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Before reviewing aspects of this important book, I would like to write a little about the background, experiences, and inherent biases of this reviewer. I have been to the People's Republic of China (PRC) twice, in 2014 and 2015, teaching at the China Youth University in Beijing for a month each time. This school is the Party-sponsored university in Beijing. To ready myself for my trip, I read and watched films made in China about its history, arts, culture, revolutions, religions, and family structure.
My own observations of the PRC are based on a narrow lens since my primary contact was with my students, the university faculty and tour guides to smaller cities. The latter were young women with an excellent command of English who spent days with us, so the contact was personal and private. I noted that our young guides never partook of food when we dined. I did not know what to make of this until one young fit, athletic tour guide remarked about her worry over being too fat. This, I assumed, originated from the Western notion of beauty as thinness.
One faculty member confided that people with means went abroad to conceive and birth second and third children, perhaps facing a fine when they returned to the PRC, perhaps not. At the time I was there, the one-child policy was still in place.
My private conversations with my students were fairly open Their primary concern was how to live their own lives and, at the same time, not displease their parents. One articulate smart young woman who was dating a good-looking but quieter young man in my class, told me she broke up with him as her parents thought he was not good enough for her.
My assignment was to teach young people in the social work department primarily about the American family, and about social work helping methods