A Tale of Two Chinas: Fifteen Year Odyssey Through China's Cultural Heartlands

"Du wan juan shu, xing wan li lu""Read ten thousand books, travel ten thousand miles"-Traditional Chinese sayingA Tale of Two Chinas is essential reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of China in the early-mid twenty-first century. Based on Hugh Battye's own compelling fifteen-year China journey, the book takes the reader on a topical odyssey, covering many of the major economic, political and cultural themes of the later reform years, as well as of Xi Jinping's current new era. Through the vividly contrasting, yet complementary, descriptions of the "two Chinas" he experienced - the sophisticated society of the Chinese urban mainstream on the one hand, and the vibrant Muslim and Tibetan Buddhist minority cultures on the other - the author provides a fresh, holistic and accessible account of a country that, despite its superpower status, still remains largely opaque to many in the non-Chinese-speaking world.