A Season in Red: My Great Leap Forward into the New China

When journalist Kristy Needham heads to Beijing to work at a Chinese newspaper as a “foreign expert,” she has studied the language and the history but has no idea what life in China will really be like. As this compelling story reveals, she soon learns that Communist slogans, transvestite nightclubs, SARS scares, and militant teams of tourist handlers are just a few of the disparate elements of everyday life in China that she must navigate. From being constantly asked if she is a spy to maintaining her integrity at a government-controlled paper, Needham is caught in a nation haunted by its past and surging toward the future. Through wry, journalistic observations, this vivid memoir offers an enlightening, hilarious, and sometimes scary outsider’s take on contemporary China and its rapidly changing culture.