Beyond these few, there were countless others who invited me into their homes, sat and talked with me, ate, drank, tolerated the occasional awkwardness of having a conspicuous outsider hanging around, and willingly showed me their world. I would not have been so driven to write this book were it not for those kindnesses. I really can’t stress that part enough.
On the writing side of things, this book would not have been possible without Gerald Sindell, who helped me be a real writer. From ideation to character development to cultural translation, your eyes and ideas helped get me to the end. Thank you to Elizabeth Kaplan, who took a chance on an enthusiastic twenty-four-year-old with some ideas and no experience. Thank you to Elisabeth Dyssegaard and the kind folks at St. Martin’s Press for taking that chance as well, and for being both patient and critical. Thank you to Laura Apperson as well for your consistent support.
Thank you to my surrogate Chinese family: Chungliang Al Huang, for giving me a name and a start in mainland China, and Godfather Phillip, for giving me the feeling of home and a start in Hong Kong. Thank you to my godfather Jayme for the love and challenging visions of the future.
I also want to thank Eli, Jon, Daria, and Ile for your consistent support and friendship. I know I don’t always make it easy. Thank you as well to the team at Chengdu Living as well as Koko and the team at SinoStage. Milly, Neri, Paddy, Riley, Sam, Steve, Jonny, Rox, Davey, and Ariel, thank you for your friendship and curiosity in Hong Kong. Conor, I hope this book honors your spirit of exploration and bridge-building.
There were people who visited at different points to offer me guidance: a very special thank-you to Chip Baird, John Zweig, Jim Elms, Amory Lovins, Robert Dilenschneider, and Joan Avagliano. A special thank you to Robert Dilenschneider for seeing potential in me and giving me both a landing pad and a platform back in the States to begin to bridge the gap between the U.S. and China.
Thank you to Matthew, Jessica, and the Upchurch family for your generous spirits and exciting visions of what could be.
I was very lucky to have excellent teachers and professors who introduced me to China, books, and writing. Thank you to Professor Montas and Professor Awn for your guidance and support far beyond the call of a normal Columbia professor. Professor Lydia Liu, thank you for introducing me to the wonders of modern Chinese literature. Thank you to Mrs. Maguire, Mrs. Long, Mrs. Kilmartin, Mr. Simmons, and other teachers who taught me to love communicating and books. Thank you to Anne Randolph for encouraging me to write, write, write.
Jackson and Bill, thank you for being proof that foreigners can learn ice cold Chinese, and for being role models, even if you weren’t aware.
I need to also extend a large thank you and hug to the whole Smith family: Nick and Aaron for tolerating and encouraging me; June, Brian Bene, Jake, Lexie, Andy, Sean, Scotty, and Charlie. You’ve all offered support, encouragement, and invaluable friendship when writing a book felt too big.
Thank you to that one Visa agent, Agent Guo, who chose not to throw me out of the country that one time. You didn’t have to do that.
Notes
1. Organ-Stealing Prostitutes
1. Hurun Report—Global Rich List 2017, Hurun Report, Inc., March 7, 2017, up.hurun.net/Hufiles/201701/201703/20170327091656648.docx; Central Intelligence Agency, “Country Comparison: Distribution of Family Income—Gini Index,” The World Factbook, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2172rank.html.
2. Min Ding and Jie Xu, “The Generations,” chap. 2 in The Chinese Way (New York: Routledge, 2015), https://books.google.com/books?id=qI09BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA133&lpg=PA133&dq=chinese+generation+born+after+%2750&source=bl&ots=OA5H7vxRYt&sig=qf5eUixSEQIByukx2fvd4tMbDnY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDouD7iPXUAhXDYVAKHQwzChAQ6AEINzAD#v=onepage&q=chinese%20generation%20born%20after%20%2750&f=false.
3. Peter Simpson, “China’s Urban Population Exceeds Rural for First Time Ever,” The Telegraph (UK). January 17, 2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9020486/Chinas-urban-population-exceeds-rural-for-first-time-ever.html; “Services, etc., Value Added (% of GDP), 1960–2016,” The World Bank: Data, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.SRV.TETC.ZS?locations=CN.
4. “Transformation of the Refrigerator Market in China,” United Nations report, Case Studies of Market Transformation: Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/publications/energy_casestudies/section1.pdf.
5. “Urban Population (% of Total), 1960–2016,” The World Bank: Data, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS?locations=CN.
6. Roderic Broadhurst et al., Business and the Risk of Crime in China, Asian Studies Monograph Series 3 (Canberra: Australian National University E Press, 2011).
7. Farhad Manjoo, “The Unrecognizable Internet of 1996,” Slate, February 24, 2009, http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2009/02/jurassic_web.html.
8. Nicholas D. Kristof, “Unmasking Horror—A Special Report,” The New York Times, March 17, 1995, http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/17/world/unmasking-horror-a-special-report-japan-confronting-gruesome-war-atrocity.html?pagewanted=all.
9. “What the World Eats,” National Geographic, http://www.nationalgeographic.com/what-the-world-eats/.
10. Xiang Li, Chinese Outbound Tourism 2.0 (Oakville, ON: Apple Academic Press, 2016), 366.
11. Eric Olander and Cobus Von Staden, “South Africa Tourism in Crisis as Chinese Reject New Visa Regulations,” China in Africa Podcast (podcast), June 20, 2015, http://chinaafrica-podcast.com/south-africa-tourism-in-crisis-as-chinese-reject-new-visa-regulations.
12. Rajeshni Naidu-Ghelani, “World’s 10 Largest Auto Markets,” CNBC.com, February 03, 2012, http://www.cnbc.com/2011/09/12/Worlds-10-Largest-Auto-Markets.html?slide=11.
13. Po Hou and Roger Chung, New Era of China’s Film Industry, Deloitte Perspective, https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/cn/Documents/about-deloitte/dttp/deloitte-cn-dttp-vol5-chapter5-en.pdf.
14. David Moser, A Billion Voices: China’s Search for a Common Language (ebook, Penguin Books China, 2016).
15. Jeffrey Hayes, “Trains in China: History, Train Life, New Lines, and Great Leap Culture,” Facts and Details, April 2012, http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat13/sub86/item315.html; “China Has Built the World’s Largest Bullet-Train Network,” The Economist, January 13, 2017, https://www.economist.com/news/china/21714383-and-theres-lot-more-come-it-waste-money-china-has-built-worlds-largest.
16. “Chinese Writing,” Asia Society, http://asiasociety.org/china-learning-initiatives/chinese-writing.
17. Alberto Lucas Lopez, “INFOGRAPHIC: A World of Languages—and How Many Speak Them,” South China Morning Post, November 25, 2015, http://www.scmp.com/infographics/article/1810040/infographic-world-languages.
2. Bella and the Books
1. Yojana Sharma, “What Do You Do With Millions of Extra Graduates?” BBC News, July 1, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28062071; Li Lixu, “China’s Higher Education Reform 1998–2003: A Summary,” Asia Pacific Educ. Rev. (2004) 5: 14.
2. George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Broadway, 2011).
3. Uneasy Lies the Head That Wears the Crown
1. Wang Feng, Baochang Gu, and Yong Cai, “The End of China’s One-Child Policy,” Studies in Family Planning 47, no. 1 (2016): 83–86. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4465.2016.00052.x.
2. Y. Xu, W. Zhang, R. Yang, C. Zou, and Z. Zhao, “Infant Mortality and Life Expectancy in China,” Medical Science Monitor: International Medical Journal of Experimental and Clinical Research 20 (2014): 379–385.
3. “China Infant Mortality Rate,” China Infant Mortality Rate—Demographics, http://www.indexmundi.com/china/infant_mortality_rate.html.
4. Claire Groden, “New Study Blames Chinese Grandparents for Obese Kids,” Fortune.com, July 30, 2015, http://fortune.
com/2015/07/30/study-chinese-obese-youth/.
5. Laurie Burkitt, “As Obesity Rises, Chinese Kids Are Almost as Fat as Americans,” The Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2014, http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/29/as-obesity-rises-chinese-kids-are-almost-as-fat-as-americans/.
6. K. S. Babiarz, K. Eggleston, G. Miller, and Q. Zhang, “An Exploration of China’s Mortality Decline Under Mao: A Provincial Analysis, 1950–80,” Population Studies 69, no. 1 (2015): 39–56; “China Life Expectancy at Birth,” China Life Expectancy at Birth—Demographics, http://www.indexmundi.com/china/life_expectancy_at_birth.html.
7. Pew Research Center, “Aging in the U.S. and Other Countries, 2010 to 2050,” chap. 2 in Attitudes About Aging: A Global Perspective, January 30, 2014, http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/01/30/chapter-2-aging-in-the-u-s-and-other-countries-2010-to-2050/.
8. Rahul Jacob, “Drop in China’s Local Land Sales Poses Threat to Growth,” Financial Times, December 7, 2011, https://www.ft.com/content/710ea3da-1f14-11e1-ab49-00144feabdc0; Simon Rabinovitch, “Worries Grow as China’s Land Sales Slump,” Financial Times, January 5, 2012, https://www.ft.com/content/ef4fa68c-3773-11e1-a5e0-00144feabdc0.
9. Barry Naughton, The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), 170.
10. T. Falbo and D. L. Poston, “The Academic, Personality, and Physical Outcomes of Only Children in China,” Child Development 64 (1993): 18–35.
4. How to Eat Your Parents
1. Ben Wolford, “All That Schooling May Have Made You Nearsighted,” Medical Daily, June 29, 2014, http://www.medicaldaily.com/education-linked-nearsightedness-researchers-find-more-schooling-means-more-myopia-290574.
2. Hui Chen, 《从中西比较看 “啃老” 现象》[“Comparing the Parent Eater Phenomenon in the East and West”], RenMin Wang, April 23, 2012, http://theory.people.com.cn/GB/49154/49156/17720834.html.
3. Adam Davidson, “It’s Official: The Boomerang Kids Won’t Leave,” The New York Times, June 20, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/magazine/its-official-the-boomerang-kids-wont-leave.html.
4. Chen, “Comparing the Parent Eater Phenomenon in the East and West.”
5. Jordan Weissmann, “Why Do So Many Millennials Live with Their Parents? Two Theories: Marriage and Debt,” Slate, February 10, 2015, http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/02/10/millennials_living_with_parents_it_s_harder_to_explain_why_young_adults.html; Emily Dugan, “The Neet Generation: Why Young Britons Have Been Hardest Hit by the Economic Downturn,” Independent (UK), February 27, 2014, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-neet-generation-why-young-britons-have-been-hardest-hit-by-the-economic-downturn-9155640.html; Adam Davidson, “The Boomerang Kids Won’t Leave,” The New York Times Magazine, June 20, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/magazine/its-official-the-boomerang-kids-wont-leave.html?_r=0; Maria Arias and Yi Wen, “Recovery from the Great Recession Has Varied Around the World,” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, October 2015, https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/october-2015/recovery-from-the-great-recession-has-varied-around-the-world.
6. Xiaotong Fei, “家庭结构变动中的老年赡养问题： 再论中国家庭结构的变动” [Problems Arising from Changing Family Structure: Re-examining Chinese Family Structure Changes], Peking University Paper, 1983, vol. 3. Summary can be found at http://www.aisixiang.com/data/43595.html.
7. Qihui Gao, “Average Marriage Age for Shanghai Women Over 30,” Chinadaily.com.cn, February 28, 2013, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-02/28/content_16265274.htm.
8. Nielsen, “Nielsen: Innovative Marketing Needed to Connect with Post-90s Consumers,” press release, March 20, 2014, http://www.nielsen.com/cn/en/press-room/2014/nielsen-innovative-marketing-needed-to-connect-with-post-90s-consumers.html.
9. Ana Swanson, “How China Used More Cement in 3 Years Than the U.S. Did in the Entire 20th Century,” The Washington Post, March 24, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/24/how-china-used-more-cement-in-3-years-than-the-u-s-did-in-the-entire-20th-century/?utm_term=.149b3ef56a74.
10. “Population, China,” World Bank, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=CN.
11. Ian Johnson, “China’s Great Uprooting: Moving 250 Million Into Cities,” The New York Times, June 15, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/world/asia/chinas-great-uprooting-moving-250-million-into-cities.html?pagewanted=all.
12. Wade Shepard, “How People in China Afford Their Outrageously Expensive Homes,” Forbes, April 04, 2016, https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/03/30/how-people-in-china-afford-their-outrageously-expensive-homes/#7b5f37eea3ce.
13. Tianzhi Hu, “为什么中国人如此热衷买房子？” [“Why Are Chinese So Obsessed with Buying Apartments?”] Sohu, March 9, 2016, http://cul.sohu.com/20160309/n439876566.shtml.
14. Qin Shuo, “The Chinese Economy Is Being Held Hostage by Real Estate,” Sina Finance, trans. by author, March 7, 2016, http://finance.sina.com.cn/zl/china/2016-03-07/zl-ifxqaffy3682965.shtml.
15. Wade Shepard, “How People in China Afford Their Outrageously Expensive Homes,” Forbes, April 4, 2016, https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/03/30/how-people-in-china-afford-their-outrageously-expensive-homes/#3835a7bea3ce.
16. “Gross savings (% of GDP),” World Bank—Data, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNS.ICTR.ZS?locations=CN.
5. Sex for Fun
1. Yongbin Wang, Original text: 百善孝为先， 万恶淫为源 [Fireside Chats].
2. A. Taylor, “China’s Sexual Revolution Has Reached the Point of No Return,” Business Insider, August 31, 2012, http://www.businessinsider.com/the-incredible-story-of-chinas-sexual-revolution-2012-8 (accessed July 30, 2017).
3. Yinhe Li, 《中国女性的性与爱》 [Sexuality and Love of Chinese Women] (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1996).
4. “2015 Marriage Research Has Come Out, Female Doctoral Students Are Surprisingly Master Daters,” trans. by author, http://news.163.com/16/0114/07/BD99SFUU00014Q4P.html.
5. Richard Burger, Behind the Red Door: Sex in China (Hong Kong: Earnshaw Books, 2012), 17.
6. Lily Kuo, “China’s Latest Crackdown on Porn Has Little to Do with Porn,” Quartz Media, April 14, 2014, http://qz.com/198932/china-latest-crackdown-on-porn-has-little-to-do-with-porn/.
7. Dan Levin, “With Glut of Lonely Men, China Has an Approved Outlet for Unrequited Lust,” The New York Times, November 26, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/27/world/asia/with-glut-of-lonely-men-china-has-an-approved-outlet-for-unrequited-lust.html; Quanlin Qiu, “Sales of Adult Toys Soar on Hot Demand,” Chinadaily.com.cn, February 16, 2016, http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2016-02/16/content_23498213.htm (accessed July 29, 2017); Jie Jiang, “Sex Toy Industry Lacks Govt Oversight, Unsafe Products Infiltrate Market,” Global Times, November 26, 2015, http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/955132.shtml (accessed July 29, 2017).
8. Jing Liu, “30 Million Chinese Men to Be Wifeless Over the Next 30 Years,” Chinadaily.com.cn, February 13, 2017, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-02/13/content_28183839.htm.
9. Richard Burger, Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn, and Graham Earnshaw, “Sex in China,” Sinica Podcast (audio blog), May 8, 2013, http://popupchinese.com/lessons/sinica/sex-in-china.
6. A Leftover Woman
1. Leta Hong Fincher, Leftover Women (Zed Books, 2014), 3.
2. Josh Horwitz, “China Is Home to Two-thirds of the World’s Self-made Female Billionaires,” Quartz Media, October 20, 2015, http://qz.com/529508/china-is-home-to-two-thirds-of-the-worlds-self-made-female-billionaires/.
3. “Proportion of Seats Held by Women in National Parliaments (%),” World Bank—Data, http://data.worldbank.org/in
dicator/SG.GEN.PARL.ZS (accessed July 29, 2017).
4. Cheng Li, “Status of China’s Women Leaders on the Eve of 19th Party Congress,” Brookings Institution, April 27, 2017, https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/status-of-chinas-women-leaders-on-the-eve-of-19th-party-congress/.
5. Leta Hong Fincher, “Leftover Women—Gender Inequality in Contemporary China and Japan,” Lecture, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, October 2015.
6. “Males Outnumber Females by 34 Million in China,” Xinhua|English.news.cn, January 30, 2015, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/video/2015-01/30/c_133958783.htm (accessed July 30, 2017).
7. Fincher, Leftover Women, 15; original Chinese article found here: Xinhua News Agency, “For Late Marrying Women, Sooner Is Better Than Later,” November 18, 2008, trans. by author, http://news.xinhuanet.com/lady/2008-11/18/content_10375694.htm.
7. Double Eyelids for Double 11
1. Jacob Poushter, “Smartphone Ownership and Internet Usage Continues to Climb in Emerging Economies,” Global Attitudes Project, Pew Research Center, February 22, 2016, http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/02/22/smartphone-ownership-and-internet-usage-continues-to-climb-in-emerging-economies/.
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