Any foreigner who has spent time in China will enjoy this book. . . . [M]ost visitors to China, academics or otherwise, will recognize many of the experiences were ones they themselves had or could have had. Such encounters often had unsettling consequences, revealing that one’s assumptions about China or Chinese culture were often incorrect. . . . For older readers, much of this book will be a trip down memory lane. For younger readers it can serve as an introduction to the vagaries of research: how, despite one’s meticulous preparation, factors such as access, living conditions, politics, and much more shape one’s experience of China.

The China Journal

China Tripping gathers short, lively, and personal accounts by some of the most influential American Sinologists of their experiences working in China from the tail end of the Mao years through the post-Mao reforms. China Tripping is a book about cross-cultural encounters, ranging from mundane acts of shopping and stamp collecting to boisterous drinking and dancing parties, from fortuitous meetings with powerful politicians to ‘sweaty’ academic discussions on politically sensitive issues, from emotional family reunions to intimate friendships. Organized chronologically, the essays suggest an ever-changing history of that cross-cultural encounter, with one constant—China always defies expectations.

Kirk A. Denton, The Ohio State University

With a sweep of forty years, China Tripping gives us a series of amusing, poignant, and downright absurd stories of foreigners and their encounters with China. Even though the country that they encounter shifts over time, what remains is a universal condition: the foreigner and the local, encountering each other with suspicion, with good will, and mostly with humanity.

Ian Johnson, Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times correspondent

Moving, surprising—and, on occasion, hilarious. These accounts of foreigners rediscovering China in the late twentieth century ring bells with anyone who has tried to grapple with this fascinating country and its culture. For those who have only ever seen the China of economic growth and tall skyscrapers, this book is a reminder of how far the country has come—and those who have tripped over it across the years.

Rana Mitter, author of Forgotten Ally: China's World War II