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Flora Drew

Ma Jian

Red Dust: A Path Through China Hardcover – November 6, 2001

by Ma Jian (Author)

4.3 51 ratings

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1983 Ma Jian, a photographer, painter, poet, and writer, set out for the most remote and roughest parts of China. Dispirited and fearful, accused at work of having “a sluggish mentality,” confronted with a failed marriage, an estranged young daughter, and a girlfriend involved with another man, he abandons Beijing and a life he can no longer endure. Red Dust is the account of his travels, a remarkably written and subtly moving journey toward understanding.

A dropout, a fugitive from the police, a Buddhist in search of enlightenment, Ma Jian embarks on a three-year trek that takes him from the deepest south to the western provinces and Tibet, journeying across deserts, over mountains, through icy rivers. And as he travels to increasingly remote areas, his circumstances become increasingly straitened: He stays in filthy inns, sleeping four to a plank bed, learning to wait until his companions fall asleep and then lying on top of them. To support himself, he buys a pair of scissors and becomes a roadside barber, sells scouring powder as tooth whitener, lives by his wits posing as an enlightened religious man.

His sense of humor and sanity keep him intact—”Danger is not exciting,” he tells a friend, “it’s just proof of your incompetence.” The greatest hardship he faces is disappointment—or perhaps his own honesty. Tibet offers no enlightenment (“Is Buddha saving man or is man saving Buddha?” he asks); his own restlessness undermines his yearning for love. Ma Jian’s portrait of his country provides no understanding of its enigmas, no neat generalizations, no sweeping predictions. It simply reminds us of China’s scale, its shadows, and, ultimately, its otherness.

Print length

336 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Pantheon
Publication date

November 6, 2001
Dimensions

6.5 x 1 x 9.75 inches
ISBN-10

0375420592
ISBN-13

978-0375420597
See all details

Megan Walsh
53
Paperback
67 offers from $8.41

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Chinese dissident and sometimes vagabond Ma Jian offers a sharp-edged, often surprising portrait of his native land, one that takes his readers into corners that few non-Chinese travelers have seen.

In 1983, Ma, tired of life in a China that, he writes, "feels like an old tin of beans that, having lain in the dark for forty years, is beginning to burst at the seams," grew his hair, quit his job, and took to the road. As he recounts in his able--and, at times, very strange--memoir, over the next three years he wandered into the western desert, through the mountains of Shaanxi, down the steamy southern coast, and, eventually, to Tibet. Along the way he slipped by inquisitive police agents, ate dodgy meals, fell in love a time or two, and learned much about his country--more than he bargained on, for, as he writes, "I am exhausted. China is too old, its roots too deep. I feel dirty from the delving."

Ma's travelogue, alternately humorous and sober, offers a constantly illuminating view of life behind the Great Wall. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

In 1983, squirming under constant government scrutiny and mourning a failed marriage, writer and photographer Jian abandons his home in Beijing to journey to China's western border with little more than a change of clothes, two bars of soap, a notebook, a camera and Whitman's Leaves of Grass. It is the beginning of an arduous three-year voyage that takes him not only through little-traveled regions of China, Myanmar and Tibet, but through a careful examination of what it means to be a Buddhist, to live in post-Mao China and to exist in his own skin. A skilled storyteller, Jian narrates in prose that is spare and often beautiful his encounters with people who live in a region that "even today... is a place of banishment, populated by political prisoners, descendents of Turkic migrants, and the ghosts of buried cities." From the night he spends crammed under a bus seat next to a pile of dirty socks and clucking hens to his escape from Chinese militiamen who mistake him for a Burmese spy, Jian tells a powerful story that is no mere travelogue. Indeed, his journey exposes him to so many risks getting bitten by sheepdogs in the grasslands along the Yellow River, drinking foul lake water that knocks him unconscious that the sheer number of life-threatening incidents begins to dull their impact. Still, Jian offers a revealing, riveting portrait of a Chinese citizen who seeks truth and honesty in a society in which such a quest can be grounds for punishment.

From Library Journal

Although billed as a travelog, this perceptive memoir represents a spiritual as much as a geographical journey. In the early 1980s, Jian, a writer, poet, painter, and photographer, became dispirited with his work and personal life in Beijing and set out on a three-year voyage across some of China's most remote areas in an attempt to learn about himself by learning more about his homeland. On the journey through China to Tibet, he visited mountains, deserts, lakes, Buddhist monasteries, a leprosy camp, overpopulated cities, and small villages, encountering unusual as well as straightforward characters along the way. This book, which has not been published in China, is an attempt to portray post-Mao China as seen through the eyes of a wandering man. And the one-man viewpoint interwoven throughout is certainly an important part of its appeal. Clearly not a conventional travel book for tourists contemplating a trip to China, this insightful and heartfelt rendition of China's far-flung landscapes is recommended for all libraries, especially those with specialized collections on China and Asia. Melinda Stivers Leach, Precision Editorial Svcs., Wondervu, CO
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Chinese-born Ma, a journalist and novelist in China and now a resident of London, tells the saga of his elusive years in China as he attempted to maintain his own freedom of thought and expression amid an ambience of total state control. Faced with imprisonment, he fled to the countryside, eventually making his way to Tibet. His journey, undertaken during the first few post-Mao years, is presented as a combination travelogue and a narrative of sheer poetry and spirituality. Prior to his trek, he was constantly under surveillance and often called in for questioning. Ma was told, "Don't look so pleased with yourself. If we want to, we can make you slowly disappear." Instead, he disappeared before they could carry out their threat. Traveling through the large scale of China's geography, Ma girds himself for his return to Beijing. "There are still many white mountains to cross but I am on my way home. They cannot hurt me now. I have changed." So will the reader after encountering this brave new book. Allen Weakland
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"In this skillfully constructed, picaresque memoir, Ma Jian takes us on an absorbing tour of the emotional, intellectual, and sexual
travails of China's Beat Generation in the early 1980s. Red Dust is full of surprising insights into the China that emerged, for better or
worse, after the death of Mao."
-Jonathan Spence, author of The Search for Modern China

“Ma Jian’s writing is a revelation, an insider’s account of a country permeated in every paragraph by a rebel’s sensitivity. His writing has a picaresque quality, unforgettably conjuring images of a continually changing landscape where the only constant is hardship, struggle, and ideological confusion.”
—The Big Issue (London)

“In this skillfully constructed, picaresque memoir, Ma Jian takes us on an absorbing tour of the emotional, intellectual, and sexual travails of China’s Beat Generation in the early 1980s. Red Dust is full of surprising insights into the China that emerged, for better or worse, after the death of Mao.”
—Jonathan D.Spence, author of The Search for Modern China

“This is a beautiful, disturbing read—a new Wild Swans. It is a wonderful book—part Matsuo Basho, part Jung Chang, part allegory—one of those rare travelogues that manages to transcend its subject and evoke the leaf-blown qualities of a peripatetic life. Red Dust is at once a sustained poetic meditation and a portrait of a continent-sized nation in flux. From its pages China’s landscape emerges with filmic clarity. Ma Jian’s Chinese journey and his writing are an exhilarating combination.”
—The Observer (London)

“If you have time to read only one book on China this year, choose Red Dust.”
—Financial Times (London)

“Red Dust is a tour de force, a powerfully picaresque cross between the sort of travel book any Western author would give his eye-teeth to write and a disturbing confession. Ma’s dissidence is at once idiosyncratic and conservative. He does not want China propelled into an American future; he seeks greater freedoms but refuses to believe such freedoms add up to anything much in the material world.”
—The Independent (London)

From the Inside Flap

1983 Ma Jian, a photographer, painter, poet, and writer, set out for the most remote and roughest parts of China. Dispirited and fearful, accused at work of having ?a sluggish mentality,? confronted with a failed marriage, an estranged young daughter, and a girlfriend involved with another man, he abandons Beijing and a life he can no longer endure. Red Dust is the account of his travels, a remarkably written and subtly moving journey toward understanding.

A dropout, a fugitive from the police, a Buddhist in search of enlightenment, Ma Jian embarks on a three-year trek that takes him from the deepest south to the western provinces and Tibet, journeying across deserts, over mountains, through icy rivers. And as he travels to increasingly remote areas, his circumstances become increasingly straitened: He stays in filthy inns, sleeping four to a plank bed, learning to wait until his companions fall asleep and then lying on top of them. To support himself, he buys a pair of scissors and becomes a roadside barber, sells scouring powder as tooth whitener, lives by his wits posing as an enlightened religious man.

His sense of humor and sanity keep him intact??Danger is not exciting,? he tells a friend, ?it?s just proof of your incompetence.? The greatest hardship he faces is disappointment?or perhaps his own honesty. Tibet offers no enlightenment (?Is Buddha saving man or is man saving Buddha?? he asks); his own restlessness undermines his yearning for love. Ma Jian?s portrait of his country provides no understanding of its enigmas, no neat generalizations, no sweeping predictions. It simply reminds us of China?s scale, its shadows, and, ultimately, its otherness.

From the Back Cover

"In this skillfully constructed, picaresque memoir, Ma Jian takes us on an absorbing tour of the emotional, intellectual, and sexual
travails of China's Beat Generation in the early 1980s. Red Dust is full of surprising insights into the China that emerged, for better or
worse, after the death of Mao."
-Jonathan Spence, author of The Search for Modern China

“Ma Jian’s writing is a revelation, an insider’s account of a country permeated in every paragraph by a rebel’s sensitivity. His writing has a picaresque quality, unforgettably conjuring images of a continually changing landscape where the only constant is hardship, struggle, and ideological confusion.”
—The Big Issue (London)

“In this skillfully constructed, picaresque memoir, Ma Jian takes us on an absorbing tour of the emotional, intellectual, and sexual travails of China’s Beat Generation in the early 1980s. Red Dust is full of surprising insights into the China that emerged, for better or worse, after the death of Mao.”
—Jonathan D.Spence, author of The Search for Modern China

“This is a beautiful, disturbing read—a new Wild Swans. It is a wonderful book—part Matsuo Basho, part Jung Chang, part allegory—one of those rare travelogues that manages to transcend its subject and evoke the leaf-blown qualities of a peripatetic life. Red Dust is at once a sustained poetic meditation and a portrait of a continent-sized nation in flux. From its pages China’s landscape emerges with filmic clarity. Ma Jian’s Chinese journey and his writing are an exhilarating combination.”
—The Observer (London)

“If you have time to read only one book on China this year, choose Red Dust.”
—Financial Times (London)

“Red Dust is a tour de force, a powerfully picaresque cross between the sort of travel book any Western author would give his eye-teeth to write and a disturbing confession. Ma’s dissidence is at once idiosyncratic and conservative. He does not want China propelled into an American future; he seeks greater freedoms but refuses to believe such freedoms add up to anything much in the material world.”
—The Independent (London)

About the Author

Ma Jian was born in 1953 in Qingdao, China. He currently lives in London.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pantheon; First Edition (November 6, 2001)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0375420592
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0375420597
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.33 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1 x 9.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,703,367 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #707 in General China Travel Guides

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4.3 51 ratings

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David Seaman

A modern journey through today's China that will shock and change you.

Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2013

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Ma Jian is far more than a novelist. Far more than a writer. And most of this book is a true story. This book, as well as any of Ma's uture4 writings, were banned by the Party in China. Ma Jian writes of his work as a photograpoher for the {Propoganda department of the P:arty Government while describing his "middle class" life in a one room home in Beiijing at the end of the 20th Century. The way he dresses, his paintings, poetry and the company he keeps (as well as his longish hair) seem tpo irritate the powers that be and after the third time he is warned by the Party that his self-criticism may not be enough and he may require extensive "rehabilitation" Ma Jian quits his job and begins to travel through modern day China to search for himself; to try to fill an emptiness that is all of him.

He describes it all for us as he sees it for himself. The revelations of life in Communist China are nothing short of shocking. over the decades- even the centuries- we have known of the strife with the Chinese people. Since the end of World War II, China has been controllled by the communist Party. They have attained Global recognition for their boistrous economy but we learn through this book (And Ma Jian's subsequent book, "The Dark Road") that absoluitely none of this wealth "trickles down" to the people. the conditions under which they live is horrific and the stpories we face and the people whom we meet will linger in your mind forever.

Ma Jian managed to escape to Hong Kong with his notebooks and some photographs and, prior to the 100 year hand off of Hong Kong back to China, he managed to escape to Great Britain, where he still l;ives today. He lives with a woman named Flora Drew who is his translator and deserves a good deal of the credit for this remarkable book. The opening pages teaches us about basic Chinese words, symbols, names and provides us with a current map. To take these symbols (each one is a syllable sound) and transfer not just the meaning but the essence of his thoughts is by no means the same as translating from a romance Language. Flora's work is not to be understated.

It's impossible to get to the end of this book and not feel very strongly about our own position regarding all of China, it;s government and the millions and millions who have died in the name of freedom, the millions of unborn who were forcefully aborted by the governement when their mother was "arrested" (abducted) on the street. We l;earn that the rules are different for Urban and Rural dwellers- the word citizen can;t be used because more than half the population of China is denied pfficial papers and are not "legal."

How can a human being be illegal?

Ma Jian tells us how. "Red Dust":is his journey through China, through dialects and traditions, through secret love and secret traditions, through books and music they aren;t permitted to read (A fine of 300 yuan for possessing a copy of "Catcher In The Rye" or John Barry's "Titanic" Theme).

The Chinese Government has done all it could to keep this book from making it to press here in the West and is, for them, a great embarrasement. Ma Jian lives in Great Britain under the same fear that Salaman Rushdie lives in Great Britain. If the wrong person ghets close enough to either author, they're a dead man. At the same time, The Party IS able to control the distributiln of this book to the 1.3 billion people who live within it's borders. Any person caughtr with a copy of this book is sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

Given all of this, how can you resist the small price that we, as Americans, pay for the opportunities between the covers of this book?

6 people found this helpful

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M.B.

A travelogue with many questions and problems

Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2022

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"Red Dust: A Path Through China" by Ma Jian is a combination travelogue and personal journal. Ma is something of a stereotype: he is an artist who gets tired with his life and decides to hit the road recording his personal observations and thoughts.

There were large parts of "Red Dust" that I enjoyed. It was interesting to read about the growing counterculture after the Cultural Revolution. Ma's world is full of long-haired poets, musicians, and artists, all of whom are discontent with their lives in Beijing. Ma spends large parts of the book thinking about these friends and writing to them with a longing, and this was off-putting, as was Ma's constant womanizing.

When he comes across different ethnic groups, Ma describes them with old language that at times borders on racism. While he sympathizes with their poverty, he also frequently refers to other ethnic groups as savages. For example, the Lahu are head-hunters, the Miao are hot-headed, and the Tibetans are spiritually void capitalists. He even helps set up an unironic "ethnic zoo" with his friends in the middle of a large city park during his travels.

I liked the geographic descriptions and reading about the bus stations. Unfortunately, I didn't find his personal thoughts to be revelatory. In addition, I was disappointed that Ma skipped over important tracts of his journeys where he was lecturing at universities and making money in other ways.

Ma Jian's early life as a Red Guard is mentioned but not discussed, as is his professional life as a government employee - he worked as a photographer for a state-run propaganda newspaper. I wish he explored the contradiction between that life and his criticism of the surveillance state.

I read that "Red Dust" is fictionalized. I don't know which parts are completely fiction. Several times he almost dies, such as when he wanders through a desert, gets swept up in a tropical river, and is robbed but ends up befriending and then robbing the thieves. I suspect some of these are fictionalized.

2 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Been Everywhere

Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2020

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As far as a journeying-piece this book nails it, offering a flyover view of China's vast countryside. As far as an inner journey the author nails that as well. Even someone on the path of purity exhibits questionable morals. The book is nearly perfect. One criticism: what exactly is the difference between the prose and the italicized journal entries?

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Kyle S. Malbrough

Missing a page, but excellent and honest account of a free-spirit in early 1980s PRC

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2020

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Excellent book. However, page 173 is inserted twice and there is no page 175 in my copy. This is the First Anchor Books Edition, November 2002. If possible, find another edition.

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koppenhagen

showing what the country was like in the 80's before the country went on the ...

Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2017

Verified Purchase

Starts out well (interesting) but falls off in the middle before the story picks up towards the end. Overall, it was an interesting book, showing what the country was like in the 80's before the country went on the current growth mode. I really appreciated the author's honest and frank writing about what he saw, thought and felt. Read the book. You'll enjoy it if you want to hear about post-Cultural Revolution and pre-WTO.

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Grant

an important look into china and life

Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2020

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this is probably one of the best books I've ever read. if you have any sort of interest in China I highly recommend it. Ma Jian takes you on an adventure through some of the most remote landscapes in China- sometimes encountering things so foreign to a Western perspective that you will be dumbfounded. Absolutely worth a read.

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Susan B Timberlake

A not-your-normal travel book!

Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2013

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This book takes you deeply into post-Mao China in a way no other could. Seen through the eyes of a young man who is on a quest for understanding himself and his country - through art, people, love, and the road on over a three year journey.

4 people found this helpful

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Coffee Road

Strong and relevant

Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2013

Verified Purchase

Red Dust takes us to a China we are not usually aware of. Well written, it balances the internal journey of the author with a look at China in the 80's, post Cultural Revolution but before economic opening.

2 people found this helpful

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Red Dust: A Path Through China Hardcover – November 6, 2001

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