I don't generally read travel books, but this one was interesting due to all the horror stories (real or otherwise) about China in the media and how the author ignored some of the government controls to do what he did - like going places he didn't list on the paperwork in the "where are you going to be" box, or whatever. I wouldn't have expected the Chinese government to allow foreigners to meet locals, even safely middle-class locals, via any sort of "find a friend"-type apps or websites. That being said, the fact that one of the people on the aforementioned website was a police officer makes me think that the government is in fact monitoring foreigners meeting locals - wouldn't surprise me one bit if the officer in question was required to file reports or otherwise provide information to her superiors about what the foreigner was doing, or anything suspicious he may have said. Plus the officer in question provides some apparently sensible justifications for China's omnipresent surveillance state, pointing out how police can use that surveillance data to help solve murders or other crimes, in contrast to countries like the United States without these surveillance panopticons.

Most of the book isn't about that stuff, though - the author goes a bunch of places, meets a bunch of locals, and does a bunch of tourist stuff without a lot of problems, except for some stuff in Xinjiang that the government unsurprisingly doesn't want anyone (foreign or not) to do. I am definitely jealous of some of the food adventures he went on - I live in the United States, where you have to look relatively hard to find Chinese food that isn't the "B4, M1" stuff the author talks about. I did have goose intestines one time at a place somewhere around Milpitas, California, though.

Also, I'm not sure if there was supposed to be a closing chapter or epilogue or something that wasn't included in my preview copy, but the book ends rather abruptly after talking about Xinjiang. Ultimately this is a travel book and I assume any such epilogue would have been about leaving China, but it still seemed a bit terse.

Speaking of Xinjiang, the Chinese government is definitely committing genocide there, albeit through cultural obliteration more than physical mass murder. The author points out some of the issues there and his conversation with "Alim" is very interesting, but he understandably doesn't have a ton of details about what's going on there. I recommend that if anybody wants further information about this specific topic, they read Darren Byler's "In The Camps" (https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/in-the-camps/). ( )

Orth is a German travel writer. For this book he used the Couchsurfing app to meet most of the people who became his travel guides, logging in and looking for people who would give him a bed for a couple of nights and show him their neighborhoods. The variety of people he bunked with varied, from a female artist whose newly built studio was razed by the government in what she believed to be a plot to silence her controversial work, to a car dealership trainee who's apartment was so small that he and the author had to share the one bed. He stayed in a rural village with a family and was horrified to learn that they had cooked a dog to give him an honorable dinner, and he stayed in a city of nearly 10 million with a young man who was addicted to the internet and video games.

Orth had to lie in order to take this trip across the country, telling the Chinese Consulate that he had no intention of writing a book about China, that he was just visiting a friend and would see just two cities. He knew that if he admitted to his plans for a book, to meeting strangers all across the country and to informing the official about an app that allowed foreigners to sleep in Chinese homes and see ways of life the government hid from the outside world, he would be denied entry.
His journey was one of constant juxtapositions, going from modern metropolises to villages that seemed unchanged for a century. One of his app hosts turned out to be a tv host who drove Orth to a poor village in order to exploit him for her show, another turned out to be fascinated by Nazis, and another was a married policewoman who had a brief fling with the author. He also secretly interviewed probably the last person the Chinese government would want a foreign writer to meet, a government official who is also a Uyghur, the ethnic group who is currently enslaved in reeducation camps. Along the way he met many regular people who just wanted to meet a tall European.
The "tech" part of the title figures prominently in his travels as he was shocked by the level of surveillance the citizens live under, with pretty much their every move being monitored through street cameras and online monitoring of their phones and computers. One of his hosts pays for their dinner with a phone app called Sesame Credit, which is connected to Alibaba. Orth explains that the app holds all her financial records, which is translated into a point system that follows the customer throughout her life and that the government has access to it. Having high points can get you a line jump when seeing a doctor or a better response in online dating. Orth's friend knows her every move online is being watched, she's had proof and it creeps her out.

"The development of Sesame Credit, and other such apps, will soon enable an almost complete surveillance of the population...
Here you can lose points by failing to pay you debts on time, for example, or driving through red traffic lights of visiting online porn sites. Conversely, those who pay rent punctually, save a child or report a crime are rewarded with points. It is almost as if somebody is sitting somewhere judging every living moment, then rating it with: good, medium or bad...A number of cities are already running pilot schemes where even political opinions are incorporated into the ratings. "It's all about what you have posted online and how your friends respond," says Simone. "...if a friend of mine criticizes the government on Weibo, it will also affect my points in the future. It's crazy that such plans haven't caused an international outcry, isn't it?"

It gives an extensive look at the wide variety of people living across China, and while some of the people he met had remained in their hometown, many he met had lived abroad and returned, out of a sense of duty to their family or the hope they could improve lives, but what they had in common was a knowledge that their government had too much control of their lives. ( )

German author, Stephan Orth takes the reader along as he couchsurfs through China for twelve weeks in 2019. Orth travels independently by arranging places to stay through the internet and accepting what seem to be any slightly intriguing offer to sleep in a stranger's couch, bed, or apartment (including sharing a bed with a stranger). Concise and descriptive language conveys a variety of people and places in the large country as the reader travels vicariously.

As an introverted reader, I am stunned by Orth's exposure to others, especially when his host's quarters are cramped. I am left wondering what boundaries the author kept for himself. The intimate view of others is the reward for his perseverance. ( )

Stephan Orth’s China travelogue, High Tech and Hot Pot, is a brilliant look at what’s happening on the ground within China. Couch surfing from city to city, Orth meets young Chinese hosts who pass him along across the country like a rock star surfing a mosh pit. With humor and keen observation Orth takes us from unknown Chinese mega cities to remote far western Uyghur plains, experiencing the comic as well as the deeply tragic results of surveillance, censorship and repression, while glimpsing from an acknowledged limited perspective an enigmatic country with a thousand years of isolated history.

“...In China, however, change is accepted as a natural state you must adapt to; life is a continuous construction site, and “arriving” is not envisaged.”

Survival strategy for eating dog.

Beijing Pinkland! The difficulties in being a persistent freethinking radical woman artist in China and how to slip past the censors.
“The police check every exhibition, but they don’t see everything.” she says and laughs.” ( )

Orth sofa-surfs through China in an unauthorized research trip. He acknowledges that his use of social networking technology to make contacts means that he meets mainly middle-class people. I would add that he meets mainly younger people. In any case the descriptions of huge, bustling cities, quaint villages converted to tourist traps and the oppression of the Uyghur reinforces my lack of desire to visit the country. OTH the description of the mountain areas bordering Tibet are beautiful. Entertaining. ( )