Michael Tidemann

Special to the Register

When I was asked to review "An American Bum in China," I agreed. What I received in the mail was a relatively small volume, four-by-seven inches and 114 pages, not including prologue.

I don’t hold a book’s length alone against it, though. John Steinbeck’s "The Red Pony," just 100 pages, is one of his greatest works. So length is not a problem.

What I’m curious about, though, is where the subject of this highly engaging creative nonfiction narrative, Matthew Evans, a native of Muscatine, Ia., fits as author into the book narrated by Tom Carter, who met Evans several times in China. While both Evans and Carter were expatriates, or at least adventurers, the outcomes of their adventures were far different.

As Carter tells it, Evans went to China to meet a supposed girlfriend who turned out to not really be girlfriend material at all – except possibly with other girls. That and other events sent Evans into a tailspin of bumbling happenstances. Evans tried to sneak into Myanmar – a military dictatorship only slightly less severe than North Korea – not once, but twice. The first time Evans was in Myanmar he threw his passport from a hotel window to keep it from being stolen. When he returned through the same hole in the fence a second time to retrieve his passport, he discovered it had fallen into a virtually inaccessible crevice.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Evans relayed his story to his grandmother, who told it to his mother, who in turn related it to U.S. Embassy officials in China. When Evans applied for a replacement passport, he was regarded as something of a spy if not a traitor to the U.S. When Evans told them what he had done, and his ridiculous reason for doing it, they bought his story.

Not only did he offend U.S. officials but Chinese officials as well. Evans manufactured a fake college diploma and found teaching positions at an agricultural then later a regular college in China. The result was painfully hilarious.

The escapades Evans experiences are the stuff of legend. Just as characters such as Calamity Jane immortalized themselves in the Wild West, Evans is destined to do the same in China. Unfortunately, that will only happen after the Chinese abandon communism and find a sense of humor.

This is a fun read. Hopefully, life turned out a little better for Evans in the end.

Michael Tidemann writes from Estherville, Ia. His author page is amazon.com/author/michaeltidemann.

'An American Bum in China'