Alan Paul plunges into Chinese life and takes us along for the ride, through vegetable markets, used-car lots, Taoist temples, divey bars, and a beac….

The American appetite for loneliness impressed me, and there was something about this solitude that freed conversation. One night at a bar, I met a m….

Sometimes I thought of the Peace Corps as a reverse refugee organization, displacing all of us lost Midwesterners, and it was probably the only gover….

I began to see motorcyclists who had attached computer discs to their back mudflaps, because they made good reflectors. In a place called Xingwuying,….

In China, much of life involves skirting regulations, and one of the basic truths is that forgiveness comes easier than permission..