Description: J. Maarten Troost, author of the bestselling comic travel memoir THE SEX LIVES OF CANNIBALS, dives head first into the bizarre multiple personalities of modern China: an exotic beast with one foot firmly mired in its ancient past and the...
Synopsis J. Maarten Troost, author of the bestselling comic travel memoir THE SEX LIVES OF CANNIBALS, dives head first into the bizarre multiple personalities of modern China: an exotic beast with one foot firmly mired in its ancient past and the other stepping eagerly into the frenzied neo-capitalist free-for-all. He confronts the outlandish Chinese cuisine--including yak and cattle penis--visits the embalmed body of Mao (whose propaganda still hovers above the land like a hallucination), and battles with tiny grandmothers for his place in line. Troost's writing is full of gusto and absurdity, but past the laughter, LOST ON PLANET CHINA provides a vivid glimpse into the heart of the world's most powerful and peculiar cultures.