Lijia Zhang: Socialism is Good

Recommended by a colleague, I read Lijia Zhang's Socialism is Good. It is a memoir about the author who was a factory worker in Nanjing in the 80s and later taught herself English and now became a writer and journalist. The author’s English is good, or at least it is good enough to write a book. Definitely the book from its title to the content seems to be written intentionally to cater to the taste of westerners.  Did a little bit background check on google. Lijia was married to the Beijing Correspondent of USA Today and the two of them coauthored another book prior to Socialism. There are also a couple of pictures of Lijia on the internet. Without exception, she is dressed in flamboyant traditional Chinese clothing in every single picture. Out of curiosity, I also watched her speech  at TED about her experience. Her spoken English is above average for a native Chinese with a slight British accent. She dated a graduate student from Oxford and later wen tot Britain according to her memoir. Not sure whether the Oxford student and her ex are the same person or different men. In her Ted talk, she mentioned that she dated a few Chinese men while in Nanjing and all of them were better educated than she was because she wanted to learn from them. Talking about moving up the social ladder through men and marriage, Lijia definitely is a perfect example. Although I am not sure what to think of Lijia, I also do not feel there are anything wrong with what she did on her romantic experiences. She had a clear vision for herself and she chose to date men who could help her realize her vision.  I just wished that I had known myself better when I was in my early 20s. Life would have been different.