Synopses & Reviews
Leading Chinese journalist Sang Ye follows his successful book Chinese Lives with this collection of absorbing interviews with twenty-six men, women, and children taking the reader into the complex realities of the People's Republic of China today. Through intimate conversations conducted over many years, China Candid provides an alternative history of the nation from its founding as a socialist state in 1949 up to the present. The voices of people who have lived underand often despitethe Communist Party's rule give a compelling account of life in the maelstrom of China's economic reformsreforms that are being pursued by a system that remains politically rigid and authoritarian. Artists, politicians, businessmen and -women, former Red Guards, migrant workers, prostitutes, teachers, computer geeks, hustlers, and other citizens of contemporary China all speak with frankness and candor about the realities of the burgeoning power of East Asia, the China that will host the 2008 Olympics. Some discuss the corrosive changes that have been wrought on the professional ethics and attitudes of men and women long nurtured by the socialist state. Others recall chilling encounters with the police, the law courts, labor camps, and the army. Providing unique insight into the minds and hearts of people who have firsthand experience of China's tumultuous history, this book adds invaluable depth and dimension to our understanding of this rapidly changing country.
About the Author
Sang Ye divides his time between China and Brisbane, Australia. His most recent book is The Year the Dragon Came (1996). Geremie R. Barmé is a Professor of Chinese History at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at The Australian National University. He is the author of An Artistic Exile: A Life of Feng Zikai (California, 2002), In the Red: On Contemporary Chinese Culture (1999), and Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (1996). Miriam Lang is a researcher and translator based at Monash University in Melbourne.
Table of Contents
Sang Yes Conversations with China
Geremie R. Barmé
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Words and Saliva
Sang Ye
Chairman Maos Ark
1. A Hero for the Times: A Winner in the Economic Reforms
2. Chairman Maos Ark: One of the Floating Population
3. The Nondissident: A Party Man Betrayed
4. The Union Rep: A Worker against the Party
5. The Peoples Deputy: A Congresswoman
Moonwalking
6. Looking Ahead: The Founders of a Private Orphanage
7. Getting Organized: The Parents of a Stolen Child
8. Shine: A Child Prodigy
9. Moonwalking: A Differently Abled Young Woman
Unlevel Playing Field
10. Consuming Habits: On the Flood of Fakes
11. Fringe-Dwellers: A Nonofficial Artist
12. The Computer Bug: The Software Pirate
13. Unlevel Playing Field: Confessions of an Elite Athlete
Heavens Narrow Gate
14. A Life of Sex: Dr Sex
15. Time as Money: A Shenzhen Hooker
16. Little Sweetie: A Thoroughly Modern Mistress
17. Heavens Narrow Gate: Christians Who Overcame
Mastering New China
18. An Army on the March: The PLA Means Business
19. Generating Income: The Reeducation of an English Professor
20. To the New World: Passport Protection
21. Mastering New China: A Capitalist with the Partys Characteristics
22. Down to Earth: Reflections of a Former Red Guard
23. Just One Party: A Challenge from the Grass Roots Parting Shot
24. Beam Me Up: The UFOlogist
25. Parting Shot: A Beijing Executioner
26. Days in the Life of the Peoples Republic
List of Translators
Index