Chapter 6 Summary and Analysis

Unsuitable Reading

October 1st is China's National Day, and a large banquet is arranged for all foreigners working in Hunan. A speech is delivered by a high official of the government touting the achievements of the Chinese Communist Party and its goals of adapting to the Four Modernizations by the year 2000. The speech is tediously long and people in the audience are talking or dozing off. The speaker does not seem to be annoyed by this behavior as he himself seems bored with the speech.

Mark meets a man at the meeting with whom he becomes friendly. The man translates books from English to Chinese and asks to borrow some of Mark's books to translate. After reading the books he returns them and tells Mark they are all unsuitable for China since they are either pornographic or anti-Socialist. He borrows "The...