Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside by Quincy Carroll

Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside is a thoughtful look into the experience of being a foreigner in China, as well as the good, bad and the ugly of teaching English. Set in the rural town of Ningyuan, Hunan Province (where Carroll himself actually taught English as a volunteer), the story centers on the clash between two white Americans - deadbeat Thomas Guillard and the idealistic Daniel – and the young Chinese student who gets caught between them. In this case, his new novel Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside. But it happens, more than we’d like to talk about.įor writer Quincy Carroll, this is the stuff of a great novel. It’s hard to believe that I could actually inhabit the same profession as those two guys. He smirked about how he had hoodwinked schools in China into believing he actually had a college degree, even though he was only a high school graduate. Later in Hangzhou, I bumped into a white American guy on a Hangzhou bus who confessed his secret for getting English teaching jobs – lying about his credentials. (I later discovered he was a hard-core alcoholic.) In fact, it’s such a prevalent gig for foreigners in China that you might even call it a rite of passage.īut anyone who has taught English in China also knows there’s a dark side to the profession.ĭuring my first year teaching in China, this one white American guy who had signed on to work for our program never showed up and placed us all in jeopardy. Ask foreigners in China what they do for a living, and chances are you’ll hear a common answer – teaching English.

Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside by Quincy Carroll