China Pop

China Pop is a highly original and lively look at the ways that contemporary China is changing by Jianying Zha, a critic hailed in The Nation as "incisive, witty and eloquent all at once--a sort of female, Chinese Jonathan Spence." From her constant contact (and, in many cases, friendships) with a dynamic group of young novelists, filmmakers, and artists in China, Zha examines a wide range of developments largely unknown to Western readers: the careful planning of television soap operas to placate popular unrest after Tianamen, the growth of the sex tabloid and pornographic industries, the new generation of entrepreneurs successfully bringing to the mainland techniques of Hong Kong and the West, and the politics behind the censorship and commercial success of the film director Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine) and Zhang Yimou (Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern).