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ONLY HOPE: Coming of Age Under China's One-Child Policy. By Vanessa L. Fong. Stanford (California): Stanford University Press. 2004. x, 242 pp. (Tables.) US$40.00, cloth. ISBN 0-8047-4961-2.
China is going through a transition of epochal significance, from a planned economy to a market economy. To build a new marketized "well-off society" (xiaokang shehui) in China not only requires macro institutional changes, but also micro changes in ethics, behaviours and attitudes. Today, in the transition from old "socialist man" to a new Homo Economicus, it has become a moral duty to be a self-reliant, responsible and rational citizen of China. In this context, Vanessa Fong's Only Hope directs our attention to the level of everyday life and, in particular, a new Chinese generation who were born after the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution and who have enjoyed the wealth and prosperity of the new China: the singletons. They are the...