This book struck me a little as if a ten-years-younger Carrie Bradshaw type wrote about communism, socialism, and being an American inostranka/laowei/extranjera instead of sex (although there's a smidgen of that, too, in here...and it seemed to actually get in the way a little). Griest's accounts were very personable...great for me whose foreign travels encompass less than half a day in Reynosa and cultural knowledge of Russia, China, and Cuba--apart from history and geography classes--is pretty much limited to Fiddler on the Roof, Amy Tan, and the Buena Vista Social Club, respectively. I appreciated her takes on communism and socialism, ideologies I feel totally ignorant of no matter how much I read about them (perhaps it's because they were embedded into her travelogue rather than discussed abstractly). At times her idealism and naivete irked me, but the adventures and revealing conversations more than made up for it (and who knows, I might be ten times worse if I found myself in her situation).

Side note: I breathed a sigh of relief when she let up on her vegetarian principles long enough to experience at least the Chinese cuisine.

This increases my thirst to pursue modern accounts of life "around the bloc." I am interested to see how much life has changed even in the last 10-15 years since she completed her travels there (primarily, the W effect). And I need to go to Cuba. ( )

[[Stephanie Griest]] managed to spend a year abroad for school, obtain grants and jobs, and travel to several countries in the communist bloc. In this book, she writes about her year in Moscow, Beijing, and a few weeks in Havana. She was inspired to these things when she heard a talk by a journalist describing what she perceived as a pretty exciting life. She asked him what she had to do to get a job like his. He said to study journalism and learn Russian, so that is what she did.

I found this to be a wonderful and fun travelogue describing a young woman's experiences in communist or post-communist countries in the 90s. It certainly gives a good idea of what life was like and how it was lived during these times. However, for me the most enjoyable part was watching the author's cognitive growth as she compared her own culture to other cultures. Some of the things she had to wrestle with to understand were small, e.g. her difficulty finding a volunteer position. She wanted to more deeply experience the life around her and thought becoming involved in a local organization would be helpful and keep her away from the temptation of the easy way of hanging around with ex-pats. There is difficulty in getting people to understand what she would like to do because they don't get the concept of volunteering. Finally, they say, "Ohhhh! That's communism! We don't have to do that anymore!" However, she finally finds an orphanage that is willing to take her on. She is not happy with the way the children are treated and learns a lot about preparing children to live in a society unlike her own.

Another thing she experiences is coming across a dead man in a grocery, just lying in the aisle, his purchases around him, no one paying any attention. Than another customer appears and begins taking his purchases of food for herself. Griest does not know what to do and finally flees. This causes her great remorse. It reminded me of when I was in Panama, in the countryside outside of Colon, being shown around with a group of GI's with a Panamanian citizen and friend serving as a a guide and driver. We came upon a body in a ditch and didn't know if he was alive or not. We wanted to investigate, but our Panamanian friend/driver said we needed to get the hell out of there before we were involved in a nightmare. As Griest wrestles with this horror, she, as usual, makes comparisons to her own culture. It is so easy to be horrified by "the other". Her thoughts reminded me of times in the U.S. when witnesses have failed to come to the aid of rape victims, murder victims, assault victims. Is that worse than ignoring someone who is already dead?

Griest continued to make comparisons on a trip to the countryside with a local friend. She was struck by the generous hospitality, to the point of having difficulty eating all of the food that she was expected to eat or hosts would be insulted. She also noted "As we drove deep into the countryside we seemed to transcend a year a mile." Gone were the more modern accouterments of city life, such as bathrooms. She also noticed the effort people put into making their homes beautiful, with hanging rugs, art, etc. She noticed that each home she entered was decorated in a very similar manner, and realized she was looking at people using what was made available to them such as certain types of rugs. She thought about the fact that in the U.S. it was similar in that we decorate in similar manners also, but that in Russia it was about supply, whereas in the U.S. we demand our decor. Not sure I agree with that - I get her point, but I get pretty cranky about the things offered in our stores here in the U.S. also. If you aren't wanting the current styles, good luck finding anything different. Perhaps this is one reason vintage items are so popular here now.

Griest is also a little obsessed with revolutions, wanting people to continue to be politically active and push for more. She wonders why she keeps seeing old Russian vets laying flowers on Lenin and Stalin's graves and doesn't understand why they still honor them. She wonders if it is for the same reason her own country reveres Christopher Columbus, a man who obliterated entire populations of indigenous people so that his own kind could steal their land and riches? Do human beings inherently need to make heroes out of their nations and founders?

In Beijing when she wonders what happened after Tiananmen Square, what happened to that spirit and again, why aren't people still fighting for more? She learned from her friends that they are focused on the economy and living a better life, which they are doing. They tell her that her systems is corrupt as well and it isn't the system so much as human nature - there will be corruption no matter which system so they don't care which system, they just want to live as best they can.

Griest manages to make many deep friendships with locals who help her to understand what she is seeing, and to see the commonalities in our human nature and needs across cultures as well as the differences. She struggles mightily with all of these issues and comes to appreciate both these cultures as well as her own. She develops the ability to hold and accept multiple perspectives and appreciate them rather than judge, which is a wonderful thing to watch! She agrees with one who said that if you live in Moscow a week, you will write a book. If you live there a month, you may write an article, but if you live there for a year, you won't write anything.

Five stars ( )

Travel writing can be so much better than this. To be fair, I learned a lot about China, Cuba and Russia from Stephanie Elizondo Griest's experiences, but her persona and writing style never stopped grating on my nerves. Griest has to cast herself as the heroine of a typical chick lit novel: brave enough to let you live vicariously through her, confused enough to make you feel sympathetic. Her "militant vegetarian Chicana feminist" identity feels contrived and so does her determination to re-package every experience as an amusing vignette. Does Cuba really smell of sex? Can walking through a crowd of Russians really leave you smelling like sausages? I doubt it, but that's what Griest would have you believe. Worst, she seems unable to accept that some people think differently than Americans. She just can't wrap her head around the idea that once-starving Chinese might care more about economic opportunity than political reforms, or that Russians struggling with a destabilized economy might prefer the "safer" Communist system. Griest grows more tolerant by the end of the book, but it's too little too late: I spent most of my time feeling that this feminist liberal was just an ugly American in disguise. ( )

In enjoyed Around the Bloc. The author starts as a self proclaimed vegetarian chicana feminist college student who wants to travel. She is curious about apathy in America and want to see the effects of Revolution. She learns Russian in school and spends the first half of the book in Moscow. It isn't what she expected. Later she spends a year in Beijing and then a couple weeks in Cuba and she compares the three together.

I really liked the writer. She is very honest about her feelings as an American of Mexican decent. She didn't grow up speaking Spanish or connecting with her culture. She is very open with what she doesn't know which I found refreshing.

I really enjoyed the Russia section and I felt like a lot of that was because she had planned on going to Russia for some time and had lots of Russian friends. The next sections had less character but they were still really informative and easy to read. She even has a nice conclusion about what she learned from her travels that I enjoyed.

I would recommend this book to younger people who are curious about communism, travel, or traveling as a woman or working abroad as an American. ( )