James Fallows articles at theatlantic.com

[jbradfor]

James Fallows is a columnist for The Atlantic Monthly. He's been living in China for the last two (?) years, and write what I feel are very insightful articles -- if there were a Fallows Fan Club I'd be charter member What I like about his writing is how he alternates between interesting, specific stories and insightful summaries about what it all means.

Anyway, I'm just posting this to make others aware of his writing, and also because I'm really interested in what others out there think of his articles. Is my fondness for his work misplaced?

The Atlantic Monthly has made his articles available (free!) at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/by/james_fallows . Three of my favorites are

From http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/fallows-chinese-banker

The simple truth today is that your [uSA's] economy is built on the global economy. And it’s built on the support, the gratuitous support, of a lot of countries. So why don’t you come over and … I won’t say kowtow [with a laugh], but at least, be nice to the countries that lend you money.

From http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/chinese-progress

After two years in China, there are still so many things I can’t figure out. Is it really true, as is always rumored but never proved, that the Chinese military runs most of the pirate-DVD business—which would in turn explain why that business is so difficult to control? At what point in Chinese culture did it become mandatory for business and political leaders to dye away every gray hair, so that gatherings of powerful men in their 50s and up are seas of perfect pitch-black heads? How can corporations and government agencies invest huge sums producing annual reports and brochures and advertisements in English, yet manifestly never bother to ask a native English speaker whether they’ve made some howler-style mistake? (Last year, a museum in Shanghai put on a highly publicized exhibit of photos from the Three Gorges Dam area. In front, elegant banners said in six-foot-high letters The Three Georges.) Why do Beijing taxi drivers almost never have maps—and almost always have their own crates or buckets filling the trunks of their cars when they pick up baggage-laden passengers at the airport? I could go on.

But here is by far the most important of these mysteries: How can official China possibly do such a clumsy and self-defeating job of presenting itself to the world? China, like any big, complex country, is a mixture of goods and bads. But I have rarely seen a governing and “communications” structure as consistent in hiding the good sides and highlighting the bad.

From http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200707/shenzhen

One facility in Guangdong province, the famous Foxconn works, sits in the middle of a conurbation just outside Shenzhen, where it occupies roughly as much space as a major airport. Some 240,000 people (the number I heard most often; estimates range between 200,000 and 300,000) work on its assembly lines, sleep in its dormitories, and eat in its company cafeterias. I was told that Foxconn’s caterers kill 3,000 pigs each day to feed its employees. The number would make sense—it’s one pig per 80 people, in a country where pigs are relatively small and pork is a staple meat (I heard no estimate for chickens). From the major ports serving the area, Hong Kong and Shenzhen harbors, cargo ships left last year carrying the equivalent of more than 40 million of the standard 20-foot-long metal containers that end up on trucks or railroad cars. That’s one per second, round the clock and year-round—and it’s less than half of China’s export total. What’s in the containers that come back from America? My guess was, “dollars”; in fact, the two leading ship-borne exports from the United States to China, by volume, are scrap paper and scrap metal, for recycling.

[gato]

James Fallows is a great writer. I used to enjoy reading his articles in the New York Times magazines (particularly ones about education reform). He's not an expert on China, but his fresh eyes should make his articles on China interesting.

[Yang Rui]

I agree - I can't off the top of my head think of any other English-language journalist who writes more interestingly about China at the moment.

[Outofin]

I know this guy. We once on this forum discussed his report about internet censorship, which was the best I read on this subject. But his speculation about China's foreign reserve makes no senes. That's okay. Everyone makes mistakes on economics.

Foreign journalists have their strength and weakness. They are professional and work hard. They offer fresh new perspectives. Mr. Fallows has talents of writing interesting stories. He observes, explores, and reasons.

Weakness is that they have different assumptions. The biggest flaw is that they don’t speak Chinese. For example, Fallows can only guesstimate Guangdong’s manufacture jobs by “Guangdong’s population is around 90 million. If even one-fifth of its people hold manufacturing jobs, as seems likely in big cities, that would be 18 million—versus 14 million in the entire United States.” If you speak Chinese and use internet, it takes you one minute to find the correct number, 17.8 millions (in 2006). I must say, good guesstimate, but you don't have to guess.

[roddy]

You forgot the start of the sentence:

Statistics from China are largely guesses, but . . .

If he'd wanted to he could have found the information in English, or have a research assistant look it up in any language. He didn't need to as it didn't make a blind bit of difference to the point he was making - lots of people work in factories in China.

[Outofin]

I noticed that. Two ways to tell the story:

A. This is my guesstimate.

B. This is the official number, which is often not reliable, but match my obeservation.

Between A and B, as a journalist, which would you choose? As a reader, which makes better credibility?

[Outofin]

James Fallows was on NPR marketing his new book. Amazon doesn't have too many reviews on the book yet. Maybe because it's too new? Fallows sounds like a reasonable and likable guy. I'm going to read it. Will hopefully write my thoughts on the book later.