China Pop

From her contact with a group of young novelists, film-makers and artists in China, Zha examines a wide range of developments largely unknown to Western readers: the planning of soap operas to placate popular unrest after Tiananmen; the growth of the sex tabloid and pornography industries; the new generation of entrepreneurs bringing to the mainland the consumer techniques of Hong Kong and the West; and the politics behind the censorship and commercial success of the film directors Chen Kaige ( Farewell my Concubine ) and Zhang Yimou ( Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern ). The result is an insight into the commercialization of China's cultural world and the anxiety that change is causing in China's intellectuals.