Sandra Hutchison is a Canadian English professor who spent time in eastern central China teaching English language and literature at a university in Hefei, the capital of Anhui province. She was evacuated in June, 1989 during the government crackdown against student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, and revisited China a year later. Chinese Brushstrokes is a thoughtful collection of essays based on the author’s travel and living experiences in China.

The essays themselves are short and readable. Each passage recounts an episode of the author’s interactions with ordinary Chinese and includes her reflections and ruminations on these encounters.

Neither a journal nor a diary, this book is organized around a series of themes – religion and faith, politics (Tiananmen and its aftermath), dreams and aspirations, social relations, village life, and the arts. Because it is not a chronological account of her travels, the book tends to jump back and forth between different points in time, and various characters appear and reappear in a manner that is sometimes confusing. However, the selective, thematic approach proves to be effective for the author’s purposes. She means to present snapshots of Chinese life from the perspective of an outside observer, not a historical narrative or a comprehensive social survey. In that purpose she succeeds. Hutchison paints a vibrant picture of post-Mao China in flux and conveys a sense of rapid change, not only social and economic, but also spiritual and ideological.

Though not a “China expert,” Hutchison has some knowledge of the language and proves to be a sensitive, sympathetic observer of the ordinary Chinese with whom she interacts. At times, the book teeters on the edge of orientalist fascination with “exotic” China, but on the whole the author manages realistic portrayals of the Chinese people and provides valuable, universal insights into the human condition.