A Season in Red - My great leap forward into the new China

In a country of communist slogans and transvestite nightclubs, where teen advice columns are screened by government censors and employees live together in 'Big Brother' style apartment buildings, Kirsty Needham discovers there's more to being a 'foreign expert' on a Chinese newspaper than she ever could have imagined. A fresh, fascinating and unique glimpse into life in modern day China.

By 2.30 a.m. I was in Poachers, where tabletop dancing and swinging off the stair rails were obligatory at this kind of hour. A hundred arms thrusting into the air with the techno beat, sweaty bodies twitching as if it were an electric current, not music, coursing through their veins. But the tall Chinese boy standing next to me wasn't dancing. He had a beer in his hand and he had a question. 'Are you a spy?' he asked.

When Kirsty Needham moves to Beijing her expectations of what it would be like to work and live as a journalist in China are swiftly swept away by the bizarre realities of this extraordinary country. As she grapples with the strange and often contradictory world of modern China - a country of communist slogans and transvestite nightclubs, SARS scares and SWAT-like teams of tourist handlers - Kirsty becomes embroiled in a world that constantly challenges her perceptions as it quietly wins her heart.

By turns enlightening, enthralling and bizarre, Kirsty's is a unique take on contemporary China as it is evolving right now. From a city where St Bernard dogs are the new status symbols and nice middle-class Beijingers play the NASDAQ for fun, she provides a fresh, compelling outsider's view of one of the fastest changing countries in the world. enlightening, enthralling and bizarre, Kirsty's is a unique take on contemporary China as it is evolving right now. From a city where St Bernard dogs are the new status symbols and nice middle-class Beijingers play the NASDAQ for fun, she provides a fresh, compelling outsider's view of one of the fastest changing countries in the world.

About the Author:
Kirsty Needham has been a journalist since 1994, and since 1997 a news reporter and feature writer for the The Sydney Morning Herald. In 2002/03, she worked as a freelance contributor to The South China Morning Post and in 2004 accepted a Medialink/ Australia-China Council fellowship to spend three months in China working as a journalist with the China Daily in Beijing.

A Season In Red
Allen & Unwin
Author: Kirsty Needham
ISBN: 9781741147551
RRP: $24.95