Studs Terkel brought aboard to endorse US release of this book by a pair of Chinese journalist-authors. A very large and diverse oral history with interviews ranging from a pickle seller who used to write nationally-known pop tunes to an off-duty sentry officer who asks people to smile at him when he stands guarding grim-faced. Interviews taken in pre-Tiananmen Square China which, perhaps, allows for the conversations to be quite frank.

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