A photographer and ethnographer, Norman Track goes to China in search of “endangered species, both people and plants.” He returns with photographs of rare irises and the manuscript of Song of a Water Dragon, the life story of He Yi An, an octogenarian Daoist and lifelong devotee of Wen Chang, the Chinese deity of scholarly honours and official rank. He Yi An was born in 1908 into a wealthy family in Lijiang, Yunnan, a province in southwestern China known for its ethnic diversity. While his mother was a Han Chinese, his father was of the Naxi minority. Before 1949, He Yi An lived a life of leisure and played a leading role in the local Daoist religious society. For three decades after the victory of the Chinese Communists in 1949, He Yi An and his family suffered relentless political persecution because of their landlord class background. Yet He Yi An never gave up his devotion to Daoism and instead drew spiritual sustenance from it.

Song of a Water Dragon is a dry, year-by-year account of one man’s life story against the tumultuous backdrop of 20th-century Chinese history, as recalled by He Yi An himself and transcribed by Track with the assistance of a Chinese translator, Lu Feng. As a biography, this book is unengaging and uninspiring, proving that interesting conversations do not necessarily translate into good reading material. As an oral history, this book lacks the proper editing and detailed contextualizing commentary that only a knowledgeable historian could have provided. As for ethnographic issues, the appendixes describe several Daoist rituals in great detail, but there is no discussion of the social significance of these rituals or how these practices fit in with the syncretic folk religion of this particular locality.

Even the quality of the translation leaves much to be desired. For example, the Lijiang county magistrate is referred to as the “governor” and there are multiple references to smoking “poppy,” no doubt a reference to opium use. The author also chooses to use the Chinese word “Baba” instead of the English word “father,” and this leads to some amusement since “baba” is also the word for a Naxi staple food referred to frequently in the book.

This book is beautifully laid out and contains several wonderful illustrations. The cover, a full-colour photograph of He Yi An dressed in a magnificent yellow silk robe, is especially striking. If only as much attention had been paid to the text itself.