Travels in an Upside-Down World
A Memoir of time spent in the People's Republic of China
by Derek Geoffrey Sidenius

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This is a book about discovering China from both historical and personal perspectives. It covers a five-year- period from 1984, when China's modernizations were just taking hold, to 1989 and the student-led Tiananmen protest that culminated in a vicious crackdown and a draconian aftermath. During this time the author taught at a major university of China's Ministry of Public Security in Beijing and worked as a journalist for China's top media outlets, also in Beijing. The book examines aspects of both China's educational system and its approach to covering the news. It contains accounts of travels to all parts of the country, sometimes on the author's own, sometimes with friends and colleagues, and sometimes with his two teenaged daughters joining him from Canada. Featured also is a story of the author and his daughter Katharine being chosen for movie parts shot on location in a remote region of the country, as well as trips with his daughters to other countries, one crossing Asia on the Trans-Siberian Railway and another climbing Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain. In his book, the author says every day was an epiphany. Often the result was beyond expectation. The sum effect of his varied experiences in an upside-down world was to turn his own world upside-down, too.

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Derek Geoffrey Sidenius was born and raised in Vancouver, BC. He spent twenty-five years as a journalist in Canada, China, Japan, and Hong Kong. For twenty years he operated a tour business with his wife, Naiwei Bai, a former actress and opera singer from China, taking groups to China, Tibet, and Southeast Asia. They live in Victoria, BC with their daughter Alicia, dog Maomao, cat Koko, and numerous unnamed fish. The author has two adult children – Sarah and Katharine – from a previous marriage who figure large in this story. They each have two children and numerous pets, and they are both inveterate travelers whose exploits have far outpaced those of their worn-out dad. This is his first book.

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Contributors

Author

Derek Geoffrey Sidenius

Photographer

Ginny Etzel

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