The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up

Chinese Characters

---

Free download. Book file PDF easily for everyone and every device. You can download and read online The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up file PDF Book only if you are registered here. And also you can download or read online all Book PDF file that related with The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up book. Happy reading The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up Bookeveryone. Download file Free Book PDF The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up at Complete PDF Library. This Book have some digital formats such us :paperbook, ebook, kindle, epub, fb2 and another formats. Here is The CompletePDF Book Library. It's free to register here to get Book file PDF The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories: China From the Bottom Up Pocket Guide.

Philip Gourevitch Foreword. The Corpse Walker introduces us to regular men and women at the bottom of Chinese society, most of whom have been battered by life but have managed to retain their dignity: a professional mourner, a human trafficker, a public toilet manager, a leper, a grave robber, and a Falung Gong practitioner, among others. By asking challenging questions with respect and empathy, Liao The Corpse Walker introduces us to regular men and women at the bottom of Chinese society, most of whom have been battered by life but have managed to retain their dignity: a professional mourner, a human trafficker, a public toilet manager, a leper, a grave robber, and a Falung Gong practitioner, among others.

From the Trade Paperback edition. Get A Copy. Hardcover , pages. Published April 15th by Pantheon first published April 3rd More Details Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Corpse Walker , please sign up.

Anyone know of any other books like this, but more modern? Doesn't have to be about China, anywhere in the world is fine. See 1 question about The Corpse Walker…. Lists with This Book.

Community Reviews. Showing Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Sep 21, Neil rated it it was amazing. The accounts of life during the cultural revolution and the starvation that followed the Great Leap Forward are chilling, but the people are never less than fascinating. View all 4 comments. Feb 26, Meghan Fidler rated it it was amazing Shelves: on-china-in-china. I really try to avoid should-ing on people my dad always says it's like sh!

You should read this book, because should know this story. And you should be prepared. These people will make an impression.

The stories are short, you can take the book in little intellectual bites. With depictions of daily life the book pr I really try to avoid should-ing on people my dad always says it's like sh!

With depictions of daily life the book provides an in-depth examination of a centralized government's attempt to speed, control, and shape social change. Liao Yiwu captures the impact of this tumultuous time through interviews, allowing each individual their own voice. He also does a fantastic job sharing his own thoughts on the subject being discussed by including his own comments and questions.

Among the darkness of the human trafficer who began by selling his daughters, the red guard who still seeks the meaning and retribution his old position gave him, and the monk who watched people claw away at centuries old temple architecture, are images of human beauty. The humor of the Public Restroom Manager was, dare I say it, a refreshing breath of air. And the soft forgiveness of so many torture victims makes the heart ache. Thank you, Liao Yiwu, for enduring political persecution and jail time.

Table of Contents for: The corpse walker : real life stories, C

Thank you for sharing these underrepresented voices. I am delighted that Kang Zhengguo recognized the importance of this work and helped get it published. Aug 19, Sara rated it really liked it Shelves: china. One of the most fascinating things about this book is how it came to be.

Liao Yiwu is constantly on the run from the Chinese government, has been jailed, tortured, and forced to be a wandering street musician. The text for this book was smuggled out of China and published for the rest of the world to read, and wow, what a read! Yiwu interviews the members of the lowest rungs in Chinese society like the public toilet manager, a leper, a grave robber, a father who lost his son in the Tiananmen mas One of the most fascinating things about this book is how it came to be.

Yiwu interviews the members of the lowest rungs in Chinese society like the public toilet manager, a leper, a grave robber, a father who lost his son in the Tiananmen massacre, a blind erhu player, a human trafficker, a migrant worker, and many others. Most of them give graphic, detailed accounts of what life was like for during the famines and political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. One of the funniest chapters was the interview titled 'The Peasant Emperor'. In Zeng Yinglong declared himself emperor of his village and was later thrown in jail for it.

The interview goes something like this: Yiwu: Are you the well known emperor that people talk about in this jail?

KIRKUS REVIEW

Yinglong: You should address me as 'Your Majesty. One of the most memorable interviews was from a retired Communist Party official who discussed the difficulty of the s famine and how his attempts at curbing cannibalism in his region were a failure. Apparently little girls were targeted since they are seen as disposable and some families would swap children in order to not eat their own.

He raised some interesting moral questions about what one would do in a similar situation. Do you eat one child to save the rest or let them all starve to death? Overall a really interesting and worthwhile read. Jun 18, Beata rated it liked it. An interesting insight into China. The book proves that Beijing is not China and that ordinary people can tell incredible stories.

A European reader like myself feels challenged by the stories that are shocking or, to say the least, incredible. Mar 22, Zak rated it it was amazing Shelves: non-fiction. From author description: Liao Yiwu is a writer, musician, and poet from Sichuan, China. He is a critic of the Chinese regime, for which he has been imprisoned, and the majority of his writings are banned in China.

Liao Yiwu speaks to an interesting cast of characters from the bottom rung of Chinese society. Many have gone through interminable hardship and suffering during the decades of upheaval brought on by the civil war and From author description: Liao Yiwu is a writer, musician, and poet from Sichuan, China. Many have gone through interminable hardship and suffering during the decades of upheaval brought on by the civil war and the numerous "revolutions" and "big leaps forward" brought on by the painful birth of communism in China.

It was enlightening to find out that many among the Chinese people were actually caught up in the fervour of creating a new nation where everyone would be considered equal. Unfortunately, things did not turn out as initially hoped, resulting in situations where colleagues turned on each other, tenants turned on landlords, students persecuted professors and even family members denounced each other.

Review | The Corpse Walker by Liao Yiwu

Torture, beatings and even killings became norms. I had thought all along that the majority were indifferent to politics and simply resigned themselves to a new regime, but it seems that many amongst the populace were actually active supporters, if not participants, in the "revolution".

It also became apparent, in contrast to my earlier belief, that many of the transgressions and cruelties were actually carried out by rabid mobs of ordinary people, instead of government forces. Due to the prevailing atmosphere, any expression of doubt or demonstration of failure could be construed as a sign of not being fully committed to the cause and one could easily be labelled a counterrevolutionary. Hence, when crops failed and famines hit, village chiefs continuously lied to party officials that everything was dandy and even offered to provide relief to other stricken areas.

Real-life stories, China from the bottom up

All whilst their own people were eating clay to assuage their gnawing hunger and literally starving to death. Therefore, in many respects, it was the people themselves who brought on a lot of the suffering on each other.

The writer talks to 16 different people in this book and is very frank in his interviews, not hesitating to chastise them when he feels they have done wrong. The most interesting one to me was the "corpse walker. My guess is that these scenes originated from the original corpse walkers in China, people who are paid to bring bodies back over extremely long distances to their home town for burial.

• Donors, Devotees, and Daughters of God: Temple Women in Medieval Tamilnadu (South Asia Research)
• Nationalism and the Mind: Essays on Modern Culture
• The Defining Moment: FDRs Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope
• Canadian philosophers : celebrating twenty years of the CJP
• The Machine That Changed the World : Based on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5-Million-Dollar 5-Year Study on the Future of the Automobile