Street of Eternal Happiness

Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road

By: Rob Schmitz

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Modern Shanghai: a global city in the midst of a renaissance, where dreamers arrive each day to partake in a mad torrent of capital, ideas, and opportunity. Marketplace's Rob Schmitz is one of them. He immerses himself in his neighborhood, forging deep relationships with ordinary people who see in the city's sleek skyline a brighter future, and a chance to rewrite their destinies. There's Zhao, whose path from factory floor to shopkeeper is sidetracked by her desperate measures to ensure a better future for her sons. Down the street lives Auntie Fu, a fervent capitalist forever trying to improve herself with religion and get-rich-quick schemes while keeping her skeptical husband at bay. Up a flight of stairs, musician and café owner CK sets up shop to attract young dreamers like himself but learns he's searching for something more.

A tale of 21st-century China, Street of Eternal Happiness profiles China's distinct generations through multifaceted characters who illuminate an enlightening, humorous, and at times heartrending journey along the winding road to the Chinese Dream.

©2016 Rob Schmitz (P)2016 Tantor

For a book about China, please correctly pronounce Chinese words

The story was enjoyable and described the author's experiences living in Shanghai. The issue that bothered me throughout was the horrible mispronunciation of Chinese words, many even said with a French accent. Chinese is spoken by twenty percent of the world-there's no excuse not to get this right in the audio book!

Who knew-

Very interesting facts and tidbits about China, Shanghai and specifically the Street of Eternal Happiness. A good introduction to some of the culture, customs, laws, business practices and religious issues.

Life in China

What did you like best about Street of Eternal Happiness? What did you like least?

Interesting to hear about the lives of some people in China.

How could the performance have been better?

The narrator has a nice voice...until, he slips into the character of female voices. His interpretation causes them all sound to like cackling hens. It annoyed me and distracted from the story. All of the inflections he uses for the characters makes them seem naive, if not ignorant.

Excellent story, terrible narration

Great story and colorful stories limited by poor narration. Very poor pronunciation (with a weird, completely inaccurate accent for the Chinese), re-recorded sections clearly are completely different audio quality and jut out. Pronunciation distracting at best, offensive at worst.

I want more.

Educational and enjoyable. Political and personal. Historical and modern. It told of recent economics on a personal level and tied in historical background beautifully.

very good

Great narration, excellent pronunciation. Very helpful in giving a perspective to China Culture. Recommend highly

Deserving of better audio

This nonfiction piece illuminates the post-Revolution China that Westerners have often never heard of—one marked by entrepreneurial workers who are ushering their country towards modernization. It’s great reporting. Unfortunately, the narrator reads too much drama and inflection into it. If you can deal with his voice, you’ll find some fascinating information here.

Shanghai FCC stories

Nice insight into China through a very well told collection of stories. Only complaint is that the audio recording is very uneven and much of the mandarin used is completely butchered. For a Chinese speaking foreign radio correspondent this is surprising. Overall would still highly recommend though.