This successor volume to China beyond the Headlines takes the reader even farther beyond the ampampquotfront stageampampquot to explore a China few Westerners have seen. Seeking to bridge the gap between what specialists understand and the general public believes the contributors challenge readers to move past the usual images of China presented by the media and to think about shared problems. In an entirely new set of essays they explore such critical issues as environmental degradation nationalism unemployment film and literature news reporting the Internet sex tourism and the costs of the economic boom to vividly portray the complexity of life in contemporary China and how surprisingly often it speaks to the American experience.