Iron & Silk
Smith, Karen Sue
Iron & SILK, by Mark Salzman, Random House, $16.95, 211 pp. By telling with little or no commentary the thirty best stories he could cull from his two-year teaching stint at Hunan Medical College,...
...His daily regimen while teaching English in Changsha included Wushu and taiji, calligraphy lessons, and advanced Chinese studies...
...K.S.S...
...A Yale graduate Phi Beta Kappa, he speaks fluent Mandarin and Cantonese, is a renowned martial artist, a cellist, and appears to have a natural flair for writing...
...Yet at the same time, we are shown a culture that values hospitality, personal discipline, and family ties more highly than material gain...
...and Master Pan, the "Iron Fist" boxer...
...Salzman is an exceptional young man...
...But most unusual is that Salzman had the modesty and skill to remain in the background of his own tale in order to show just how remarkable is each of his Chinese characters: Old Ding, the friendly fisherman...
...By telling with little or no commentary the thirty best stories he could cull from his two-year teaching stint at Hunan Medical College, China, Mark Salzman has created a sometimes hilarious, often touching, always enjoyable first book that reads like a novel...
...Through Salzman's eyes we see a country where the political system stifles the people and mires them in bureaucracy...
...Teacher Wei, his Chinese tutor...
...Teacher Wu and her broken piano...
Vol. 114 • July 1987 • No. 13
