Sam Merry

China Against the Tides, a Guangdong Diary Sam Merry

On a month's holiday to his flat in subtropical Guangdong Province, Sam Merry and wife discover more about the mysterious country of China where Sam once taught at uniiversities in Beijiing and Qingdao. In a historical perspective from Mao to Deng Xiao Ping, we learn about tensions in its unusual Market Stalinist combination of liberalising capitalism and Party terror which has, enriched the country, while reducing its population to aquiescence and prevented the devopment of civil society. After four years absence, Sam Merry's diary describes his meeting with old friends, including his six-year-old goddaughter, Tong Tong; his wife's mother in her new house; an ex-student after ten years who is now a dissatisfied Party member planning to leave her job; and an artist married to an accountant with a "little emperor" son. We also learn about everyday life in their nineteenth floor flat and the colourfully vibrant 1950's hutong below. Apart from family and marriage, we also learn of attitudes to the One Child Policy and "DIckensian" working conditions. Sam's Hainan holiday and his stay in Hong Kong, teach him something about the politics of both.