Atila the Hun might, if he could write.) This poetic series of essays is a nostalgic delight to those of us who get homesick for a China that was never quite our home, and an excellent flow-of-conscious introduction for those who plan to go and want to avoid being shocked or disoriented, or at least be aware it's not just jet-lag when you are a bit shocked and disoriented. I give the book five stars on the basis of its genre. Helm's ecclectic travelogue should not, of course, be mistaken for an in-depth attempt to understand the subjects he treats. As a missionary, I naturally also don't agree with his jibes against Christian evangelists, and find it ironic that he tells us to "eschew evangelism" in one essay, while in another admits to evangelizing himself, on behalf of his concept of democracy. Also he is a bit simplistic to complain that Chinese walls are "inhuman" and human beings ought to "tear them down." In fact walls are intensely human, the world being what it is, as is Helm's irritation at them. For those who would like to better understand the psychology behind some of the walls China builds against the outside world, after you finish this wonderful book, for desert I recommend Wild Swans. (The book, I mean, not the bird.) Author, How Jesus Fulfills the Chinese Culture (d.marshall@sun.ac.jp)
Rating:
Summary: A must-read for Americans travelling to China
Review: I really loved this book, having read it right after returning from 3 months in Taiwan, although before my more recent trips to the mainland and Hong Kong. Since I was experiencing reverse culture shock at the time, everything he said felt like a punch in the gut. When he missed home back in MN, I knew EXACTLY what he was feeling--I'd felt those pains of homesickness myself just weeks before. ALL I CAN SAY IS IF YOU ARE AMERICAN AND PLANNING ON SPENDING A YEAR IN CHINA, YOU MUST READ THIS. His stories ring so human, and American, and TRUE. It won't prepare you for the long nights when you really FEEL IN YOUR GUT how far from home you are, but at least you might catch a glimpse of how bittersweet such an adventure can taste... It's all painful, and exciting, and fun, and frustrating--and like Helm, you won't trade it for anything...
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