The End of Cheap China: Economic and Cultural Trends That Will Disrupt the World by Shaun Rein

sculpted legs, and a bouncy smile. The train was so crowded that her leg pressed against mine, while an old man on my other side practically had his arm in my lap.
    I had planned to spend the train ride reading, when Melanie struck up a conversation. She began telling me about her family and her career goals. Her body language showed she was at ease opening up to a foreigner—she had none of the shy nervousness that Amy had when she was a waitress at Broadway in Tianjin.
    Melanie told me her mother was denied the chance to go to college because the university system closed during the Cultural Revolution. By the time universities reopened in the 1980s, her mother was already too committed in her career working at a state-owned enterprise to go back to school. She also missed out on profiting from the great economic reforms that were going on, because she was too unsophisticated to open her own business. She remained mired in a low-level position in her company until she lost her job in the late 1990s, as tens of millions of other people did when the government cut state-owned enterprise jobs to move to a more market-oriented economy.
    Melanie’s mother had married not out of love, but because her husband was labeled as an appropriate, marriageable candidate by the Chinese government due to his family background. Permission from the government was needed in those days to marry. Over the years, Melanie’s mother had come to accept her husband, but like so many Chinese families in her generation, marriage was more a pact for shelter and support than a match made out of love.
    As Melanie described the pressures her parents put on her, I saw in many ways her mother was living vicariously through Melanie. She pushed Melanie to get a master’s degree so her daughter could have the education she had missed, and to gain Communist Party membership to benefit from opportunities. Finally, she pushed Melanie to marry for love rather than security. Melanie’s father virtually ignored her mother; he showered Melanie with boundless love and support.
    Melanie’s remarks of how her mother and father behaved resonated with my own experiences. When nightclubs first started opening up in China, club-goers were usually not young people, but middle-aged men and women dressed up in revealing clothes as if they were 20-year-olds, dancing on the floor with an unnatural ferocity. It always seemed to me they were trying to capture a past they had never gotten a chance to experience.
    My talk with Melanie showed how clearly the Cultural Revolution still impacts Chinese society across generations. Melanie’s mother felt she missed out on her career and a happy home life, so she pushed her daughter to strive for the best and to realize her dreams. She also spoiled her, waiting at home for her every night until she got home from work to make dinner for her. Despite Melanie being in her twenties, her mother still washed all of her clothes.
    Outside of work, Melanie had few financial responsibilities or costs. Her parents covered her food and housing expenses. She was so confident of her future career earnings that she did not save any of her $1,000 monthly salary at her entry-level business development job with a consulting company; she spent it all on shopping and eating at restaurants with friends. She had just signed up for a credit card, so instead of having to save up for two months before buying the latest iPhone, she could buy it on credit. She told me she changed her mobile phones every nine months, selling old ones through online e-commerce sites like Taobao.
    There are millions of young, upwardly mobile women in China just like Melanie. They are showered with love and are taught to believe they can achieve anything. Their parents are doing whatever they can to help them achieve the goals they had for themselves, but were not able to achieve due to the disruption of the Cultural Revolution. And they are optimistic that their personal and