Review by emergencily - The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories, China from the Bottom Up

4.25

the book is comprised of interviews with various people on the fringes of Chinese society, so you get to hear stories and perspectives that aren't as widely represented
the author interviews prisoners, Falun Gong practitioners, political activists, migrant workers, funeral cryers, a once persecuted Buddhist monk, former Red Guards and more
hearing people's honest accounts of their experiences of social & political upheaval in china in the last century humanizes these huge historical events and grounds them in the emotions and lived experiences of regular people
I like that the book talks to so many people from so many walks of life with different perspectives on the same events, esp since there's such a tendency for western media to paint china as a one dimensional monolith of sociopolitical repression & communist evil and to rob chinese ppl of their own agency by depicting all their thoughts as the result of propaganda. the book contends with the complex and nuanced reality of ppl's lives & political spectrums
the book is really fucking funny in some parts and super heartwrenching in others