Just finished Peter Hessler's "River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze." Hessler is back in China as a Beijing based free-lance journalist wriging for "The New Yorker," "National Geographic" among others. and . He was US Peace Corps ((they only take master's degrees as teachers I've learned from net) teaching English at a teacher's college in Fuling, Sichuan Province.
I think he tried to be honest to his experience and the people as best one could. His story not unlike what I hear here from those of you away from the major cities. Was struck by how an incident at his school involving PE Dept vs not a waiguoren teacher but poor folk in Fuling sounded much like THA's experience.
Want to read his "Oracle Bones" as well as some books from his reading list mentioned at end of book.
Also, I think he adequately predicted that Three Gorges Dam was going to make a bit of a mess. We now know it's having some meteorlogical effects that probably aren't so good. He basically saw it as damming up the upper Yangtze and it's tributaries with pollution. Guess time will tell.