The story of her grandmother, first a prostitute, then a concubine, triggered author Zhang Lijia´s into writing her latest book Lotus: A Novel. With meticulous research she explored the life of today´s sex workers, and tells in Refinery29, how a middle-class lady explored a secret world.Read More →

One remarkable conclusion by author Zhang Lijia of Lotus: A Novel on sex work in China is her conclusion that prostitution in China is largely a free choice, where women are free to enter, and free to leave. Yes, there is economic pressure, but no organized crime or human trafficking on a major scale, she says.Read More →

First reviews of journalist Zhang Lijia´s touching Lotus: A Novel, are coming in, like here from the Star Tribune, focusing on the Chinese migrants, the unsung heroes who made the country´s economic development possible. “Lotus and Bing, as well as the secondary characters, feel like real, rounded human beings. Zhang portrays them compassionately.”Read More →

Author Zhang Lijia explored the life of more than ten million women in the sex trade in China for her book Lotus: A Novel. How is the trade organized? How does their life look like, and how voluntary is a choice to go into prostitution? Zhang Lijia spent years on the ground, and comes with a few remarkable conclusions. Organized crime has only little grip on prostitution, and most is organized by women themselves.Read More →

For long China was the world´s working place with thousands of workers toiling away in dirty workshops. But China´s youngsters do not want to work in factories anymore, says business analyst Shaun Rein, author of The End of Copycat China: The Rise of Creativity, Innovation, and Individualism in Asia, to MIT Technology Review. In stead, robots take over.Read More →

Zhang Lijia´s upcoming novel Lotus: A Novel will only appear early 2017, but the first raving reviews are already coming in. Renowned Indian author Amitav Ghosh praises the story the main figure migrant Lotus and the way she ends up in prostitution.Read More →

China´s country-side has a generation of left-behind children, children who grew up while their parents worked in the big cities, some with their grandparents, some even alone. Author Zhang Lijia visited four-year old Diandian, who lives with his grandparents and writes up his story at her weblog.Read More →

The Chinese restaurant owner in Nairobi with a ´No Africans´ policy raised many questions, got arrested and focused the attention on the between one and two million Chinese in Africa. Author Howard French of China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa explains in PRI some of their reasons.Read More →

China´s labor conditions were notoriously bad, but the shift to higher-skilled, younger laborers, and better legislation has changed the country profoundly, writes urbanization expert Sara Hsu in the Diplomat. Although, there is still room for more improvement.Read More →