A Season in Red

By 2.30 a.m. I was in Poachers, where tabletop dancing and swinging off the stair rails were obligatory at this kind of hour. A hundred arms thrusting into the air with the techno beat, sweaty bodies twitching as if it were an electric current, not music, coursing through their veins. But the tall Chinese boy standing next to me wasn't dancing. He had a beer in his hand and he had a question. 'Are you a spy?' he asked. When Kirsty Needham moves to Beijing her expectations of what it would be like to work and live as a journalist in China are swiftly swept away by the bizarre realities of this extraordinary country. As she grapples with the strange and often contradictory world of modern China - a country of communist slogans and transvestite nightclubs, SARS scares and SWAT-like teams of tourist handlers - Kirsty becomes embroiled in a world that constantly challenges her perceptions as it quietly wins her heart. By turns enlightening, enthralling and bizarre, Kirsty's is a unique take on contemporary China as it is evolving right now. From a city where St Bernard dogs are the new status symbols and nice middle-class Beijingers play the NASDAQ for fun, she provides a fresh, compelling outsider's view of one of the fastest changing countries in the world. enlightening, enthralling and bizarre, Kirsty's is a unique take on contemporary China as it is evolving right now. From a city where St Bernard dogs are the new status symbols and nice middle-class Beijingers play the NASDAQ for fun, she provides a fresh, compelling outsider's view of one of the fastest changing countries in the world.