A nascent media mogul battling for political survival, a love triangle fractured by the SARS pandemic, the ruthless choreography of Shanghai’s social scene—each story in Chinese on the Beach explores the particular madness of living through history, when old rules dissolved overnight and new ones hadn’t yet formed.
Set in Beijing and Shanghai during the tumultuous 1990s and early 2000s, against a backdrop of collapsing ideology, mass migration, and the rise of hyper-capitalism, this collection captures that brief, electric window when China opened its doors and the world came rushing in. The stories portray a generation of expats, locals, and overseas Chinese trying to survive, thrive and stay afloat amid seismic change.
Vanessa Fabiano is a Swiss-Italian-Spanish author and East Asian Studies graduate who first traveled to China in the 1990s and later worked in Beijing and Shanghai as part of an EU Commission training program. While there, she lived through the SARS outbreak, worked for a Chinese lifestyle empire, and helped launch a Shanghai dance school. Fluent in six languages, she has worked across Europe, China, and the US.
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