Summary of Peter Hessler's Oracle Bones

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The Chinese capital, Beijing, is surrounded by fields and villages that look exactly the same since the Middle Ages. In the Western view of the Chinese past, there is no equivalent of the fall of Rome, the Renaissance, or the Enlightenment.

#2 The Chinese archaeologists dug holes across the fields and checked for signs of buried structures. They began excavating the underground city, and found a ninety-degree bend: a corner. They realized that it must have been a settlement wall, and continued tracing the boundary and other interior structures.

#3 The Shang were a small political entity, but their cultural influence was much bigger. They were like if I bought McDonald’s here, you wouldn’t say that I’m in America. It’s the culture.

#4 I was the last clipper at the Beijing Wall Street Journal bureau. I was paid five hundred American dollars every month. The small bureau was pleasant, with a smattering of languages echoing off the old tiled floors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822513204

IRB Media

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Insights on Peter Hessler's Oracle Bones

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The Chinese capital, Beijing, is surrounded by fields and villages that look exactly the same since the Middle Ages. In the Western view of the Chinese past, there is no equivalent of the fall of Rome, the Renaissance, or the Enlightenment.

#2

The Chinese archaeologists dug holes across the fields and checked for signs of buried structures. They began excavating the underground city, and found a ninety-degree bend: a corner. They realized that it must have been a settlement wall, and continued tracing the boundary and other interior structures.

#3

The Shang were a small political entity, but their cultural influence was much bigger. They were like if I bought McDonald’s here, you wouldn’t say that I’m in America. It’s the culture.

#4

I was the last clipper at the Beijing Wall Street Journal bureau. I was paid five hundred American dollars every month. The small bureau was pleasant, with a smattering of languages echoing off the old tiled floors.

#5

When I visited the stone tablet in Nanjing, there were only a handful of tourists at the site. The tablet was fifty feet wide and fifteen feet thick, and supposedly the project had required the labor of one hundred thousand men. It weighed twenty-six thousand tons.

#6

In Nanjing, I collected everything in my notebook: scraps of conversation, museum labels, and random observations.

#7

The modern artifacts often simplified the chaos of the past. The spiral timeline of Chinese history, for example, began with Yuanmou Ape-man, who lived approximately 1. 7 million years ago. The timeline passed through Peking Man and then made an abrupt turn. By the Xia dynasty, the spiral had completed one full circle.

#8

I jogged along the side of the street, passing by uneven lines of protestors. There must have been thousands of people; they held signs and Chinese flags, and after chanting the slogans, they sang the national anthem.

#9

I was lost in the streets of Beijing at night, and I asked a student on my left where we were going. He gestured ahead vaguely and then turned to me. Where are you from. I told him that I was an American journalist.

#10

In March, NATO began a bombing campaign in support of Albanian Muslims who had been attacked after pushing for greater autonomy in the province of Kosovo. The Chinese government adamantly opposed the campaign, and the bombing seemed to spark a nationalist movement in China.

#11

During a protest in Nanjing, I met a student named Wu Ming, who asked if he could express his feelings in writing. I handed him my pen and paper, and he began to write.

#12

The protests in Nanjing were the most violent anti-American demonstrations since the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. In Beijing, the Communist Youth League had bused groups of university students into the embassy district, where they marched past the American and British compounds.

#13

The next morning, I spoke to a McDonald's employee, who told me that the crowd had used sticks and poles to destroy Maidanglao Shushu. The Chinese name for the statue translates directly as Uncle McDonald.

#14

The second day of protests saw even more red national flags flying above restaurants and shops. The Chinese media described the attacks as intentional, the work of the American-led NATO.

#15

The main memorial hall inside the museum displayed glass cases filled with bones of victims. Another section featured black-and-white photographs of the soldier documenting his own worst moments.

#16

I visited the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum. The doves were an important part of the memorial, because the exhibits were depressing. Mr. Gong, the dove-keeper, told me that if one of the birds got sick, the others quickly caught it.

#17

The Chinese government spoke for the first time on May 9, when a high-ranking official named Hu Jintao made a brief speech. He made no references to the protestors, but he did speak about the fundamental interests of the nation.

#18

I began eating mostly in Yabaolu, which was halfway between home and the bureau. The Russians dominated the neighborhood, but there were many other ethnic groups in Yabaolu. The Han Chinese ran most restaurants and shops, but a few had been