"CHINESE LESSONS: FIVE CLASSMATES AND THE STORY OF THE NEW CHINA," by John Pomfret, Henry Holt, 315 pages, $26

Anyone interested in understanding the social and political history of China from Mao's reign to the current regime will get it in "Chinese Lessons" — without having to read a multivolume work.

John Pomfret, Washington Post writer, who has covered China from the time he was an exchange student until last year (when he was transferred to Los Angeles) has written a personal, realistic account, representing the views of five of his original classmates.

Using a down-to-earth style that is closer to that of a novelist than a historian, Pomfret takes the reader to the street in the China of 1981. Then he updates it from his 20th-anniversary class reunion by tracing that 20-year interval in the lives of his classmates — one woman and four men, whose stories enliven the book.

He begins with his own arrival at a dingy dorm at Nanjing University. He tries to fit his 6-foot-2-inch frame into a 5-foot-10-inch bed. The beds have gunmetal frames and rice-husk mattresses. The lumpy pillows are also filled with rice husks. Eight wooden desks are huddled together in the middle of the floor, with a stool for each.

The whole room is lit with two naked low-watt bulbs, in Pomfret's words, " 'The Grapes of Wrath' goes Asian."

Pomfret writes very effectively in telling how much power the state still exercised over the Chinese people, including his classmates. There was a huge strain between those who belonged to the Communist Party and those who didn't. There were numerous heartbreaking examples of children being forced to humiliate and denounce their parents in public settings.

Later in the '80s, Pomfret began covering China for the Associated Press, and his perceptions grew even more powerful. He experienced firsthand the now well-known student protests at Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989. That was the year the West thought a new revolution had finally hit China. Pomfret wrote to his parents: "This is the most amazing thing I have ever seen in my life. I have a sense it's going to end badly, but at the same time it is remarkable to behold. Today I saw one million people on the street. One million! And what do they want? Just a better life."

Chinese authorities wavered, then crushed the rebellion by sending soldiers to fire on the people in Tiananmen Square.

But Pomfret also spent enough time in China to see western companies surfacing everywhere, subtle but important changes in the Chinese language, tons of rules established but virtually no enforcement, fatty foods dominating the culture, an increase of younger women marrying older men, greater numbers of people in poverty, an increase in casual sex, jobs no longer being guaranteed by the state, the marrying age climbing from the low 20s to the 30s, economic reforms that benefit the middle class and the elite, and very dangerous roads — resulting in motor fatalities becoming the leading cause of death among people between the ages of 15 and 45; this in a bicycle culture.

Once again there is a new China, yet the leaders are tightening their controls on individuals, showing they are unacquainted with democratic practice and fearful of embracing it. It's too bad we won't have Pomfret to stay on and tell us the rest of the story.

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E-mail: dennis@desnews.com