On the road with the author of The Peace Correspondent, Garry Marchant (slated for the 2010 Shanghai Literary Festival)

Any piece of travel writing invariably combines the realities of the place in question with the personality of the writer describing it. In many travel pieces, this combination is wildly out of proportion, leaving the reader with either a bland guide book or an indulgent autobiography.

In his book, The Peace Correspondent, which details over three decades of Asia travel, Garry Marchant does an excellent job of finding a happy medium between the two. In every chapter, Marchant provides portraits that are unique to their specific settings. However, he does not shy away from interjecting elements to the vignettes that are part of any traveler’s experience (like discovering that his hired guide does not know the area at all, which happened in central Vietnam) or any human experience (like hoping to see naked women, as he did in a bathhouse in Japan). Far from distracting from the descriptions of the places he visits, they provide a truer experience of travel.

However, the book stumbles when it seems as if Marchant is attempting to acquaint us less with a particular place or experience and more with his own writing prowess. In the chapter on Hokkaido, Japan, for example, Marchant’s prose jumps from observation to observation in an overly poetic style that ends up obscuring the story. In most cases, however, the writer’s natural playfulness and sense of humor come through in ways that are charming, not overbearing.

The book’s name, while clever, seems almost like an excuse for its subject matter– in the book’s opening line, Marchant admits that war correspondents are the “glamorous stars of journalism”, while he has confined his travels to areas that are “untroubled.” The admission is unnecessary. Marchant’s body of experience is more than enough to justify a book. In 30 years, he has visited almost every place on the Asian continent. Of all of these, the most interesting is his trip to the Chinese Mainland some three decades ago.

From the moment Marchant steps footsteps in Canton (Guangzhou) , he is confronted with what will be all too familiar characters in a highly unfamiliar setting. Marchant visit s the Huashan People’s Commune– complete with its 14,200 families and 26 production brigades–where he is constantly surrounded by children applauding him. “The Chinese were taught to clap by the Russians,” he writes. “And they think all Westerners like it.”

Marchant’s sketched Maoist backdrop soon begins to resemble a China more recognizable today, when night falls and “pigtailed waitresses in … Bruce Lee kung-fu shoes … pour drinks with a reckless generosity.”

For anyone who has lived in China for any length of time, the accounts are unlikely to be hugely enlightening. That said, they are not without value or charm. They feel something like a story about what your parents were like when they were younger.

It’s a tale you’ve heard before, but one comfortable in its familiarity. A good read at any time, this is a great one for a jaunt around Asia.

Jonathan Haagen

Earnshaw Books, ¥136.50