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Peter Hessler is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he served as Beijing correspondent from 2000 to 2007, Cairo correspondent from 2011 to 2016, and Chengdu correspondent from 2019 to 2021. More than two decades after teaching English during the early part of China’s economic boom, an experience chronicled in his book River Town (2001), Hessler returned to Sichuan Province to instruct students from the next generation. At the same time, he and his wife enrolled their twin daughters in a local state-run elementary school, where they were the only Westerners. Over the years, Hessler had kept in close contact with many of the people he had taught in the 1990s. By reconnecting with these individuals—members of China’s “Reform generation,” now in their forties—while teaching current undergrads, Hessler gained a unique perspective on China’s incredible transformation. In Other Rivers: A Chinese Education (2024), the Chinese education system becomes a vehicle to examine the country’s past, present, and future. Hessler’s book is a cross-cultural exploration, offering a window into China, and a mirror of America.
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