Tania McCartney is the founder of Kids Book Review and senior editor of Australian Women Online. When she discovered that she’d be moving with her husband and two kids under the age of five to China for four years, she was 95 per cent horrified.
But what she never expected was to fall in love. Beijing seeped under her skin and grabbed hold of her heart…a love affair that inspired Beijing Tai Tai, a collection of shrewdly observed, heartfelt and humorous insights into Beijing expatriate life. Intensely personal, at times a little controversial, it’s a rollercoaster ride of honesty and openness as a mother and wife (tai tai) juggles suburban family life in urban Beijing.
Presented in a series of column-like snippets — on topics ranging from the consumption of bull testicles to the life-altering experience of walking the Great Wall — it talks of both the challenging lows and intense highs of expat life in a country on the brink of great change.
It’s a book about bad hair and silk markets as much as it is about China’s quest to stay true to its ancient origins, while the world sucks this complicated country headlong into the future.
Beijing Tai Tai is a book for anyone keen to learn more about this diverse and culturally rich country. It’s for anyone, from anywhere, who knows what it’s like to fall in love, explore new worlds and live with challenges. Both funny and deeply sad, its content epitomises the dichotomy that typifies China.