Summary Of Peter Hessler's Oracle Bones

Peter Hessler structures Oracle Bones with the separation of chapters by inserting a smaller chapter containing a short historical overlay of a specific artifact relating to ancient chinese culture. He then ties in the subsequent chapter with a story experienced by him or one of his students that draw meaning from the artifact just described. By laying out the artifact and its effect on China, he draws parallels to how the ancient culture affects decisions made by the Chinese in current times. For a reader who hails from the west, Hessler makes the foray into China more approachable and less mystical. As an American journalist deeply rooted in Chinese culture, Hessler writes a unique perspective on modern and ancient China, linking past and

Artifact B Historical Records on Qin Shihuang’s creation of China is perhaps the most predictive of the subsequent Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution during the 1950-60’s. Hessler shows that by the Qin Shihuang’s standardization and acts like writing a new history when he rose to power, the effects are still lasting in the modern government. Mao Zedong had disrupted the regime and turned to communism, restructuring many policies that resulted in an insular China. Like how Qin Shihuang standardized the Chinese language, “Mao commanded that a number of characters be simplified, and he hoped to replace them with an alphabet” (228). Simplifying the language was not the only controversial policy that Mao Zedong instilled, and there was general unrest throughout the country that culminated in the Tiananmen Square protests. Qin Shihuang imparted the policy that “‘if there is anybody who dares to mention [the books]… he should be executed. Those who, using the old, reject the new, will be wiped out together with their clans’” (33), which Mao Zedong adopted as his own. Anyone who dared to criticize were brutalized by governmental authorities. As a result, “...some part of [Old Mr Zhao’s] character remains completely hidden [and] many Chinese of his generation are like that, especially the ones who saw awful things”

Chinese is made up of characters that have various meanings and can change based on context and which characters it is written in tandem with. Transcribing the jump from Chinese characters to the English, which uses the latin alphabet, can prove to be challenging. The insertion of letters from his students containing their mistakes are evident of his point that some meanings may not transfer perfectly. If Hessler did not write an explanation accompanying the letters from students like Willy, a Western reader may think that misplaced language such as “...one day I will be a VIP, not like toothbrush any more” (49) seem illogical, but with the right context can be enlightening to the reader. The term “toothbrush” in Western culture is not used in the same way as Willy does; if one were to call someone else a toothbrush in the US, most likely it would be received with quizzical looks. Hessler elaborates that this term in Chinese “for some obscure reason degrading when used as an adjective” (46), something that he did not understand either but he brings it to the attention of the reader. This is one example that Hessler uses to stress that cultures vary from country to country, and when it is important to note learning a language like Chinese, much of the underlying meaning stems from cultural context, which has been influenced by