Monday, August 07, 2006

Around the Bloc


Around the Bloc - My Life in Moscow, Beijing and Havana by Stephanie Elizondo Griest

Reviewed by Claudine

“Why do you always go to depressing places?...Why can’t you go to London or Rome?” This was a lament from Stephanie’s mother and one of my reasons for picking up the book. I have seen numerous travel books on a great many interesting places - mostly happy and picturesque destinations. Beijing has been explored quite a bit but Moscow and Havana? Life in a Communist country? I’m in !

Starting out her journey as a foreign language student in Moscow, a foreign correspondent in Beijing, Stephanie does not attempt to conceal the controlled lives her friends lead in the three countries . One in Havana would never be able to save enough for a plane ticket in a life time, another in Moscow would not be allowed to work or even live in the city without a bumazhki (a permit) and in Beijing, workers live in state-dormitories with as many as eight roommates at a time, where renting a room to live in after marriage is often a monumental task. As the people open up their lives to her, one cannot but feel deeply for the people in these countries.

But there are lighthearted moments – like how she manages to obtain a train ticket after being bumped from station to station in Moscow (be thick-skinned and really persistent!), or how she kisses her vegetarian inclinations goodbye at her first welcome luncheon in Beijing and naively tells her colleagues, to much giggling around the dining table, that she likes to ‘chi doufu’ (eat tofu) which also happens to be a sexual innuendo for taking advantage of someone. Or how she manages to sneak in and out of Cuba, which is an offence for an American.

Most importantly, I think it’s the people she meets and their stark honesty and warmth at times that brings the book and the travels home to her heart. As she gets to know them intimately, she is provoked to think more deeply about her place and identity, not only in the world but at home and her Mexican roots. At one point, after one year in Bejiing, when she revisits the Forbidden City on her last night there with her Chinese colleague and slides down against its bolted doors and weeps, it was also a heart wrenching moment for me. For her adventures and journeys became mine as well.

This is a no-holds-barred book about traveling and experiencing life in the Communist bloc. A real gem.