Age of Ambition (58 page)

Lu Xun wrote of hope in his short story “Gu Xiang” (My Old Home), first published in January 1921.

The comparison to Britain, which appears in “Urban World: Cities and the Rise of the Consuming Class,” produced by McKinsey Global Institute in 2012, was based on research by Angus Maddison, University of Groningen.

I am grateful to Arthur Kroeber, managing director of GaveKal-Dragonomics, for his help in refining the comparisons of income before reform and after the advent of reform. The income comparison is from the World Bank data for China's GNI per capita, Atlas method (US$).

For a sample of China impressions in another age, see George Paloczi Horvath,
Mao Tse-tung: Emperor of the Blue Ants
(London: Secker and Warburg, 1962).

For background on the Gilded Age, see Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner,
The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-day
(Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, 1874); Richard White,
Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America
(New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2011); and Bill Bryson.
At Home: A Short History of Private Life
(New York: Random House, 2010).

1. UNFETTERED

I am thankful to Lin Yifu (né Lin Zhengyi) for sharing his story and his writings with me over many interviews. In addition I relied on official documents about his defection produced by the Ministry of Defense in Taiwan, including the
Diaochao Baogao
of May 20, 2009, and
Jiuzheng'an Wen
of November 26, 2002. Other useful background and detail were contained in Zheng Dongyang,
Lin Yifu: Diedang Renshenglu
(Zhejiang: Zhejiang Renmin Chubanshe, 2010).

I am indebted to Lin Yi-chung, the author and local historian who offered to show me Quemoy and shared his books and recollections about island life during the Cold War.

For a vivid history of Quemoy's role in the conflict between Taiwan and mainland China, see Michael Szonyi,
Cold War Island: Quemoy on the Front Line
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Michael Shaplen, “Letter from Taiwan,”
The New Yorker
, June 13, 1977, p. 72; and Richard James Aldrich, Gary D. Rawnsley, and Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley,
The Clandestine Cold War in Asia, 1945–65: Westrern Intelligence, Propaganda and Special Operations
(New York: Routledge, 2000).

For background on the relationship between senior leaders at the advent of reform, see Barry Naughton, “Deng Xiaoping: The Economist,”
China Quarterly
135,
Special Issue: Deng Xiaoping: An Assessment
(Sept. 1993): 491–514; Jonathan Spence,
The Search for Modern China
(New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1990); Zhao Ziyang,
Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009); and Kate Xiao Zhou,
How the Farmers Changed China: Power of the People
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996).

2. THE CALL

For a narrative history of the demonstrations at Tiananmen Square, see Orville Schell,
Mandate of Heaven: In China, a New Generation of Entrepreneurs, Dissidents, Bohemians, and Technocrats Grasps for Its Country's Power
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994).

The relationship between the rise of the Internet and the growth of nationalism is the subject of Xu Wu,
Chinese Cyber Nationalism: Evolution, Characteristics, and Implications
(Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007); and Peter Hays Gries,
China's New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004).

For background on the rise of consumer culture, leisure, and choice, I relied most on Yan's
The Individualization of Chinese Society
, and on Deborah S. Davis,
The Consumer Revolution in Urban China
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); Pál Nyíri,
Mobility and Cultural Authority in Contemporary China
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010); and Li Zhang,
In Search of Paradise: Middle-Class Living in a Chinese Metropolis
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012).

For statistics and analysis of the scale and pace of Chinese growth, I relied on
The Economist
and
The New York Times.
For information about the Party's “Educational Campaign,” I relied most on Anne-Marie Brady,
China's Thought Management
(New York: Routledge, 2012).

Chen Guangcheng generously agreed to discuss his childhood and the influences on his thinking. Parts of my visit to his village were described in the
Chicago Tribune
in 2005. For background and other details on his life, I relied on several news accounts, including Zhang Yaojie, “Chen Guangcheng and Wen Jiaobo: Power vs. Human Rights,”
China Rights Forum
3 (2006), 35–39.

I gained valuable insights into the origins of Internet control, the Great Firewall, and the case of Shi Tao from Rebecca MacKinnon,
Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom
(New York: Basic Books, 2012); and Yang Guobin,
The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2013).

Zha Jianying's impressions of Beijing are in her book
China Pop: How Soap Operas, Tabloids, and Bestsellers Are Transforming a Culture
(New York: New Press, 2011). For the history of the city, I turned most often to Geremie Barmé,
The Forbidden City
(London: Profile Books, 2008); and Jasper Becker,
City of Heavenly Tranquility: Beijing in the History of China
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).

For background on the history and perceptions of time in China, I relied on Colin A. Ronan,
The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China: An Abridgement of Joseph Needham's Original Text,
volume 4 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994); and Wu Hung “The Hong Kong Clock: Public Time-Telling and Political Time/Space,”
Public Culture
9 (1997): 329–54.

3. BAPTIZED IN CIVILIZATION

The experience of Taiwanese defectors, including Huang Zhi-cheng, is described in Linda Jaivin,
The Monkey and the Dragon: A True Story About Friendship, Music, Politics and Life on the Edge
(Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2000).

University reactions to Lin Yifu's applications are described in “Lin Yifu zeng xiang du Zhongguo renmin daxue yin ‘lai li bu ming' bei ju,”
Huanqiu Renwu Zhoukan
, April 14, 2012.

For discussions of individuality; interdependence in Chinese culture, law, and history; and the origins of “Thought Reform,” see Geremie Barmé and Linda Jaivin,
New Ghosts, Old Dreams: Chinese Rebel Voices
(New York: Times Books, 1992); Mette Halskov Hansen and Rune Svarverud, eds.,
iChina: The Rise of the Individual in Modern Chinese Society
, book 45 (Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2010); Gish Jen,
Tiger Writing: Art, Culture, and the Interdependent Self
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013); Richard Nisbett,
The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently … and Why
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010); Pál Nyíri,
Mobility and Cultural Authority in Contemporary China
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010); and Orville Schell and John Delury,
Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-First Century
(New York: Random House, 2013).

I benefitted from the help of the writer and translator Joel Martinsen for sharing his conclusions about the Lei Feng phenomenon. His writings on the subject include “A Lei Feng Two-fer,” at
www.danwei.org/trends_and_buzz/a_lei_feng_twofer.php
.

The interview with the doctor who was exiled to the western desert during the Cultural Revolution was conducted by Arthur Kleinman, psychiatrist, anthropologist, and China scholar for Arthur Kleinman, Yunxiang Yan, Everett Zhang, Jing Jun, and Sing Lee, eds.,
Deep China: The Moral Life of the Person
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011). I am indebted to Dr. Kleinman for discussing these issues with me and for alerting me to the work of his peers and former students.

For information on the language around the self and the advent of individual autonomy, I relied on
Deep China
, especially the chapter entitled “From Commodity of Death to Gift of Life,” by Jing Jun. In addition, I consulted Tamara Jacka,
Rural Women in Urban China: Gender, Migration, and Social Change
(Armonk, NY, and London: M.E. Sharpe, 2006); and Mette Halskov Hansen, “Learning Individualism: Hesse, Confucius, and Pep-Rallies in a Chinese Rural High School,”
China Quarterly
213 (March 2013): 60–77.

For the political history of love in China, I consulted Yan,
Private Life Under Socialism
and
Deep China
; as well as Fred Rothbaum and Bill Yuk-Piu Tsang, “Lovesongs in the United States and China: On the Nature of Romantic Love,”
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
29, no. 2 (March 1998): 306–19; and Haiyan Lee,
Revolution of the Heart: A Genealogy of Love in China, 1900–1950
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010).

I also benefited from Gong Haiyan's book
Ai de Hao, Shang Bu Liao
(Beijing: Beifang Funv Ertong Chubanshe, 2011).

4. APPETITES OF THE MIND

I am indebted to Gong Haiyan for sharing her story with me and allowing me to visit her at work over the years.

For background on consumption habits and advertising, see Tom Doctoroff,
What Chinese Want: Culture, Communism, and the Modern Chinese Consumer
(New York: Macmillan, 2012); and Cheng Li, ed.,
China's Emerging Middle Class: Beyond Economic Transformation
(Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press, 2010).

The history of translating the word
mortgage
and the scale of price increases are relayed in Jamil Anderlini, “Chinese Property: A Lofty Ceiling”
Financial Times
, December 13, 2011.

The effect on housing is analyzed in Shang-Jin Wei and Xiaobo Zhang, “The Competitive Saving Motive: Evidence from Rising Sex Ratios and Savings Rates in China,” in NBER Working Paper no. 15093 (June 2009).

5. NO LONGER A SLAVE

I am grateful to Michael Zhang for sharing his writings with me.

For discussion of the language surrounding class struggle and the middle class, I relied on Li,
China's Emerging Middle Class
, as well as Xing Lu, “An Ideological/Cultural Analysis of Political Slogans in Communist China,”
Discourse Society
10 (1999): 487; and Andrew Scobell and Larry Wortzel,
Civil-Military Change in China: Elites, Institutes, and Ideas After the 16th Party Congress
(Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2004), pp. 258 and 275n5. Chris Fraser, of the University of Hong Kong, helped me understand Mencius, and Cheng Li helped me understand what today's Party leaders make of Mencius.

For a discussion of equality in China compared to other socialist states, the advent of the New Middle-Income Stratum, the Party in Power, the Museum of Revolutionary History, and the
bubozu
, see David S. G. Goodman,
The New Rich in China: Future Rulers, Present Lives
(New York: Routledge, 2008); Anne-Marie Brady,
Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China
(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), p. 57; and Jing Wang, “Bourgeois Bohemians in China? Neo-Tribes and the Urban Imaginary,”
China Quarterly
183 (September 2005): 10–27.

Paul Fussell's
Class
is available in Chinese as “
Shenghuo Pinwei: Shehui Dengji de Zuihou Chulu
,” June 1998.

The anonymous essay on archetypes of the middle class is entitled “Bailing Yunluo, Heiling Shengqi.” It is available at
http://forum.iask.ca/archive/index.php/t-266552.html
.

He Zhaofa's manifesto is published in “Zhongguo de Xiandaihua Xuyao Shijian Shehuixue—Fang Shehui Xue Jia, Zhongshan Daxue Jiaoshou He Zhaofa,”
Shehui Magazine
, no. 6 (1994).

The success of
Harvard Girl
is analyzed in Andrew Kipnis, “Suzhi: A Keyword Approach,”
China Quarterly
186 (June 2006): 295–313.

For the history of English in China, see Bob Adamson,
China's English: A History of English in Chinese Education
(Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004).

6. CUTTHROAT

The artist Cai Guo-qiang has interviewed a number of Peasant da Vincis, and he showcased a selection of their inventions in a 2010 exhibition at the Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai. The interviews I've included are drawn from his exhibition catalogue, Cai Guo-Qiang,
Peasant Da Vincis
.

For background on Wang Guiping, the self-taught chemist, and the judgment in his trial, see “Jiangsu Sheng Taizhou Shi Renmin Jianchayuan Su Wang Guiping Yi Weixian Fangfa Weihai Gonggong Anquan, Xiaoshou Weilie Chanpin, Xubao Zhuce Ziben An,” February 20, 2010. Among the Chinese press accounts that were valuable is Wang Kai, “Qi Er Zaojia Zhe Wang Guiping: Daizou Jiu Tiao Renming de Xiangcun ‘Maoxian Jia,'”
Sanlian Shenghuo Zhoukan
, June 2, 2006.

I am grateful to the Hong Kong High Court Registry for approving my request for a transcript of the trial surrounding the plot to murder Wong Kam-ming and the effort to extort Siu Yun Ping. As I prepared my request, I received assistance from Simon N. M. Young, director of the Centre for Comparative and Public Law at the University of Hong Kong. I interviewed Siu Yun Ping at his construction site in 2011. I first learned of Inveterate Gambler Ping from a Reuters article published in March 2010 in collaboration with Matt Isaacs, of the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley. Isaacs generously provided further information about the case.