Last September, I received a letter from the UK publisher of , asking if I would consider blurbing the novel. I was busy finishing work on my own book, , which was just a few months from publication. I intended to take a quick look at Lai Wen’s novel, but I was instantly pulled in and couldn’t put it down.
Lai Wen (a pseudonym) comes from my hometown, Beijing, which is also the setting of her novel, though we came of age in different political times: I was born in late 1950s; Lai and her main character were born in 1970s. My childhood was ruined by The Cultural Revolution, whereas their youth was shaped by the storm of China opening to the West. I wanted to get to know to this woman—so her editor introduced us and we started chatting about the different Chinas in which we lived.
We got on so well that it made me wish we’d known each other our whole lives. * China is now a very different country from the one we left, especially with its acceleration since the 1980s. What do you think is the biggest change from your China and the China today? : I think one of the major positive changes is in the status of women.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the practice of foot-binding was still commonplace and women were seen primarily in terms of the practical value they held in cementing property relations through arranged marriage and providing men with children. The practice of child brides was commonplace especially in the countryside. With the rise of the communist.