A Tiger's Heart: The Story of a Modern Chinese Woman by Aisling Juanjuan Shen (Soho Press)

Scarlet O’Hara meets The Ugly Ducking in this harrowing and unsparing memoir, a book so wrapped in desperation that it’s both difficult to read and impossible to abandon.

Born in a tiny village of fifty peasants, Juanjuan’s only hint of affection is the name her mother gives her, “Pretty.” But the little girl knows better. “She is just not lovable,” she overhears her mother saying; “I was simple, slow, and afraid of other people,” she describes herself. However Juanjuan is born at the right moment in history, in 1974. She turns six at a time when even a peasant girl can go to school and learn to find a refuge in books. “School was heaven, the only thing I enjoyed,” and she does well there, gaining a reputation for scholarship that even her dismissive parents are forced to acknowledge.

Juanjuan’s mother, beautiful and discontented, also finds that history has put her at an advantage. Deng Xiaoping has elevated businessmen from the villains of Mao’s time to the hopes of the nation and a village entrepreneur takes her as his mistress. His financial support helps Juanjuan to leave for the city of Suzhou where she has been accepted at a teacher’s college.

The only one of the 100 students in her village school to achieve this pinnacle, Juanjuan is smart enough to realize the path she’s been presented with has a dead end. Without money or influence, she’s sent to teach in a village even more dismal than the one she came from.  But she has a skill that opens windows for her. In college she learned English and she’s discovered that in that language, she’s no longer afraid. She follows a fleeting encounter with a foreigner that gives her a glimpse into another universe, the metropolis of Shanghai, and she becomes hungry for what this other world has to offer. Discovering  that sexual power can be a trap or an escape hatch,  Juanjuan chooses escape.

An affair with a handsome young teacher takes her to Guangzhou. An attraction to a factory manager leads her into a relationship with a man who mentors and fosters her advancement in the world of business. An infatuation with an Amway recruiter takes her back into poverty until her former mentor gives her a chance once again--and when she returns from the squalor of village life, Juanjuan knows how to get what she wants.

The only class she failed in college was a course in Moral Character and life has shown her that lacking this attribute is an advantage.  It’s the Roaring 90s when kickbacks are what smart people receive and “selling out your boss” is just good business. Juanjuan does all that--and then the Internet expands her dreams. 

Suddenly she’s sophisticated and successful, with an American boyfriend. Her affluence brings her closer to her mother and the secret of her unhappy childhood comes to light. Her boyfriend becomes her husband, Juanjuan becomes Aisling, and acceptance to the University of Massachusetts becomes graduation from Wellesley, magna cum laude.

As terrifying as it is inspirational, Juanjuan’s is a success story that is bloodcurdling and insightful. After reading this, who could resist a sequel to this odyssey, one  that tells how Juanjuan achieved her American success?~Janet Brown