Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China

"A highly personal, honest, funny and well-informed account of China's hyperactive effort to forget its past and reinvent its future."--The New York Times Book Review As one the first American students admitted to China after the communist revolution, John Pomfret was exposed to a country still emerging from the twin tragedies of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Crammed into a dorm room with seven Chinese men, Pomfret contended with all manner of cultural differences, from too-short beds and roommates intent on glimpsing a white man naked, to the need for cloak-and-dagger efforts to conceal his relationships with Chinese women. Amidst all that, he immersed himself in the remarkable lives of his classmates. Beginning with Pomfret's first day in China, Chinese Lessons takes us down the often torturous paths that brought together the Nanjing University History Class of 1982: Old Wu's father was killed during the Cultural Revolution for the crime of being an intellectual; Book Idiot Zhou labored in the fields for years rather than agree to a Party-arranged marriage; and Little Guan was forced to publicly denounce and humiliate her father. As Pomfret follows his classmates from childhood to adulthood, he examines the effect of China's transition from near-feudal communism to first-world capitalism. The result is an illuminating report from present-day China, and a moving portrait of its extraordinary people.

Biographies & Memoirs

Pomfret, John

Community & Culture

Henry Holt and Co.

A first-hand account of the remarkable transformation of China over the past forty years as seen through the life of an award-winning journalist and his four Chinese classmates
As a twenty-year-old exchange student from Stanford University, John Pomfret spent a year at Nanjing University in China. His fellow classmates were among those who survived the twin tragedies of Mao's rule―the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution―and whose success in government and private industry today are shaping China's future. Pomfret went on to a career in journalism, spending the bulk of his time in China. After attending the twentieth reunion of his class, he decided to reacquaint himself with some of his classmates. Chinese Lessons is their story and his own.
Beginning with Pomfret's first days in China, Chinese Lessons takes us back to the often torturous paths that brought together the Nanjing University History Class of 1982. One classmate's father was killed during the Cultural Revolution for the crime of being an intellectual; another classmate labored in the fields for years rather than agree to a Party-arranged marriage; a third was forced to publicly denounce and humiliate her father. As we watch Pomfret and his classmates begin to make their lives as adults, we see as never before the human cost and triumph of China's transition from near-feudal communism to first-world capitalism.

Holt Paperbacks

A remarkable history of the two-centuries-old relationship between the United States and China, from the Revolutionary War to the present day
From the clipper ships that ventured to Canton hauling cargos of American ginseng to swap Chinese tea, to the US warships facing off against China's growing navy in the South China Sea, from the Yankee missionaries who brought Christianity and education to China, to the Chinese who built the American West, the United States and China have always been dramatically intertwined. For more than two centuries, American and Chinese statesmen, merchants, missionaries, and adventurers, men and women, have profoundly influenced the fate of these nations. While we tend to think of America's ties with China as starting in 1972 with the visit of President Richard Nixon to China, the patterns―rapturous enchantment followed by angry disillusionment―were set in motion hundreds of years earlier. 
Drawing on personal letters, diaries, memoirs, government documents, and contemporary news reports, John Pomfret reconstructs the surprising, tragic, and marvelous ways Americans and Chinese have engaged with one another through the centuries. A fascinating and thrilling account, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom is also an indispensable book for understanding the most important―and often the most perplexing―relationship between any two countries in the world.

The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present

History

Americas

Poems Upon Several Occasions, By John Pomfret: To Which Are Added, His Remains (1735)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Arts & Literature

Kessinger Publishing

The Choice: A Poem (1718)

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Kessinger Publishing, LLC

The Poetical Works Of John Pomfret: Containing His Choice, Prospect Of Death, Reason, Last Epiphany, Divine Attributes, Eleasar's Lamentat. (1787)

The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars. Western literary study flows out of eighteenth-century works by Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Frances Burney, Denis Diderot, Johann Gottfried Herder, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and others. Experience the birth of the modern novel, or compare the development of language using dictionaries and grammar discourses. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++ British Library T093226 Engraved titlepage reads: 'Pomfret's works, forming part of Cooke's pocket edition of .. select British poets'. With an additional letterpress titlepage. Engraved titlepage dated 1797. London : printed for C. Cooke, and sold by all the booksellers in Great-Britain and Ireland, [1797]. 108p.,plates ; 12°

The poetical works of John Pomfret. With the life of the author. Cooke's edition. Embellished with superb engravings.

Reference

Words, Language & Grammar

Gale ECCO, Print Editions

Poems upon several occasions. By the Reverend Mr. John Pomfret. ... The tenth edition, corrected. With some account of his life and writings. To which are added, his remains.

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