Troy Parfitt
Encyclopedia
Troy Parfitt is a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 and traveler who focuses on critical travel commentary and cultural exposes. He grew up in New Brunswick, Canada but has lived in Taiwan and Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

 and has taught English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 as a second language in East Asia for twelve years. He wrote two books, called Notes From The Other China and Why China Will Never Rule the World.

Reviews

Reviewer Bradley Winterton in the Taipei Times, reviewing his first book, described Parfitt as a "bad traveler, an insensitive loud-mouth ranting on about the absurdities of life abroad". Reviewer John Burroughs described it as "travel commentary and cultural analysis." Reviewer Alan Caruba in the Canada Free Press described Parfitt as his "own man" with an "eye for detail and a talent for describing his journey in ways that do not ignore some obvious and ugly truths about the real China." Reviewer Terence P. Ward of AllBooks Review wrote that Parfitt is "fluent in Mandarin" and "brings a lot of information to the table" to back up his claims about China being filthy, overcrowded, with unimaginable poverty, and "pollution so thick that it obscures the sun". According to Ward, Parfitt argues that "China is romanticized, and cannot possibly ever rule the world because its population is willfully ignorant, poorly educated, and clueless about the world beyond that nation's borders." Vancouver Sun reviewer Jonathan Manthorpe agreed with Parfitt's conclusion that "China is unlikely to be an influential superpower
Superpower
A superpower is a state with a dominant position in the international system which has the ability to influence events and its own interests and project power on a worldwide scale to protect those interests...

 because its current regime has no vision, its economy has developed no capacity for innovation, and there is no sense of optimism" as well as Parfitt's assessment that "China is a gloomy, bitter, xenophobic and ill-favoured place."

External links

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