River town

What Hacker News says

1. yanhangyhySep 2026
   <Red Star Over China> -> for the Communism side of china, why china choose this path.

   <River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze> -> one of my fav all the time. a forigner teach in this small chinese city, and he write what he observes.

   for more ancient chinese history:

   <1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline> -> one of the most popular china's history book for these years. highly recommnded.

   i read a lot but i doubt many of them has a non-chinese version. the above ones are the ones i can think of now.

   also <The Search for Modern China> is highly recommmend, but i foget if i have read it or not.

   oh also another book on how chinese characters are made, 《China: Empire of Living Symbols》。 writen by a Sweden author Cecilia Lindqvist. i love it very much

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2. simochNov 2016
   Several:

   * "The Elements Of Computing Systems", by Nisan and Schocken

   Accompanies www.nand2tetris.org and leads you through implementing logic gates, a CPU, Assembler, right up to a functional computer, with the help of simulator software on a PC. Fascinating, but requires 100-200 hours to complete all the exercises.

   * "The Rosie Project", by Graeme Simsion

   Easy to read novel about a man searching for a wife, as recommended on Bill Gates' blog

   * "Island Of The Lost", by Joan Druett

   A true story of survival after being shipwrecked on a remote island

   * "River Town", by Peter Hessler

   The experiences of an English teacher who spent two years working in China

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3. yellow_leadMay 2021
   Peter Hessler writes about his experience in Sichuan during the time the three gorges dam was being built [1]. Many people have had to sacrifice a lot for these dams. However, IIRC many receive some form of compensation from the government (adequate or not).

   [1]https://www.amazon.com/River-Town-Years-Yangtze-P-S/dp/00608...

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