Book review: Huang, Shu-min (Essay Sample)

Book review: Huang, Shu-min. (1998). The Spiral Road: Change in a Chinese Village Through the Eyes of a Communist Party Leader, Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.
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Huang shu-min is the author of the book "The Spiral Road: Change in a Chinese Village through the Eyes of a Communist Party Leader" She was born in china in Shandong province. She studied English and literature as second language at Beijing Foreign Study University. In 1985 she went to Finland to study Finnish. She also attained an Msc. In economics from University of Helsinki and later worked for the Bank of Finland before travelling to the UK in the years 1992. In the United Kingdom she first worked with Currency Derivatives Ltd before starting her own company in the year 1993, ChinTek Consultants, which was a consultancy firm that advised investors both from China and European market in investing decisions. Her mother language is Mandarin Chinese and also she is fluent in Finnish and English.
The author of the book, Huang, uses three author sequences where the first author is party secretary Ye Wende also the main figure of the book. This author gives the basic plot and content of the story. Wende is a ‘visible’ author as can be seen throughout the story. There are two more ‘hidden’ authors in addition to Wende that determine the story secretary Ye is going to tell and how he should tell it (Huang,1998). The second and hidden author is professor Huang who understands the need of the American readers. The third author who is also a hidden author is the Chinese communist party (CCCP) Central Committee’s propaganda department that ensures that the secretary narrative conforms to the party line.
Huang in this book unravels the turbulent events that affected individuals and families in the Lin village which is located southeast China. These events include; the fall of landlords after the land reforms, the rise of poor peasants’ political power, the Great proletarian and Great Leap Forward, rational and pragmatic policies in China. The 2nd edition of the book comes with two additional chapters which are from the author’s continued visits to China after moving to the UK. One of the two chapter dwell on the changes that have taken place in Lin Village such s growth in investment (Taiwanese Investment of capital), growth of production to large scale production, the emergence and growth of international marketing and changes in ways of living in the village (Huang,1998). The last chapter lays focus on Mr, Ye and his ideas and thoughts on increasing the villagers’ wealth. It also lays emphasis on his activities in setting up lucrative businesses in the village and his ways of securing jobs for family and close friends.
The book gives a lot of insight of the village activities and how the village grows from being a remote village to a modern village with modern business taking place. The book also takes in to account the growth of China as a whole in terms of international trade and political activities. The country has seen changes in the political arena. Nevertheless there story in the book has some hitches (Huang,1998).The first one is that the book has three authors in it, the Prof Huang, Wende the creator of plot and the main figure in the book and the CCP party which ensure that all members take a position ‘identical to that of party Central committee’.
The rural china had rich experience in systematic and social transformation after 1949. However, Secretary Wende as Huang puts it, is simplistic this mislead the readers. According to the author there was little or no change in people perception and their interest in the collective communism era and also minimal difference between the backward rural Chinese society and the modern developed market society which is practically untrue and misleading.
In the book Reductionism exists in two ways, first, the narration fails to give any information on transformation in "social relations and community spirit”. In this case it is as if the Village was not producing anything else ...