Setting a young girl free – Zhang Lijia

Celebrity author Zhang Lijia gets many positive reviews for her book “Socialism Is Great!”: A Worker’s Memoir of the New China, but a review in the Washington Post is still a milestone. From the review:

In “Socialism Is Great!” Zhang recounts her quest for freedom — from constraints both political and familial. It’s a tale that crackles with insight and wit: “My peers and I were too young to appreciate the pleasures of boredom compared to the political terror our parents suffered,” she observes. Bent on not becoming “another faceless worker ant,” she carved out her independence, wearing Western-style clothes, studying English, publishing flowery articles in the factory’s newsletter and earning a degree at a technical school. It’s no wonder, then, that when the protests broke out at Tiananmen Square in 1989, Zhang was right there, leading a group of marchers from her factory. Now a journalist in Beijing, she offers both an inspiring personal story and a unique look at a time when, as she puts it, “the colorful trash of capitalism was creeping into China’s gray kingdom.”

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Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you want to invite her at your conference or meeting, do get in touch.