"Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New China [Paperback]

Lijia Zhang (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 2009

With a great charm and spirit, “Socialism Is Great!” recounts Lijia Zhang's rebellious journey from disillusioned factory worker to organizer in support of the Tiananmen Square demonstrators, to eventually become the writer and journalist she always determined to be. Her memoir is like a brilliant miniature illuminating the sweeping historical forces at work in China after the Cultural Revolution as the country moved from one of stark repression to a vibrant, capitalist economy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

With a New Afterword

“A sharply observant and admirably crafted memoir. . . . A truly original contribution to our understanding of modern China.”
—Jonathan D. Spence

“A literary gem. . . . Zhang deftly crafts the journey of a whole generation, desperately yearning to break away from the ropes of tradition and living to dream the impossible. It's a book to relish, a volume to cherish and mostly, a life to celebrate.”
—Da Chen, author of Colors of the Mountain

“A beautiful memoir. . . . Our current China literature is heavy with victim memoirs, but this is a true tale of aspiration: a young woman coming of age in a nation desperately trying to do the same.”
—Peter Hessler, Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker and author of River Town

“Beautiful.... A remarkable memoir.... A notable historical document and a vivid, affecting portrait of a young woman's resolve.”
—Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Lijia Zhang was born and raised in Nanjing. Her articles have appeared in many international publications, including South China Morning Post, Japan Times, the Independent (London), Washington Times, and Newsweek. She is a regular speaker on BBC Radio and NPR. She now lives in Beijing with her two daughters.

www.lijiazhang.com

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (May 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307472191
• ISBN-13: 978-0307472199
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #738,988 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timely, Informative, and Beautifully Crafted Story in post Mao China, July 5, 2008

By 

Julius Perl (Boston) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: "Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New China (Hardcover)

I have met Lijia Zhang by a chance encounter as we shared the same row seat on a recent trans Pacific flight. At the onset of our casual conversation, I was impressed by her command of the English language, quite uncharacteristic of a native Chinese. I naively asked, "where did you learn to speak such good English?" She modestly replied that she is a writer, just having returned from a US book tour promoting her newly released "Socialism is Great!" and proudly handed me a fresh copy. Then, for the next 12 hours I was practically glued to the book, discovering the answer to my original question, and learning much more...

"Socialism is Great!" is an autobiography spanning a 10 year period of Ms Zhang's young adult life centering in China's ancient capital of Nanjing. On a surface level, it is a story about Lijia, a free spirited young woman coming of age. The book's plot skillfully meanders around both her home life, dominated by a strong mother, and her work place, a munitions factory, whose 'danwei' system keeps her shackled to a monotonous job while denying her the higher education which she desperately seeks. Lijia's heart is fragile, first broken by a handsome young intellectual called Red Rock, and then hurt once more by an older married man. In disillusionment, she spirals down to a series of loveless affairs and one night stands. Unlike her heart, Lijia has a tough skin, and against all obstacles she single-mindedly pursues a dream to better her education, to study and perfect her English (she even hides to study in the factory's garbage dump - the only place to provide her privacy), so she can free herself of her factory confinement and become a journalist.

On another, and more significant level, the book's plot unravels against a backdrop that vividly portrays the dawn days of modern China, a post Mao Zedong's era of the 1980's, in a period when the tornado of the Cultural Revolution has dissipated, yet its dust has not quite settled. This is a time of great change, as the Communist system shifts toward market economy. Individuals become entrepreneurial, while government controlled factories find creative ways of competing in a free market. (In an ironical example, Lijia's munitions factory produces a huge bronze statue of Buddha). Many shed their old garbs to mimic Western styles and anything American (as does Lijia to her old cadres' displeasure). Others are out rightly challenging the limits of the new government.

The book kept me captivated as I was anxious to learn at every step how the bravely tenacious young woman was going to 'make it' out of the factory. Every page is sprinkled with colorful metaphors, perhaps influenced by ancient Chinese proverbs. The author's mastery of the English prose brings to mind another non-native English writer from another century - Joseph Conrad. I find the book to be quite informative and recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about Chinese history and its culture.

When finished reading the book, I felt as though an epilogue would be useful to explain what happened to Lijia personally after she left the factory. I also wished she provided her commentary on China's progress today, which certainly is influenced by the policies of the 80's. Or perhaps the author will produce a sequel book to deal with the subject. I certainly would want to read it.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ONWARDS AND UPWARDS, September 15, 2009

By 

DAVID BRYSON (Glossop Derbyshire England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: "Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New China (Paperback)

It was on 13 June 2009, while hiking on the Great Wall above the hamlet of Sancha near Huairou north of Beijing, that I met Lijia Zhang. She introduced herself as `Lijia author of Socialism Is Great', and that is how I come to have heard of and read this book.

It is a very readable and interesting piece of autobiography, and its readability is largely down to the author's command of English. Normally when `perfect English' is attributed to someone whose first language is not English, there is an implication that we would still know that. Not here. If I had read Socialism Is Great knowing nothing of the author's background I could have believed that she was (somehow) a born Anglophone. In fact she had to struggle, against parental and official opposition, to learn the language, and her success in the matter suggests to me a completely exceptional talent, one she perhaps does not fully recognise in herself.

How the book's title relates to the rest of its content is quite an interesting question. The narrative starts in her impoverished family home in Nanjing, and develops through her unfulfilling early experiences as a factory worker. Obviously this is socialism Chinese-style in action, but although Lijia has plenty to say about that I would not say that her angle on it is mainly political. It's more about the inner struggles of an independent-minded spirit confined in a culture of conformity and conservatism. Towards the end of the book we come to the really political bit, but it is brief, it reads almost like a postscript, and it is tantalisingly incomplete. In 1989 Lijia led a demonstration in Nanjing in support of the rebellion in Beijing's Tienanmen Square in that year. We all know the basic story - the central government panicked and instituted a witch-hunt throughout the nation to nail sympathisers with the protests. Lijia was hauled in front of an interrogation panel, and the way she tells it at one moment she was being grilled intensively, and then with one bound she was free, or you might think so. The narrative moves on suddenly to her departure from Nanjing with her husband-to-be, a Scottish student at Oxford, and I wonder what happened in between.

What a lot of the book is about is the not particularly political issue of a young woman's early initiation into men, love and sex, and the particularly sharp series of lessons she got in the fact that the second and third of those items do not always move in lockstep with each other. Whether it is the story itself, or the way it is told, or both, I found this tale far more interesting than I normally find such stuff. It all seems completely sincere, there is no real recrimination, and there is even some delightful humour - I loved the advertisements intended to attract suitors to unmarried and ageing virgins, such as ownership of or at least access to a flush toilet. I can well understand how the iron entered into her soul after her experiences, and I notice that her marriage has not lasted, although she gives no details and indeed thanks her former husband cordially for help with this book.

The last mention of socialism is a brief aside to the effect that the communist cage has become less cramped and oppressive. This seems to be true particularly in sexual respects, that particular culture in the author's early years making the kind of presbyterian Catholicism I was brought up in seem like a public holiday in Gomorrah. I'm not really sure, and I don't greatly care, how well the book's title describes what the book turns out to be about. It all hangs together exceptionally well, it has an air of honesty and authenticity about it, and one question that Lijia did resolve for me was how she can get away with such candour - it reads as if she is no longer a citizen of the People's Republic, although she lives in Beijing these days. When I bade her farewell at Sancha on 15 June I had not really thought of reading her book, but somehow the idea grew on me, and I think I made the right life choice at least to that extent.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Socialism is Great!: A Worker's Memoir of the New China, May 3, 2008

By 

Timothy A. Patterson "Split Second Timing" (Denver, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: "Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New China (Hardcover)

Zhang Lizia tells a "coming of age" story in 1980's Nanjing, China. Her story traces in intimate detail the agony of being pulled out of school at age 16 by her mother in order to work in a intellectually stultifying and demoralizing missile factory - theoretically for life. Unable to accept this fate, Lizia dreams one day of becoming a journalist, attaining a proper University education, and breaking free of the shackles of mind-numbing socialist repression. The working title of the book was "Frog in a Well," signifying the depth of despair of walls closing in on her, without any obvious way out. After ten years of setbacks and more setbacks, Lizia was able to teach herself English by countless hours of self and group study and reading English novels like "Jane Eyre" behind the pages of the Communist "People's Daily" newspaper as co-workers laughed and mocked her. Fighting to maintain her integrity and desire for self-expression at all costs, Lizia's story is a living testament that the human condition which dares to dream cannot be denied, even in a country that stresses collective thinking only. Writing in her self taught non-native language, her style is emotional, beautiful, sad, and humorous, all in one. The book focuses mostly on her personal life - family, friends, lovers, and the beautiful "old" Nanjing, and less on politics as described in countless other memoirs of post Cultural Revolution families. Lizia writes with grace and determination and concludes the story risking her future by standing up to the authorities as she leads factory workers in demonstrations supporting the Beijing democracy movement of 1989. This book is not to be missed - you will laugh and cry at each turn of the page.