Evening Chats In Beijing [Paperback]

Link Perry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 1993

Chinese intellectuals have a traditional duty, for which there is no equivalent in the West: to worry, to "take responsibility for all under heaven", to argue the question "What can we do with China?" The Spring 1989 demonstrations in Tiananmen Square climaxed a year of animated, despairing, idealistic worry - a year in which writers, journalists, scientists, professors and officials were able to gather in private to trade views on the corruption permeating Chinese society and the political repression exercised by the Communist Party. This pastime of "chatting" always turned to questions of responsibility: Should one resist - how? Follow an independent path? Flee the country? Perry Link was present at many evening chats involving China's most prominent intellectuals. In conveying their worries here, he allows the Chinese themselves to tell us why Beijing took to the streets in spring 1989 and why China's crisis remains unresolved.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Americans," a Chinese scholar friend of the author observed, "can never, never appreciate the 'worrying mentality' " of the Chinese. Nevertheless, Link, a professor of Chinese literature at Princeton, eloquently imparts the deeply felt concerns he heard from students and colleagues during his 1988-1989 stint as director of the National Academy of Science Office on Scholarly Exchange in Beijing. With grace and warmth, he recounts complaints of nepotism, corruption, deprivation, bribery and oppression leading to the Tiananmen Square massacre--confirming what has already been told in the recent spate of reports from dissidents. His temperate, objective account demonstrates the acute sense of responsibility Chinese intellectuals have traditionally assumed for their country. A fellow American at one of the meetings Link attended drew parallels between the complaints of the Chinese and those of U.S. citizens about their own goverment. Link points out the profound differences between a society in which individuals have freedom to criticize and one in which they don't.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Unlike most of their Western counterparts, Chinese intellectuals actually count for something in politics. In 1988-89, Link, a distinguished scholar of Chinese literature, served as an academic exchange coordinator in Beijing, where he came into contact with a broad cross section of Chinese intellectuals. His sympathetic but critical portrait, based on careful attention to his Chinese friends, is by far the best account of the mental, emotional, and physical universe that Chinese intellectuals inhabit. Torn between their desire to serve their country and their contempt for the ruling Communist party, China's intellectuals agonize over how to establish their moral and intellectual autonomy without abandoning their traditional social roles. Mostly, Link allows the Chinese intellectuals, in all their diversity, to speak for themselves. But his own insights and empathy impart a luminous quality to this utterly absorbing gem of a book.
- Steven I. Levine, Boulder Run Research, Hillsborough, N.C.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. (September 17, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393310655
• ISBN-13: 978-0393310658
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #252,902 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars strikingly insightful and clearly written., May 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Evening Chats In Beijing (Paperback)

Evening Chats in Beijing is the best book about modern China that I have ever read. As a young Chinese intellectual, I am amazed by Professor Link's sharp insights and utter understanding of the modern Chinese culture. Unlike most other books written on this topic, Professor Link shows a mind of a scholar but a heart of a humanist. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is willing to understand China and its people, especially when you appreciate honesty, sincerity and rationality when it comes to approaching cultures as foreign as Chinese.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Profound Moment of Living History, February 13, 2003

By 

Matthew W. Baker (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Evening Chats In Beijing (Paperback)

Having spent countless hours over the last six years reading on modern China's predicament as an East Asian Studies major in college, I can't believe I just recently found this book. It's a fresh read, delightfully accessible in execution, intelligent in its treatment of these literati voices, and often profound in its prodding of the historical underbelly, suggesting many points of fissure and acute sensitivity in an often hardened, decayed lining. The book documents and analyzes the opinions of Chinese intellectuals during the relatively open period leading up to the Tiananmen incident in 1989. Link's arranged collection of anecdotes and quotes, along with his own comments, provides insight into a period that will no doubt become more and more significant in the coming years because the questions and issues on the minds and in the words of Chinese intellectuals remain largely unresolved and simmering beneath the happy surface of glorious riches.

One valid criticism of the book made already by another reviewer is the conspicuous paucity of common voices--i.e. voices of those outside of the Chinese intelligentsia. However, in defense of Link's work this objection requires far too much additional background and study to answer. Chinese intellectuals have always enjoyed a privileged position within social and political debates. While the voices of non-intellectuals would give a fuller picture, the focus on intellectuals underscores yet another tension plaguing modern China; that is, the inability of intellectuals to relate to the masses, or their lack of trust in them. This gap was made patently clear during the Tiananmen protests when students dominated the political theatre and often refused the help of, or just simply ignored, the workers.

But taking this premise for granted, Link's work is highly charged with meaning and relevance, even to a much richer China almost a decade and a half later. Most interesting are his explanations of official language, or public language, as opposed to private, personal language. While we may complain to no end of the duplicity, fakeness, and hypocrisy of politicians in the democratic world, it is sobering to think of the degree to which language meaning must be bifurcated in China. How do you make sense of a world where there is the official story, often sweetened or fabricated to suit political ends, the truth of which is defended by the government and military with threats of social alienation or physical harm, and the unofficial story, which can only be shared privately, whispered by friends and neighbors within the safety of their own homes? What does this do to one's perception of reality?

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed Link's portrait and feel that it will be a significant piece of history which will continue to inform our thoughts on China as it continues to stumble into its own.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Good, But Narrow View, April 27, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Evening Chats In Beijing (Paperback)

Link's book is well written and is a very interesting account of one segment of Chinese life during the early years of China's reform process. However, it is also very narrow, looking at the circumstances of the elite intellectuals and occassionally overstating his, or his close Chinese friends, importance or experiences. The book doesn't come to address the conditions or lives of the typical urban citizen of Beijing or any other Chinese city and thus is lacking. It seems Link just took much of his personal interaction with Chinese intellectuals and turned it into a book. Overall, he is successful in capturing the experiences of many Chinese who went overseas to study and returned in the late 1980s, though circumstances have changed a lot since then. Further, he is able to capture much of the discontent among intellectuals which ultimately becomes the base of the Tiananmen protests.