Table of Contents

Introduction 1. The Veggie Vendors 2. The Impenetrable Knife Sharpener 3. The Teenage Beauty Queens 4. The Ever- Floating Floater 5. The Landless Landlords 6. The Nowhere Nanny 7. The Opportunity Spotter 8. The Big Boss Epilogue Research Notes Acknowledgments Index

About the Author

Michelle Dammon Loyalka has lived in China for 13 years, during which time she has written a language-learning textbook, launched a business consulting company, co-hosted a radio talk show in Mandarin, and headed the educational products division of a Chinese software company. A freelance journalist and editor, Loyalka holds a master's degree from the Missouri School of Journalism and currently lives in Beijing.

Reviews

"What Loyalka finds is fascinating... Details ... make the book read like an ethnography, with a lot of first-hand discovery, and give it lasting power as a historical record of the biggest, fastest urbanization in human history." -- April Rabkin San Francisco Chronicle "A vivid portrait of the migrant experience in the burgeoning western Chinese city of Xi'an... An insightful look at the hard lives of real people caught in a cultural transition." Kirkus Reviews "A thorough and insightful examination of the gritty, arduous side of the Chinese economic miracle." Publishers Weekly "One of the first books to examine the complexities of rural-to-urban migration through the life stories of individuals." -- Maura Elizabeth Cunningham Pacific Standard "Eating Bitterness sheds light on another dimension of the vast spectrum of Chinese society and is a valuable addition to the nonfiction literature on China." -- Hilton Yip Asian Review Of Books "The book is a welcome complement to the many monographs and economic studies that have charted China's economic progress... Highly recommended." -- F. Ng Choice