This book had such potential! Just look at the synopsis:

Colin Legerton and Jacob Rawson, two Americans fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Korean, and Uyghur, throw away the guidebook and bring a hitherto unexplored side of China to light. They journey over 14,000 miles by bus and train to the farthest reaches of the country to meet the minority peoples who dwell there, talking to farmers in their fields, monks in their monasteries, fishermen on their skiffs, and herders on the steppe.

Doesn’t that make you imagine the possibilities? The wonderful conversations they must have had? The sights they must have seen?

Well we do get a sense of that. But the authors tend to spread themselves a little too thin here, covering way too much ground and not going as much in-depth as I’d like. I wasn’t expecting a scholarly thesis on ethnicity, but there was something that was a little too general, a little… perhaps less insightful might be the right phrase for it. It did pique my interest in the many ethnicities of China though, and the bibliography they provide at the end might be a good way to start.

Perhaps I should’ve started this post with some of the good bits. I don’t want to put you off this book, as it does provide a very readable overview of this different – and less recognisable – part of China. I did learn quite a few things. For instance, did you know that there are 2 million Koreans living in China? Most of them live in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture where they speak Korean, retain their own culture, and attend their own schools. The North Korean government even owns and operates expensive North Korean restaurants there, to promote their culture and create an influx of foreign cash.

And the Mosuo people, who live on the shores of Lugu Lake, belong to a matrilineal society. The women choose a male partner to visit her quarters, solely at night, for as long as she likes. The resulting children are raised by his mother and uncles. The men however, continue to be in charge of business outside of the home. Fascinating!

You know how that synopsis talked about the authors, Colin Legerton and Jacob Rawson? Well I finished the book with absolutely no inkling about these two men. They could’ve been cardboard characters for all I knew. They seemed to be relatively fluent in languages, enough to converse with all kinds of people, but the reader end up having a better idea of the characters they meet than the two of them. It was kind of intriguing. Was this intentional or were they really that colourless? I thought back to one of my favourite travel books, Sara Wheeler’s Terra Incognita, which was full of fascinating facts on Antarctica, but Wheeler’s personality shone through – her great sense of humour, her gungho-ness, her passion for Antarctica. I didn’t get any sense of Legerton-Rawson (the two are quite indistinguishable) at all, and had to turn to the backflap where those short passages about the two authors told me more than they revealed about themselves throughout the whole book. Pity, that. ( )

Amazing stories of two guys who traveled around China visiting China's ethnic minorities. They show what an amazing and diverse country China is. ( )