Rounds Out the Author's Experiences in China as a Journalist and TeacherNeither memoir nor field report, Hessler's latest non-fiction book brings his 18 years of intermittent living in China to a conclusion. But in a way, though, even through his years in Egypt and Colorado, his bond with China had never been broken; letters and later emails kept him in regular contact with his former students from Sichuan Province. As one who spent 11 years in China myself, albeit in somewhat different capacities, and who was married to a Chinese national, I naturally have a keen interest in Western media accounts of this nation, particularly those which touch on education. Having read his three previous books (his fourth, actually, if you count "Strange Stones") and pieces in The New Yorker, I had a fair idea what to expect of this volume. For the most part, his current account did not disappoint. I began with its last chapter and epilogue because I wanted to see whether it would elaborate on a previously published article about the denial of his contract renewal at a key university. Unfortunately, it served up little more information; to be fair, I suspect little more information was forthcoming which he could share given the byzantine bureaucracy of Chinese academia. To be fully transparent, I had heard rumors that one of the reasons Hessler was let go was that he had given as much attention to his own writing as to that of his students. But after reading the last chapter, I am now disinclined to promote that view.As avid readers of his writing already know, Hessler is a meticulous notetaker. Indeed, some of what he has always shared in his books on China goes beyond good journalism into the realm of ethnography. As one who completed a multi-year ethnographic study myself, I do not offer that praise gratuitously. Hessler is also very adept at taking disparate information and seamlessly if not always flawlessly blending it into his observations. It should be noted, however, that nearly all of his educational experiences have been confined to Sichuan Province and that he is not a trained academic (though I usually find that quite refreshing). Those looking for a strong narrative structure (e.g., as found in Salzman's "Iron and Silk" and Mahoney's "The Early Arrival of Dreams") will be disappointed (but again, this is not a memoir). And yet it must be said that he does provide details on the changing lives of some of his former students with whom he maintained contact.What sets this most recent work apart from most others (with the notable exception of Pomfret's "Chinese Lessons" and Fong's academic study, "Only Hope") is, in large part, its multigenerational presentation and the keen comparisons that Hessler makes between those born just before the One Child Policy was instituted in 1979 and those born at the turn of the new century. His ongoing, diligent and persistent correspondence with his former college students from the town of Fuling on the Yangtze River (as detailed in "River Town") reaped rewards when he returned to Sichuan and taught creative writing in a special Sino-American program at a university in its capital of Chengdu. As he relates, the latter assignment was more than happy coincidence and the author and his family had an eye on staying there for much longer than he was granted. Hessler delves into his classroom interactions in his latest book much more than his first book, which I was glad to see. He also provides us with a unique insider look at how an extracurricular organization--a student publication-was able to operate. But perhaps an equally valuable contribution in the field of education is the account of his young daughters' experiences in a local primary school (though, admittedly, hardly typical in some important respects). Little has been published in English in the past decade about Chinese students at this level since Tobin et al (2009) follow-up study comparing pre-school now to the late 1980s.Beyond these important areas of interest, this book also provides personal insights into what it was like to experience the first and second stages of the Chinese government's pandemic response. In these chapters, Hessler is uncharacteristically more critical of Chinese government policy than elsewhere in this volume or, for that matter, his previous works on China. All in all, however, his ability and willingness to link the microcosm of what he observed to the macrocosm of what transpired in a rapidly changing nation over these decades, combined with well-informed historical and cultural references, makes this an essential read for anyone with a serious interest in and concern for contemporary China.24