Evan Osnos at Asia Society, NYC with Orville Schell. (Notes) Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Ttruth and Faith in the New China

Evan lived the same years in China, as I, or 2008--2013.  2005-8 Peter Hessler was the New Yorker Correspondent. I began my first days in China reading Peter's book when I came home and felt that he was exactly accurate in his encounters and observations.     I met both Peter and Evan at International Lit Festival and liked and respected each of them  very much.   I am reading Evan's s new book, Age of Ambition:  Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, where he concentrates on personal profiles, among them Ai We Wei and Liu Xiabao, an artist and writer, each of whom are widely known in the West.    As a journalist,  Evan  interviewed people I knew from CNN and from China Daily reading while living in China, but would not have heard of, here in the USA.  So for a fine journalists' account of what was taking place in China and what to make of it, you could not have a better read than Harvard educated prize winning journalist, Evan Osnos.  Evan started in Chicago at the Chicago Tribune, where he and his team won a Pulitzer for investigative reporting, and  now he is living in Washington DC  He is also the winner of two Overseas Press Club awards and the Asia Society's Osborn Elliot Prize for Excellence in Journalism on Asia.  

 Here are my sketchy notes from the webcast, as of course, the ellipsis imply knowledge i have, which I am not fleshing out...on this blog report.    You will be hearing more from Evan in the future.  He started in Egypt, and went to China and now has returned to Washington DC in the USA.  Peter Hessler, another racounter on CHina took a different route; he started with peace corps reports and learned writing from John McPhee, and went to a very rural town in Colorado upon his return

Orville Schell and I worked together in Manhattan after Tianamen Square, and he wrote the blurb for my unpublished(abandoned) agented book, due to TS...along with Harrison Salisbury.   We corresponded frequently when he was at UC Berkeley as Dean of the Journalism School where he had a great impact.  Rumor from a friend is that he writes in the NW hills and is a neighbor on the weekends commuting from Manhattan, but that is a five hour plane trip, so he probably does not come every weekend. 

Asia Society web cast: 

 I listened to Evan Osnos and Orville Schell who is too old; he has lost his ability...barely able to function...and does not seem positive about China.  Took good notes on that... He has been interested in China for 20 years since 1994.  Evan ws a student and took a course with Roger Mafakir...his wife’s name is Sarah Beth.  They now live in Washington DC.   Evan says China gets under your skin...not to use a cliché.  He went as a student in 1996 and whatever he thought of China, it did not turn out that way.  He finds it intoxicating that stories you think will turn out one way turn out differently.    They are operating and living in a warp speed.  On the route to Fortune.   One was an illiterate peasant, of the Military, who became the truffles tycoon of China!  In 1995.

Orville:  China is a fickle mistress, with attraction and repulsion and once bonded, cannot vacate. Chinese is serially reinventing itself.  Evan reciprocally quotes Orville form Mandate of Heaven a book written in 1993-4  about Tianamen.   

Evan mentions that now at cocktail parties in Beijng instead of talking about real estate which transformed into travel, now people talk about their gurus...

Evan tells about another character in his book, who is a fortune teller.  Nostalgia.  When Orville asks him about Washington, he says” that is not his job.  He interviews fortune tellers!”   He once believed in open markets, open societies...and sees that China is in its infancy, as far as a modern society. 

Another character ended up at World Bank, belived In model 
China’s story is unfinished.  Reemerging society.  Infancy:  modern society. 

Evan  was in China when Michele Obama was there and interesting to see how they pitted 1st lady of China against her, with her, in comparing the two; Chinese are aware they are being measured.  Peng Li and Michelle. 

Evan was in Egypt and then China(the reverse of Peter Hessler)  ...not in your interest to be cynical and skeptical. 

Chinese are more ossified in govt; more free in private sector.  Than in govt. 

Middle Class in America and Chinese are becoming closer while governments are becoming more divergent.

Quality of Air:  not important to Middle Class but they are learning they must care, to show they are “aware”... Their attitude:  “I don’t know what I want; but I want more.” 

Chinese are now reading New Yorker articles and much more, now.  Chinese readers are interested to know what you have to say about them.

Predictable:  Bigger problem.  Confrontation in the future with VN, Phillipines, Japan in So China Sea. Not going to disappear...as contention

Evan is interested in “what it feels like to be Chinese”...in a party occuipied realm. He thinks there is little for the common people in China to gain from confrontation with  us.