The great and whimsical Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi once said, "Language is like a fish net. Once the fish are caught, you can throw the net away. Once the idea is caught, you can throw the words away." This book is the record of what I picked up, from friends whose city and company I cherished. It is their story more than mine: of one round corner of Beijing's transformation, where some insiders and some outsiders were changed forever.

Rachel DeWoskin arrived in Beijing in 1994, to work for an American PR firm. Before long, though, she was starring as 'foreign babe' Jiexi in a twenty-episode television drama that was watched by an estimated six hundred million viewers.In Foreign Babes in Beijing the author describes her years in China from the unique viewpoint of a foreigner experiencing culture shock in real life, while playing out a parallel version on screen.

DeWoskin and her group of American and Chinese friends witnessed, as insiders, vast changes sweeping through China as it lurched inexorably into the twenty-first century.As the author's command of the language grew, so her love affair with Beijing deepened and became more complex.

When she left Beijing in 1999, not long after the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, DeWoskin found her perspective on China, America, the world and herself changed forever.

Foreign Babes in Beijing is a one-off. Witty, moving and highly entertaining, it provides a unique insight into what it is like to be young, single and far from home, and reveals much about what is still, to the West, a very foreign country.

Author's Note

ONE Drop Trou

TWO As You Wish

THREE Concubines

INTERLUDE Biographies of Model Babes One: Anna

FOUR Passion

INTERLUDE Biographies of Model Babes Two: Kate

FIVE Love Business

INTERLUDE Biographies of Model Babes Three: Zhao Jun

SIX Embracing Foreign Babes

INTERLUDE Biographies of Model Babes Four: Zhou Wen

SEVEN Model Workers

EIGHT TWO Balls

NINE Power of the Powerless

Notes

Acknowledgments