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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
China through young Indian eyes, January 14, 2009
This review is from: Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China (Hardcover)
I enjoyed reading it. I read about the book before release(I read her columns on "The Hindu").
There are so many books on China, but this is the probably only one written by an Indian who has lived and traveled extensively in China. Where westerners would see exploitation she sees opportunity for people to pull themselves out of poverty, which are far fewer in India. She unpicks bogus buzz words like Chindia and writes without any triumphalism that has become de rigeur about India's imminent rise.
I can not but agree more on her assessment of the opportunities for the poor in China, compared to India. Both countries are neighbors but so different, but may be not that different!
Worth a read if you are interested in China or India.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
China De-mystified, May 3, 2009
This review is from: Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China (Hardcover)
Smoke and Mirrors is a charming little book on China. It is difficult to slot the book in a particular genre, because parts of it read like a travelogue and parts of it like a political treatise. In spite of its text-bookish feel at places it is never boring. Replete with little details it is a near unputdownable despite some long badly punctuated sentences that require re-reading.
Pallavi Aiyar scours the length and breadth of China for five long years and gives us a ringside view of the country's economic boom in this Century. The result is a series of compelling vignettes of Chinese mind-set on food, religion, language, toilets (yes, toilets!), fitness, medicine and of course India. India looms large in this book on China, because the author is Indian. In her travels around China she takes several pit stops to draw comparisons with India, which pleasantly enough are never odious. In fact it is this comparison that could be rightfully called the soul of the book. The book will thus appeal primarily to Indians and those foreigners who are looking for an erudite comparison of the two Asian giants from an Indian perspective.
Though the author repeatedly expresses her sneaking admiration for the awesome successes notched up by China, she never shies away from raising discomfiting questions. The more she manages to lift the veils that obscure China to the rest of the world, more are the dark clouds that gather to sow fresh seeds of doubt. The unabashed worship of mammon by the average young Chinese is a strong theme of the book.
Leaping out of the pages of the book are two Chinese traits that starkly differentiate from the Indians - dignity of labour and anti-intellectualism. The average Chinese does what he is told to do without thinking, whereas the average Indian thinks himself into inaction. One startling conclusion that Pallavi draws in this book is that India and not China is a better place to live in for the well to do.
The underlying subtext is autobiographical and reads like a private diary of the author during her five year residence in China. This makes the book all the more engaging and endearing.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent and honest book, March 3, 2009
This review is from: Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China (Hardcover)
This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. The author presented an honest, neutral, observation of contemporary China, as well as her relation with her own history, and the intereaction between china and india, from a very unique journalistic perspective. Yet, the author is also never shy to share her oppinions with us, whether you agree with her or not.
I remember reading some quote regarding propaganda from another book: Chinese government exercises propaganda by the censorship of information, while western media does that by picking a side first and accept everything that comes with that side, while shunning almost everything from the other side. You can see this vividly everyday by listening how republicans debating democrats, or anything relating to china, on main stream western media.
That, however, is never an issue for this masterpiece. The author is a brilliant writer, and an admirable journalist -- an endangered specie.
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