China in Ten Words has been reviewed extensively, and mostly positively in the English-language press, including by prominent China experts such as
Perry Link and in outlets such as
The New York Times and
The Wall Street Journal. James Fallows, writing in
The Atlantic, characterised the collection as "an outstanding set of essays on the general topic of why modern China is the way it is, each essay centered on a Chinese word or phrase.... Very much worth reading." Laura Miller wrote in
Salon that "Yu Hua has a fiction writer's nose for the perfect detail, the everyday stuff that conveys more understanding than a thousand Op-Eds.... Perhaps the most bewitching aspect of this book is how funny it is.... He comes across as an Asian fusion of
David Sedaris and
Charles Kuralt." Lagaya Misha assessed it in the
New York Times as "an uneven mixture of memoir and polemic, farce and fury, short on statistics but long on passion.
China in Ten Words...is a cautionary tale about the risks of subterfuge, of trying to sneak something past one's father — or, perhaps, one's ever vigilant government." Scholars from across the
literary,
cultural and
linguistic fields have also expressed profound interest in
Yu Hua’s essay collection and established their individual interpretations of
China in Ten Words’
cultural,
political and
social narratives. One such scholar proposes that
China in Ten Words is not intended for the
mainland Chinese audience with its blatant intent to criticize
Communist China. She also states that “bamboozled” (忽悠), used in the contemporary setting, is intended to illustrate China's market capitalism despite its
socialist orthodoxy. She asserts, “Yu [Hua] appears to place more trust in Taiwan’s government than in China’s to protect his freedom and rights.” == Character/event parallels ==