'The Laughing Sutra' By Thomas C. Foster

“The Laughing Sutra” by Mark Salzman takes place in a historically tense time of world relations. While this book tells an enlightening adventure story, it gives insight on world history and scary realities. “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” by Thomas C. Foster gives insight on both reading and writing reputable literature. Foster provides concrete instances and ideas that appear throughout the world of writing. Foster has many points in his book that proves to be present in “The Laughing Sutra”, but the two most prominent are the impacts geography and politics have in writing. Because “The Laughing Sutra” is about native Chinese men traveling to a new alien country, geography plays an indisputable role in the story. In Foster’s chapter

Since Hsun-ching lived through China’s cultural revolution, his everyday life was a political issue. One prominent part of his story was his ordeal with the Red Guard. Although Salzman did not go into an extremely detailed description of Hsun-ching’s time with the Red Soldiers, he made the Cultural Revolution’s terrifying effect on China obvious. “In the week he had spent with Li and his followers, he had seen them drag teachers out of school and beat them mercilessly for no reason at all… The pheasants in that commune are starving largely because of the madness created by the Red Guards.” (34, 36, Salzman) Government officials took him to work in a labor camp because he was the soldiers’ “leader”. Politics directly impacted Hsun-ching’s life. After he returned to Wei-ching, the ten years taken from them had made itself apparent. For fear that Wei-ching’s life was soon coming to an end, Hsun-ching decided to go on his trip to America; and there the story really started. As Foster said in his book, “Writing that engages the realities of its world- that thinks about human problems, including those in the social and political realm, that addresses the rights of persons and the wrongs of those in power- that can not only be interesting but hugely compelling.” (117, Foster) The work of “The Laughing Sutra” is an example of political writing with an engaging plot and interesting characters. Readers learn about China’s government and the control they had over their people while simultaneously empathizing with the characters. The power is within in the story because of the people, but the politics- the government and power structures- was only in the background. However, Hsun-ching’s life in China was not the only glimpse of political issues that emerged in the book. Hsun-ching and Colonel Sun visited a soup kitchen during their time in America- there they met a man named Wong Shek-kin. Wong Shek-kin