Review of "Socialism is Great!" - A Worker’s Memoir of the New China

This review originally appeared in Time Out Beijing, Summer 2008, p 66

Lijia Zhang

Atlas & Co

While bookshop shelves are heavy with tales of woe from China's Cultural Revolution, for many readers the tumultuous early years of 'opening-up' remain a blank. Stepping into the breach, Lijia Zhang's "Socialism Is Great!" provides a lively account of love, sex and intellectual ferment growing up in Nanjing during the 1980s.

At 16 an unsuspecting Zhang is suddenly pulled from school by her mother and thrust into the cold world of a state-owned missile factory. There she finds her every material need met, but her life closely monitored and choices severely circumscribed. When economic reforms begin to shake up the nation, Zhang grabs every opportunity to escape her cloistered existence.

In the process she grows from a naive, dreamy adolescent, to an intellectually outspoken and sexually adventurous young woman. What makes her tale so absorbing is the interaction between her personal journey and the tale's backdrop – a China balanced between its stark Maoist past and a hopeful but uncertain future. In short, the author’s maturing reflects the transformation of the PRC between 1980 and 1989.

Zhang does manage to transcend the world she’s born into – the book's publication is proof of that – but her struggle reflects both the achievements and disappointments of her generation. This isn't a dour tale of suffering though. The author tumbles through the turbulent period with energy, humour and spirited determination. And her vivid evocation of the era's hopes and ideals is a timely reminder that the early years of reform were about a lot more than just making money.