Document Type
Book
Publication Date
Fall 11-2024
Keywords
china, college, students, study abroad. humor, satire, university, history, contemporary, asian culuture, student culture, academia
Abstract
It's never a good sign when someone is knocking on the door of your hotel room at seven in the morning. That's especially true if you have been schlepping eight college students across Western China, as I had been for the past week. I now heard in this soft rapping the death knell of my fledgling professorial career. Wrapping a ratty, threadbare pillow around my head, I tried to shut out the insistent rapping. Of course, that didn't work. Bad news has a way of butting in.
So begins my novel “Chasing the Albino Pygmy Giraffe.” It is a laugh-aloud yet insightful parody about how little Chinese and Americans understand one another. It tells the story of a college professor who leads a motley crew of American and Chinese students 3,500 miles across the heart of Western China down the fabled Silk Road. Along the way, the travelers brave everything from squat toilets and donkey meat to insurrection and the Red Army. Their journey pulls back the red curtain to showcase the authentic China. While fiction, this tale is based on real people and events. For those who know China, it will ring true.
There’s a potentially huge built-in market for a parody of how the Chinese and Americans misunderstand one another. In the past 20 years, hundreds of thousands of Chinese and Americans have had close contact with one another. Think Chinese students coming to study in America, and American students going to study in China. Add to these people all the countless western executives trying to figure out how to make a buck out of the vast but puzzling Chinese market. This novel will speak to all these people, who will find the story here very familiar and entertaining.
I come to you as an accomplished author. Random House has published three of my children's novels, the first of which received a Kirkus “Pointered” review. As a college professor, I've also published an irreverent writing guide — an anti-textbook — called “Pity the Poor Reader.” It has proven popular not only among my students but also among students and teachers worldwide.
I am eminently qualified to write a parody about the common misunderstandings between Chinese and Americans. Not only have I seen more of China than most Chinese themselves. I also speak Chinese and am well versed in Chinese history and culture. In the past decade, I have led five study abroad trips to China and South Korea.
I am also a seasoned and skilled self-promoter. Through readings and lectures, I have sold thousands of my books. I know how to hold an audience or make one laugh out loud. Just ask any of my hundreds of students over the past 15 years.
May I have the opportunity to send you, for your inspection, a digital copy of my manuscript “Chasing the Pygmy Albino Giraffe?”
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Haddad, Charles H., "Chasing the Albino Pygmy Giraffe" (2024). School of Communication and Journalism Faculty Publications. 5.
https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/soj-articles/5
Included in
Asian History Commons, Cultural History Commons, English Language and Literature Commons, Fiction Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons, Rhetoric and Composition Commons, South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies Commons, United States History Commons