Widening perspectives and cross-cultural awareness by reading...

The Three-Body Problem is a Chinese science fiction novel (2008) by Chinese writer Liu Cixin. It is the first novel of the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, but Chinese readers generally refer to the whole series by the title of this first novel.  The title refers to the three-body problem in orbital mechanics. A great perspective with plots, mysteries, conspiracies, murders, revelations, embedded in a culture and politic very unfamiliar to most readers in the West.How much do people and governments in foreign countries actually know about China, Chinese society, culture, people and governance ??

Started last week with reading the Red Star over China by Edgar Snow again. Published in 1937, I have read this book about a decade ago but current events and symptoms happening in the world and to humanity triggered me to refresh the mind again.

Edgar Snow recounts the months that he spent with the Chinese Red Army in 1936. He was the first western journalist to give a full account of the history of the Chinese Communist Party following the Long March, and the first western journalist to interview Mao Zedong.

Today, the diverse Chinese society in transformation still remains a mystery (deliberately or not) to most Western people. The ignorance and few repeating spearheads used in media, stigmatizing the whole of China links to increasing, alarming levels of fear and bias.

Will global society facing COVID-19 brings humanity together or drift towards separatism ? Mutual awareness and understanding certainly increases the chance of collaboration.

See more interesting books here below to learn about China and history.

The Three-Body Problem is a Chinese science fiction novel (2008) by Chinese writer Liu Cixin. It is the first novel of the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, but Chinese readers generally refer to the whole series by the title of this first novel.  The title refers to the three-body problem in orbital mechanics. A great perspective with plots, mysteries, conspiracies, murders, revelations, embedded in a culture and politic very unfamiliar to most readers in the West.

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World is a non-fiction book (2015) written by Peter Frankopan, an English academic at the University of Oxford. A very fresh perspective and different insights on history which explains a lot about the world, different countries including China today.

#china #covid19 #chinesesociety #humanity #crossculturalawareness #socialintelligence