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).