The Road to Sleeping Dragon

Learning China from the Ground Up

By: Michael Meyer

Narrated by: David Shih

In 1995, at the age of 23, Michael Meyer joined the Peace Corps and, after rejecting offers to go to seven other countries, was sent to a tiny town in Sichuan. Knowing nothing about China, or even how to use chopsticks, Meyer wrote Chinese words up and down his arms so he could hold conversations, and, per a Communist dean's orders, jumped into teaching his students about the Enlightenment, the stock market, and Beatles lyrics. Soon he realized his Chinese counterparts were just as bewildered by China's changes as he was.

Thus began an impassioned immersion into Chinese life. With humor and insight, Meyer puts listeners in his novice shoes, winding across the length and breadth of his adopted country - from a terrifying bus attack on arrival, to remote Xinjiang and Tibet, into Beijing's backstreets and his future wife's Manchurian family, and headlong into efforts to protect China's vanishing heritage at places like "Sleeping Dragon", the world's largest panda preserve.

Both funny and relatable, The Road to Sleeping Dragon is essential listening for anyone interested in China's history, and how daily life plays out there today.

©2017 Michael Meyer (P)2017 Tantor

INFORMATIVE

This turned out to be an interesting book, which I throughly enjoyed. His adventures as a peace corps teacher and his interaction with the Chinese people.
The many places he describes, most of them can be looked up on Google Earth. The description of Beijing in the late 1990’s. The author himself mentions Peter Hessler, who also was a peace corps teacher in China and has written many good books, which I highly recommend. I am looking forward to listening to his next book “In Manchuria”.
The narrator, David Shin, is excellent. I did increase the speed to 1.1, but that is a personal prevalence.
My thanks to all involved, JK.

Sensitive and informative

I've recently wanted to learn more about China, and have been listening to and reading both histories and memoirs. This is one of the best I've encountered. The author writes both personally and analytically about his years in China--first as a Peace Corp volunteer who knows nothing about his host country, and later as a long-term resident who is fluent in the language, and in a relationship with a Chinese woman. Meyer is a sensitive writer, never glib or humorous at the expense of the Chinese. He's always honest and sometimes critical in his reactions to, for example, Chinese politics and urban renewal, especially their odd mix of ancestor worship and historical amnesia. I look forward to reading the author's other books about his experiences in his adopted country.

The narrator David Shih is also excellent.

Good insight, well told

As a person who accidentally lives in China, now over four years, I appreciate the perspective. It's a good book. Well worth the time.

Excellent

A great personal story about Meyer’s experience in China over several decades. Really interesting insight into Chinese daily life, culture, and politics from a foreigner’s point of view.

Excellently narrated. David Shih does a really good job delivering the story and pronounces most of the mandarin pretty well!