The Anaconda in the Chandelier: Writings on China

“Incisive, wise, deeply humane, this collection is a true gem from a China scholar who is a rarity in his field. Distilled from a lifelong engagement with Chinese language and culture at an astonishingly high level, a wealth of compelling, compassionate observations and critical dissections, including some rather uncomfortable truths about China, is revealed here through fluid essays as well as Link’s ironic personal transformation, to borrow CCP lingo, from ‘a friend of China’ to ‘a hostile foreign element.’”
—Jianying Zha, author of Tide Players and China Pop
These acerbic essays, collected from Perry Link’s decades-long career as a noted Sinologist, reveal the depth of his attachment to China and his willingness to squarely face unpleasant truths about the many ways in which ordinary Chinese people have suffered from the self-serving, erratic, and often disastrous “leadership” of the Communist Party of China.
Link's essays touch on politics, society, economy, literature, and art, but their primary focus is on the thoughts, feelings, and values of Chinese people. He lays out his values as he explains how, like many of his Chinese friends, he began with a naïve attraction to socialist ideals only to eventually feel disgust at the cynical betrayal of not only those ideals but even garden-variety ethics. His writing probes the ways “comrades” in the ruling regime have ruthlessly clung to and pursued the one value whose pre-eminence has never been in question: political power.
The Anaconda in the Chandelier includes essays on Link’s “day job” interests in Chinese literature, popular culture, and language teaching at Princeton University. He also offers intellectual tribute to his teachers—both classroom teachers and several whose writing taught him how to see beneath the surfaces of things.