Cocktails and Records

Whilst away on holidays I managed to actually read some books. This is a bit of a novelty for me.

So it’s equally a novelty to rave about a book here, but “Socialism is Great!”: A Workers Memoir of the New China by Lijia Zhang truly is great. Lijia Zhang now writes for newspapers like the Independent, Japan Times and South China Morning Post, but she spent her early life in the late 70s and 80s working in a government missile factory in Nanjing, China.

The way she describes her struggle to escape the dictorial demands of the factory and its endless political propaganda meetings, factory singing competitions (featuring catchy tunes called ‘Socialism is Great’), boring, unchallenging work and general prying into her life (‘period police’ checking that female staff weren’t flouting Chinese pregnancy ‘guidelines’) is absolutely fascinating.

In her life there is no concept of privacy – people routinely spy on their colleagues and neighbours, frustrated unmarried couples are reported to the police for fooling about in the park, their careers and social standing subsequently destroyed, and toilet stalls just don’t exist. Even worse, Lijia’s quest to educate herself, learn English and to do more with her life are constantly put down by those around her. It’s just not good to stand out from the crowd in 80s China.

The best way for me to get across this peek into what really is a very, very foreign world is to switch the scenario round. Here, Lijia describes not only eating Western food for the first time in the late 80s, but her first experience of the joys of the buffet:

On a long table covered with another brilliantly white cloth, the feast sat invitingly. I piled up my plate with roast beef, chicken legs, and prawns, ignoring salads and vegetables as I calculated they were cheap. On my way back to the seat, lured by cakes, I also balanced an apple pie and a big spoonful of chocolate moose on top of my overflowing plate.

She then goes on to struggle with knives and forks and to make a complete mess of the white table cloth.

It’s a flippant comparison considering the overall political tones of the book, but I love this description of someone encountering something as ’everyday’ as a Western buffet for the first time. It’s as delightfully foreign to her as wearing Mao suits is to me.