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In this fascinating account, Lynn Pan describes
the rise of a new China, where the spirit of free enterprise,
allowed to flourish since the defeat of the Red Guard, has
resulted in an astonishing leap in productivity and changed
the daily lives and aspirations of millions of Chinese.
Fashion-conscious people in Communist China
today are wearing clothes labeled Yifu Sheng Luolang
when they go out for an enjoyable night of disike.
Yfu Sheng Luolang is the way the Chinese write Yves Saint-Laurent.
Disike is Chinese for disco. If they decide to go to the
movies instead, they will stand in line for tickets to Superman
and Rambo. Afterward, rather than the same old Longhua
Health Food restaurant with its menu of ants and sea slugs,
they will have Kentucky Fried Chicken instead. Or they might
just stay at home watching the commercials for Tide detergent
and Colgate toothpaste on their TV. The more serious, of
course, will prefer to read a book -- John Naisbitt's Megatrends
is eagerly studied, while the new Ken Follett or even an
Agatha Christie detective novel will provide curious details
about the mysterious West.
Such are the lighter diversions in a society
wholeheartedly playing catch-up with the twentieth century.
Lynn Pan's book, drawing on sources ranging from World Bank
reports and Hong Kong journals to her own first-hand observations,
supplies an eye-opening view of a nation where the industrial
growth for one year was a staggering 23 percent and the
conquest of world markets is a goal for the near future.
Traveling freely throughout China, meeting
and conversing with bureaucrats and poets, farmers and students,
she captures a vivid picture of China's most exhilarating
social revolution. She explains why China is thought to
be going capitalist (which it is not), how Chinese farmers
have nevertheless been turned into entrepreneurs; how couples
meet and marry and how the "one child per family"
rule will affect the future; what opportunities await Western
investors, and the problems they will face in opening this
vast new market.
Above all, she explains to American readers
the challenges and complexities of dealing with this new
China, where Communist Party members struggle to define
the future, and Chinese thinkers still debate Confucius.
Lynn Pan was born and brought up in Shanghai.
She subsequently studied at the universities of London and
Cambridge and is the author of three books, including China's
Sorrow: Journeys Around the Yellow River.
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