Publication Date - May 17, 2016
5 stars
As a foreign correspondent reporting on Chinese economics, Rob Schmitz lives in Shanghai on a street named The Street of Eternal Happiness. As he gets to know the personal stories of the business owners that live on his street he learns about the history, economics, culture and frustrations of China. He follows several different people including a young entrepreneur who keeps pushing ahead at his sandwich shop even when he has no customers, a man who owns a snack business and his bickering wife who invests thousands of dollars in pyramid schemes, and a flower shop owner who escaped a abusive marriage to build her own life in Shanghai. In some ways this reminded me of Katherine Boo's Beyond the Beautiful Forever in that it follows one small area of people who have been at the mercy of their country's political and economic situation (though this book is much less bleak) but the author in this book is very present in the situation he writes about whereas Boo removes herself completely from the pages of the book. I have to say that I personally favor Schmitz's approach because there is definitely a reaction to his foreigners that affects the overall interactions. Overall, I really thought this was a well written, insightful look into a country that still remains somewhat a mystery. I received this book from Penguin's First to Read Program in exchange for an honest review.
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