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modernity' (p.10) and is a very good read: in places, simply riveting.
The Introduction sets the style and the content (and quality) one can expect (and get), from the whole book of 371 pages. The chapters are devoted to different aspects of China's modernisation, as seen through the eyes of persons from many levels of society. We see them benefiting, or in many cases suffering, from rapid urban and economic change, in Beijing (especially fast-tracked owing to the coming 2008 Olympics), Shanghai, and in the countryside. We visit West China, and listen to those affected by the immense scale of the Three Gorges Dam. Tibet and Taiwan are also on the menu. There is a chilling and most compelling chapter on "subversion," including an enlightening account of Falun Gong. Interspersed, are fascinating chapters on the writer's family background in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and on her own life in the Colony, from birth until she left to study journalism in Australia in 1981. There are final chapters on the social upheavals caused by the ongoing shift away from state capitalism, and on the new-style problems affecting China's progress towards becoming a developed nation.
Many topics come alive through the wide range of personal stories resulting from the author's oft demonstrated ability to create and utilise opportunities for meaningful discourse in a country where this is, quite clearly, far from being an easy task; whilst her frank and engaging descriptions of how she circumvented difficulties that would have stymied less determined mortals, is itself a valuable commentary on China's bureaucracy and the relationship of government and people.
The book's popular style is deceptive, because a relentlessly probing approach makes this essentially a serious book, in which the author describes, graphically and convincingly, how China finds herself at present, with all her attendant problems and difficulties. Despite being able to reveal much that is still wrong, and harmful to the nation's progress, she is essentially optimistic in her Epilogue, emphasizing how far China has come in the last decade, and advising her readers that 'China isn't going to collapse' though in need of greater transparency, especially in the financial sector.
We are left pondering how China's rulers are going to cope with a runaway situation. For this reviewer, the author's experiences whether