Determined to broaden her cultural horizons and live a "fiery" life,
twenty-one-year-old Rachel DeWoskin hops on a plane to Beijing to work
for an American PR firm based in the busy capital. Before she knows it,
she is not just exploring Chinese culture but also creating it as the
sexy, aggressive, fearless Jiexi, the starring femme fatale in a wildly
successful Chinese soap opera. Experiencing the cultural clashes in real
life while performing a fictional version onscreen, DeWoskin forms a
group of friends with whom she witnesses the vast changes sweeping
through China as the country pursues the new maxim, "to get rich is
glorious." In only a few years, China's capital is transformed. With
"considerable cultural and linguistic resources" (The New Yorker), DeWoskin captures Beijing at this pivotal juncture in her "intelligent, funny memoir" (People), and "readers will feel lucky to have sharp-eyed, yet sisterly, DeWoskin sitting in the driver's seat"(Elle).
