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She shares with us the pitfalls of trying to arrange meetings and keep in contact in a city that is constantly shifting and based on an undercurrent of lies. You will find surprising vignettes of the sort only an excellent writer could pick out of the chaos of Dongguan.
Her similes and other traditional tools of spicing up writing often struggle to compete with the sheer novelty of reality in modern China. Every page is a new adventure (except for the indulgent family history).
It's astonishing how long Leslie Chang spent in smoggy, grimy industrial China-- an assignment that would drive away even a hardened American reporter. You won't be able to find stories like these recorded anywhere else-- not in English, and given the state of PRC journalism, most likely not in Chinese either.I urge you to open this book to any page and start reading.
This book is a must buy at any price. Rather than driving through, scooping up a story and hurrying away, Chang developed intimate friendships with not one but many factory workers.
She follows along for six stressful years as her friend Chunming lifts herself off the street and becomes a self-made woman, and as another friend Min brings a taste of modern society to her parents' rural home.
The book is as exciting as a novel, but the people are real.My advice for anybody who's about to visit China: read books like this to open your eyes, to be able to see for yourself. Everybody knows that the Chinese are poor; therefore they work for less money; and therefore factories are closing in all Western countries and reopening in China.What most people don't know is how China is different from other low-income countries. It's easy to think they are only driven by money (as one reviewer wrote), but as so many things in life, it is much more complicated. If you go to China with prejudices, you'll come back no smarter. There is a complicated culture and specific Chinese mentality which are now meshed up with the rapidly expanding economy. The result is unique in human history and this book tells the story from first-person perspective of young women (even young girls) who have to grow up in this huge economic machine.I was much reminded by the Chinese people which I have met myself in China and abroad.
I admire her ability to get them to talk candidly about their lives, a lot of which I think has to do with her being Chinese American and also being a woman whom they simultaneously admired (for being American and a successful professional) and could identify with (as a Chinese woman). I would highly recommend this for anyone who wants to learn more about the real China. Having grown up in China, I have often thought that I pretty much know all there is to know about the rural-urban divide and the challenges facing young Chinese my age (in their twenties) who are seeking to create new lives for themselves. In addition, I think Chang's family story fits in very well with the narrative of these women leaving their villages to go to the factories and brings a greater perspective to the book. Read more about the book (and some excerpts as well as links to an interview with Chang) on my blog here: http://gossamerdaydreams.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/factory-girls-from-village-to-city-in-a-changing-china-by-leslie-chang/ This book revealed so much more to me. Leslie Chang's dedication to her subject is touching; she followed the lives of three girls for three years, staying in contact with them despite all the challenges of lost cell phones and changing jobs.
Paperback for $10.88 and Kindle edition for $12.57.Have we had too much party cheer, Amazon. Hello.
I found these parts to be the most touching in the book, and somehow this completely different journey within a journey works well.Definitely read the book. The author is no longer just telling what she sees, but sharing with you the feelings she discovers. There is a clear shift in attitude from reporting to searching.
Chang does a fantastic job of telling several stories at once, and bouncing back and forth between time and place. This is a book to make you think about who made all that stuff sitting in your house. Finally, a thought provoking book on China - without a bunch of statistics to wade through.
Most importantly, this book humanizes the political dialogue you so often get bombarded with.For me, the most beautiful part of this book occurs when Chang writes about her family. You'll meet my friend Ben, and you'll get to see what an intelligent and thoughtful writer my friend Leslie is. (I did get lost a couple of times, but that's probably more due to juggling the book between flights and meetings, than the author's abilities).This is a book about the new model worker.
This is a book to understand their dreams and aspirations.
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