South of the Clouds: Exploring the Hidden Realms of China

By Seth Faison

South of the Clouds offers a fascinating, intimate portrait of China by telling the story of an American man who ventures into its hidden realms---romance, politics, the criminal underworld, and Tibet. As he matures from a wide-eyed student into a journalist and a seasoned observer, he develops a passion for uncovering secrets, about China and about himself. The author navigates his way past forbidding walls to peek inside the dark corners of Chinese society, relying on a remarkable collection of friends and acquaintances who help guide the way: an embittered policeman in Xian, a gay professor in Shanghai, and a Buddhist monk in Tibet, who presides at an ancient burial ritual where the corpse is carved up and fed to wild vultures. The Tiananmen Square massacre, people smuggling, and the Falun Gong movement are among the political and social upheavals that the author explains as he witnesses China's uncertain road toward capitalism and its place in the modern world. Along the way, the author wrestles with his own cultural identity, his sexuality, and his spiritual bearings. He finds an erotic outlet in the Chinese "Sauna Massage" and a stirring emotional connection with Jin Xing, a brilliant choreographer and China's first openly transsexual citizen. Ultimately, he discovers the answer to lifelong questions on a mountaintop in Tibet. Seth Faison, with a subtle understanding of Chinese culture, brings past and present events to life in a thought-provoking account of this mysterious nation and its people.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312306407
• ISBN13: 9780312306403
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.6" x 1.1" x 5.7"

Customer Reviews

A Revealing Look at Hidden Aspects of Chinese Culture and Life

In the Prologue to SOUTH OF THE CLOUDS, author Seth Faison tells a story about Farmer Yang's discovery of the famed terra cotta warriors near the city of Xi'an. Like much of this revealing look at the China few Westerners ever see, however, Mr. Faison's narrative is more than just a retelling of history. After years of being unrewarded and forgotten, Farmer Yang was hired to sign copies of tourist books about the excavation site. As Mr. Faison soon discovers, there are two Farmer Yang's working at competing stores. Which one is real, or is either of them the true discoverer? Mr. Faison finds the truth, but in doing so, we learn that the real Farmer Yang is being paid a paltry 280 yuan a month, about $35, for his services. Thus, in his first fourteen pages, the author demonstrates convincingly that we are embarking on a true insider's tour of a fascinating country. In SOUTH OF THE CLOUDS, Mr. Faison describes his experiences as a student at Shaanxi Teachers University in Xi'an, then as a journalist in China for most of 1987 to 1999. He cuts his reportorial teeth at the Hong Kong Standard and the South China Morning Post, then moves to the New York Times where he works as a roving reporter out of Beijing before being elevated to Shanghai Bureau Chief. Mr. Faison's writings are loosely connected vignettes, drawn from the wealth of people and events he experienced during China's economic and cultural opening in the 1990's. As a result, his stories range widely over the Chinese terrain, not just geographically, but also politically and culturally. We see up close and from the inside the events at Tiananmen Square in mid-1989, DVD piracy in Guangdong Province, the Falun Gong sect in Yunnan Province, the Chinese government's actions in Tibet, illegal immigration to the U.S. from Fujian Province, homosexuality in Shanghai, and transsexuality in Beijing. In each instance, however, Mr. Faison gives us more than just reportorial narrative. His are intensely personal stories, first-hand accounts of Chinese life told by the people who have been living them. We meet a policeman in Xi'an, a gay professor in Shanghai, a video pirate in Guangdong, a renowned transsexual choreographer, a Fujianese woman who risked everything to help send her husband to New York, and a Falun Gong practitioner whose life was changed by their version of qi gong. The author's personal story connects these various threads into a whole cloth. As Mr. Faison learns more and more about Chinese culture and life, he grapples with issues in his own life: a sense of not being sufficiently masculine, fear of emotional closeness, need for acceptance as a Westerner in China, and a sense of meaning and purpose. His slow discovery of China coincides with his own discovery of self, a journey that leads him through sexual relationships with Chinese women, a near addiction to sauna massages, an intense relationship with the transsexual Jin Xing, and a flirtation with Buddhism resulting from a tr

Tales of a Big Nose

Rebeccasreads highly recommends SOUTH OF THE CLOUDS as a fascinating historical & social memoir as a Big Nose in China during the past twenty years. Seth Faison seemed to be, with one glaring exception, in the right place at the right time as China unfurled from a closed, drab society into a bright new day of individuality, self-expression... & revolution. The contrast from his earlier years with the later ones is all the more poignant because of his own maturity & standing. While Seth Faison tells much of the inner machinations of the Communist Party, its leaders & internecine power plays, as well as the hierarchies of journalism -- all of which is fascinating, neither is as interesting as the everyday complexities of social rituals, & the people he meets, loves, & leaves. He is there when Mikhail Gorbachev visits; for the death of Hu Yaobang; the leadership battle between Zhao Ziyang & Deng Xiaoping; the Tiananman Square uprising; the opening up of Shanghai, & for when Falun Gong spread like wild fire. In SOUTH OF THE CLOUDS we are gifted with glimpses of the way China thinks -- politically & ideologically; the philosophy behind its ineluctable conformity; its implacable bureaucratic state of mind; its beliefs, religion, & identity. We also learn how complex & poetic is its language; how multi-layered its mores; how to find the "back door" to just about anything, & how to think with two hearts. Outstanding!

This is a Gem of a book

Most books about contemporary China end up being dwarfed by the size and complexity of this fascinating country. Faison's book is a classic case where less is infinitely more. By telling the story of his 15 years in China as a student and journalist, Faison takes us on a clear-eyed tour of modern China. He obviously loves the place but that has not clouded his judgment. On the contrary, it makes his observations even more telling, and entertaining. This book is funny, sad, inspiring and extremely honest. The chapter about the 1989 Tiananmen protests is the best capsule history of that event that I have read. Faison was on the street when the first protests began. He knew all the student leaders. He then went back and unraveled the power struggle inside China's secretive leadership. The result is a fast-paced and insightful portrait of those heady days before -- and mournful days after -- the government sent in the tanks. This book is a must read for anyone hoping to understand where China has been and where it is going.

Revelations about modern China

Perhaps no journalist has written about China with the same mix of passion, fascination, adventure, amusement, frustration and disappointment as Seth Faison. From the day he arrived as a student in the early 1980s, to the end of his distinguished tour as the Shanghai correspondent for the New York Times more than 15 years later, Faison not only observed China's transformation, but reveled in it. He explored its cultural heritage, battled Communist bureaucrats, bargained with stock brokers, marched with democracy protesters, exposed movie pirates, escaped government minders in Tibet, and fell in and out of love. A book of this scope and ambition would founder in lesser hands. But Faison is a gifted tour guide. He uses his own privileged access and expert training to pry open Chinese society, and show it changed him.

China's Hidden Worlds

Seth Faison, a long-time foreign correspondent in China, most recently for The New York Times, has written the sort of book about China that we have been waiting for years to read. With an impatience for the superficial, an eye for the occluded detail, a deep empathy for the people he encounters, Faison gently, almost deceptively, unveils the layers of assumptions and generalizations that pervade much writing about China. The Chinese he meets, stumbles upon and searches for, from his first years a student in the early '80s, to the Chinese army colonel who undergoes a sex change operation, are vivid, real people, not cardboard the caricatures that too often sprout up in China books. South of the Clouds carries you from the explosive development, cultural and economic, of Shanghai to the massacre on Tiananmen Square in June 1989, from video pirates in Guangdong, to Tibetan Buddhist monks enduring, and withstanding Chinese communist repression. This is a book you read settled into a comfortable chair, with a fine glass of burgundy and quiet jazz on the radio. It will transport you.