[.ca] Iron and Silk (ISBN 0394755111)

From Amazon.com:
In 1982, Salzman flew off to teach English in Changsha, China. He writes of bureaucrats, students and Cultural Revolution survivors, stripping none of their complexity and humanity. He's gentle with their idiocies, saving his sharpest barbs for himself (it's his pants that split from zipper to waist whilst demonstrating martial arts in Canton). Though dribs of history and drabs of classical lore seep through, this is mostly a personal tale, noted by the Los Angeles Times for "the charmingly unpretentious manner in which it penetrates a China inaccessible to other foreigners."

what a heartwarming eye-opener!:
Mark Salzman writes of his experiences while teaching in China. His book reminded me a little of the Tony Hillerman and "The No. 1 Detective Agency" series in that they all give us a look at an entirely different culture that many of us know little about. He is a martial arts student and continued learning from masters in China during his stay as a teacher. In some ways we could learn a little from their polite culture and they could learn from ours. They are a much more family oriented than I realized, children remaining with their parents until married in many cases and they are more respectful of their parents and others around them than many of us are. Their homes did not compare in any way to what we are used to, but, you know, when you've never had it, you don't know what you are missing and as most of them were in the same circumstances, they do with what they have. This is not to say that everything was great, because it wasn't, there were many things that could have been improved upon, but the book wasn't about that. It was an account by the author of his experiences and friendships that he developed during his stay in China. We get to know about a lovely group of individuals and how they lived and worked. The politeness, and their way of showing hospitality was endearing. I would have to say that Mark must have had a special touch also for them to react so warmly to him. His sincere interest in their martial arts and learning their calligraphy, etc. drew their support also. If you'd like to know more about how many of the people live and their customs this is a wonderful book that will give us a good unbiased view of them. Highly recommended! Enjoy!

simple, touching and funny!:
Iron and silk (vhs) is such a simple movie based on the book also written and then acted by Mark Salzman. with his good looks and winning personality, this movie has a big quality of sweetness in it between the people of china and mark. there were misunderstands and misgivings about the different culture, but mark made the best of his time there. the book is more of a series of short stories, and the movie try to incoporate the different scenes. the romance in the movie is that evident in the book, but it makes it more commercial. everybody wants a love story in their movies. this movie is great to watch now, and its funny! response to previous review, the short shorts are hilarious and mark salzman singing communist songs! but i love everything that mark salzman does. he is so enthusiatic and 100% with whatever he is curious and passionate about.

excellent and entertaining!:
i was assigned this novel for a course and thought it would be another dry novel such as the ones typically assigned for university history courses. i was pleasantly surprised! salzman's sense of humor and good natured relating of the events surrounding his two years in china is only surpassed by his knowledge and understanding of the culture he lived in for those years. it is an excellent story for anyone who is learning about china or simply wants to know more about the culture. salzman's view as an american looking in is especially helpful for western readers.

Well written travel story:
This book is an account of the two years Mark Salzman spent as an English teacher at the Hunan Medical College. Salzman arrived in Hunan Province in 1982, fresh from Yale, where he had graduated with a degree in Chinese literature. He took with him his cello and his experience studying Chinese martial arts. Salzman was an ideal American emissary- -he brought his youthful yet serious enthusiasm to the classroom, and forged ties with the local populace through sharing his skills and interests. Once he even consented to attempt to tune a piano for his supervisor, his only qualification for the task being that he was familiar with the sound of well-tuned pianos back home. He befriended local fishermen and shared his art and music with them, but he also got to know Chinese grad students and professors through his interest in calligraphy and Chinese language. Foremost in his interests was martial arts. Before arriving in China, Salzman had studied Chinese martial arts for 9 years. He hoped to find a teacher of martial arts, or wushu, so that he could continue his practice while in Hunan. Because of his openness to meet others and because of his language skills, he eventually met and studied with some remarkably skilled wushu teachers in Hunan, including Pan Qingfu, perhaps the most renowned living practitioner of Chinese martial arts in the world. Much of Salzman's account is a record of how he met these teachers, and how they helped him develop his skill, each in his own particular way and style. Salzman's interest in calligraphy and martial arts opened doors for him that otherwise may never have appeared. Practicing calligraphy and wushu gave him the excuse for meeting Chinese citizens with similar interests, and for them to seek him out. But Salzman points out the ethical dark side of pursuing these interests as a foreigner. Salzman is very aware of the fact that, while he has studied martial arts for 9 years, no matter how seriously he had applied himself, he had practiced only on a hobby basis, a background to his academic and professional pursuits. On a Chinese scale, his 9 years of part-time study would barely constitute dallying with the sport. Yet because he was a foreigner who seemed to demonstrate such a serious degree of interest in the topic, he had access to the very best teachers, famous superstars that few Chinese wushu students could every dream of meeting. This is not meant to criticize Salzman, as he himself pointed out several times how distressed he was when his teachers would ignore their Chinese students so as to focus on his personal needs. Situations where an interested Westerner is given attention by experts that far exceeds that merited by their skills are unfortunately, quite common. Indeed, many Western musicians of very average talent manage to be accepted as students by famous classical Indian musicians, who may be fascinated by a Westerner who seems seriously interested in Asian music, or who may simply think that having Western students will somehow add to their prestige. I, myself, have benefited from such circumstances while studying Indian music, finding that my teachers give me extra attention or praise that is merited only by the color of my passport. What is remarkable about this book is how much Salzman is aware of this conundrum as he sees it playing out, and how he shows maturity in trying to address the situation both with humility and devotion to his art.

Exploring China:
When many Americans think of China, their immediate association is with the food for which it is famous. Few of us would think of an air of extreme, almost maniacal politeness and even fewer, a haven of martial artistry. But Mark Salzman, known for his earlier memoir Lost in Place as well as several novels, shows us these characteristics of the world he could only dream about in his previous memoir. Throughout Iron & Silk, he seems as fascinated by the world he has been exploring as he expects the reader to be. In an appropriate format of often-detached but thematically linked short stories, he presents the foreign society from as objective a perspective as he can. In his writing, Salzman uncovers some important ideas in Chinese psychology. He does reveal the ridiculous qualities of the nation's bureaucracy as they affect him; he has immense difficulty travelling throughout the nation, not to mention ordering medicine for his Athlete's foot. Perhaps more important, though, is his discovery of what appears to be a societal paradigm: many aspects of Chinese life consistently show a preference of the rote completion of rituals over the actual meaning or intent of those rituals. This is reflected not only in the clearly unnecessary bureaucratic proceedings but also in the attitudes of the people Salzman meets; they are consistently ridiculously friendly to complete strangers but treat their own children like "furniture." "That," he is told, "is the Chinese way." Salzman manages to paint a very rich, believable portrait of a foreign world which it is hard to believe exists to this day, across the ocean from us. In spite of the book's format which abruptly changes setting and characters, China comes across as a coherent whole and though-provoking ideas burst from the pages of this quaint and powerful memoir.