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Peter Hessler

Peter Hessler Biography

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“The salesman told Anna that it was pointless to try to rip off his customers, because of everything a Sichuanese person must have gone through in order to accumulate enough money for a Porsche. “The people who are capable of buying luxury cars have exhausted every means to earn profits and they have coped with all kinds of people,” he said. “It’s impossible to deceive them.”

WealthTeacherChinaFree SpeechSalesFrugalityNew Yorker
Author:Peter Hessler
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“When the cadres banned his students from singing any actual Christmas carols in a stage version of ''A Christmas Carol,'' he had them substitute patriotic Communist songs -- which actually improved Dickens: ''My favorite scene was when a furious Scrooge swung his cane at a band of merry carolers who were belting out 'The East Is Red,' singing the praises of Mao Zedong while the old man shouted, 'Humbug!”

ChristmasDickensChinese Communist Party
Book:River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze
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“The American appetite for loneliness impressed me, and there was something about this solitude that freed conversation. One night at a bar, I met a man, and within five minutes he explained that he had just been released from prison. Another drinker told me that his wife had passed away, and he had recently suffered a heart attack, and now he hoped that he would die within the year. I learned that there's no reliable small talk in America; at any moment a conversation can become personal.”

MenYearsHeartMomentsAmericaNightDiesFiveWifeMinutesLonelinessMetsSolitudeConversationPrisonBarsAppetiteImpressedFive MinutesOne NightPassed AwayDrinkersHeart AttackSmall Talk
Author:Peter Hessler
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“Alan Paul plunges into Chinese life and takes us along for the ride, through vegetable markets, used-car lots, Taoist temples, divey bars, and a beachside music festival before thousands of cheering fans. He conveys the thrills and challenges of living abroad, the confusions and regrets, and most of all the opportunity to become the person we always hoped to be.”

PersonsUsedOpportunityChallengesFansCarRegretBarsConfusionChineseTemplesCheerVegetablesFestivalsPlungeAlong For The RideUsed CarLiving AbroadMusic Festival
Author:Peter Hessler
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“Sometimes I thought of the Peace Corps as a reverse refugee organization, displacing all of us lost Midwesterners, and it was probably the only government entity that taught Americans to abandon key national characteristics. Pride, ambition, impatience, the instinct to control, the desire to accumulate, the missionary impulse - all of it slipped away.”

SometimesGovernmentDesireLostTaughtPrideKeysAmbitionOrganizationInstinctImpulseCharacteristicsAbandonMissionaryEntityReverseRefugeeImpatiencePeace CorpsMidwesterners
Author:Peter Hessler
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