PRIVATE REVOLUTIONS

The stories of four women who came of age during China’s economic boom.

When Yang, a columnist and Europe-China correspondent for the Financial Times, returned to her native China, she met other professionals who, like her, had been “left behind.” While their parents sought opportunities in the factories and cities, fueling the country’s opening to global manufacturing and trade contracts, these children were often raised by their grandparents and other relatives in rural villages. The author follows four women—Siyue, Leiya, Sam, and June—through their adolescence and early adulthood, delineating their experiences during China’s drastic transition to authoritarian capitalism. While their economic roots, family dynamics, and professional prospects vary, these four exemplify the country’s rapid, almost whiplash-inducing, change over the last two decades. Yang attends primarily to the individual dreams, relationships, and trajectories of these four women, but as their paths intersect with economic trends and political movements—from the trajectory of China’s stock market to modern Marxist activism—the author includes relevant commentary that grants fuller context to global headlines. Her treatment of a variety of relevant topics—oppressive labor conditions, the high stakes and competitive market around education, the lasting implications of the one-child policy, and government surveillance—is embedded in the roles her characters play as daughters, students, mothers, workers, and romantic partners. The overlap of the four women’s stories and their individual wrestling with the challenges presented by their country demystifies the too-easy narrative of China as a behemoth set on a linear path to superpower. Through these interlocking biographical sketches, Yang offers a fresh interpretation of the ongoing nature of China’s many upheavals, the actual effects of its oft-discussed policies, the cost of its meteoric economic growth, and the role a new generation of women is poised to play.

A highly revealing, human-centered cultural inquiry.