Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China

The stories of selected women in China, all around the author's age, meaning born around 1990 in China. This is currently on the shortlist for the Women's Prize for nonfiction.

The premise is terrific. The stories ok. The author was born in China and spent her earliest years in small western village while her parents worked on their careers elsewhere. Around the time she was five years old, her parents took her back to live with them and moved to England where she grew up and currently lives. (The book doesn't mention it, but she was recently elected to Parliament, the first Chinese-born Brit to serve.) She returned to China as a journalist and started interviewing various women about their lives. Then she selected a handful for the show more book. She also notes up front that the chronicling she is doing is basically forbidden now. (Although these are not dramatic stories of resistance, but fairly tame stories). This means she must hide the identity of all her subjects, changing dates and locations.

The stories are interesting, although I found them mildly so. Yes, these women have interesting backgrounds. Most came from poverty in rural parts of China and made their way to the cities, with opportunities unique to their lifetimes. But none were the most impoverished and none became the most successful. What they do have in common is that all had some kind of success, often in unusual ways, and often outside the typical education paths of successful Chinese. The China of the Mao era had tried to clear the class systems, and this allowed a greater amount of upward economic mobility for these women. But most opportunities come through the exceptionally competitive school systems. Education is always extremely competitive, always seems heavy on memory, but not always equal. But regardless of their education, these are success stories - country girls who become successful urbanites. That's a nice reflection of this window of opportunity, but, of course, a tilted reflection. For all the successful women, how many were not successful. Their stories are not in here.

Yuan captures many important trends. She spends a lot of time on the experience of Chinese factory workers, working long shifts, seven days a week. She also touches on the re-creation of the class systems and how there is much less social mobility now, and a lot of benefit to being the children of successful parents. She touches on the odd repressive politics of China. In China, the conservatives are "leftwing", pro-Communism. However, criticism of Chinese industry, or even reporting of problems in industry is unofficially illegal. It's cracked down on heavily, with careers ruined and with jail time. One woman joined an activist group that was shut down for reporting strikes.

The gold standard for this kind of work in my mind is The Warmth of Other Suns by Isable Wilkerson, on the African American migration out of the south to northern cities. This book is nowhere near that kind of literary standard. It's better than regular reporting but gets carried away in less interesting stuff. One woman runs a daycare. Do we need to know all the details of her child raising philosophy? Certain some is of interest. But the book keeps going well beyond anything I personally cared to know. There is a lot of that.

So, informative, but within a limited scope. Interesting, but arguably not truly fascinating. An important window in the China of the last 30 years.

2025
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I loved this at first. Three of these girls lived in poverty, one was kind of middle class, but older China middle class. All had extreme restrictions. All managed, through education and very hard work to pull themselves up to become successful business women. All are very entrepreneurial - so much for communist China. But you know the story about the successful deli owners who slept on the floor of their establishment in order to save rent money to plow back into their business, then once successful kept depriving themselves to become even more successful? That describes these women. By the end, I wondered what the point was. They were very successful, but their only enjoyment in life seemed to come from working, working, working. I show more guess they could come here and run for office. Now is the time for them. show less

This was an interesting book, and I learned quite a bit about life in China today. The author presents the stories of four young women as they try to get educated and begin their working lives. I struggled to keep each story straight as the book alternated among them. Three of them had similar backgrounds and career paths; those who had children had daughters. So, I had to refer back a few times. I think the challenges in keeping each story straight partly stemmed from any lack of passion in the telling.

That said, I gained some insight into the fiercely competitive nature of China's education system where children need not only excel academically, but come from the right district to access the best schools. I was heartened to see many show more examples of women helping each other to get ahead, or to get by. I was amazed by the entrepreneurial spirit and "hustle" these women displayed. I realized how difficult life is for rural citizens, especially women.

As so often happens with nonfiction, I don't think the jacket blurb lived up to its promise; it didn't really explain the politics and rising economic tide as advertised. It didn't go deep enough. I gained some insights, as I said, but I still don't have a solid understanding of China's new economy.

When I finished the book, I noted that the four women portrayed had succeeded in their lives. I wonder how representative their stories are. show less

An interesting set of portraits of four young Chinese women, and their struggles to gain education, employment, and social stability in an increasingly authoritarian capitalist state. Yuan Yang's portraits of these women provide a "slice of life" look at contemporary China, particular the horrible meat grinder that is its educational system and the intricacies of the hukou system, but this is more a journalistic overview than something with real analytical meat on its bones.

nonfiction / a sociological study of four women's lives in 1990-2023 China - covers aspects of educational policies favoring those in the cities (putting immense pressure on students and making it nearly impossible for rural children in large provinces to get into decent schools); lack of childcare for working parents resulting in children being sent to live with grandparents in the villages; pressure to have or not have kids; drastic changes in economic policies resulting in extremely high unemployment; the movement for workers' rights, esp. in factory environments; etc. With names/identities changed to protect informants and their families.

I haven't read a lot about what China is like for people now (and in fact my knowledge of its show more history post-Revolution was completely lacking) so it was interesting to see how these four different women dealt with their educational challenges and found other solutions to the other issues faced by single mothers, labor organizers, etc. in looking out for themselves and their families. show less