In 1983, Ma Jian turned 30 and was overwhelmed by the desire to escape the confines of his life in Beijing. One day he bought a train ticket to the westernmost border of China and set off in search of himself. The result of the journey is this book, presenting the contradictions of China from a man who is both an insider and an outsider.

The result is an utterly unique book: an insight into the teeming contradictions of China that only a man who was both an insider and an outsider in his own country could have written.