Saturday night in Baoding

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In what might have been a revealing glimpse of pre-Tiananmen Square China, the author, who spent 1985-1986 teaching English in the northern city of Baoding, repeats his main message--in itself reasonable--until it wears tiresomely thin: the government is responsible for everything disagreeable in China, from idiotically inappropriate jobs assigned to the university-educated to the condition of the campus dining-hall tables which, ``unwiped after weeks of meals,'' are pushed aside on Saturday nights to make room for ballroom dancing. Terrill finds the dancing ``a pleasure in a life of little pleasure, a life where pleasure was, and still is, viewed with suspicion.'' His observations are in general subverted by his regrettable posturing as a suffering outcast in a foreign land (``Few people can get beyond . . . the step of finding similarities and differences when living in another culture. Maybe some anthropologists can get beyond it; to a layman, it seems like a tough business''). (Jan.)

Library Journal

Terrill provides a memoir about living in China and teaching English at a university in the mid-1980s. He lived in the North China city of Baoding, away from the hustle of Peking or Shanghai. The restrained excitement at young people's Saturday night dances is only the first of many revelations about life in China he experiences; he also finds ``a sadness of having given up'' in the Chinese's struggle to control their lives and make their own choices. Terrill spent only a year in China and not a lifetime as did Grace Service, whose memoir, Golden Inches ( LJ 9/15/89), was recently published, yet, in comparison, Terrill was more quickly and deeply drawn into Chinese life around him than were Americans such as Service, who lived in China in the early 20th century. Terrill's work is pleasant and readable, but not a necessary purchase.-- David D. Buck, Univ . of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Booknews

A concise survey of the state-of-the-art in satellite remote sensing of the earth, incorporating a mulitidisciplinary approach to the diverse fields which employ satellite technology. Presents a chronological account of satellite platforms and selected sensors, and discusses interactions between energy and atmospheric constituents. Also describes spectral signatures of objects, concepts in data interpretation, and various aspects of observations over continents and over oceans. Includes case studies. The story of Terrill, a 32 year-old who gave up the American single life for a year, took a vow of celibacy, and went off to teach in a small city on the dusty plains of northern China, where he soon became the confidant of many of his students. Paper edition (unseen), $14.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)