Foreign Babes in Beijing

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Foreign Babes in Beijing, subtitled Behind the Scenes of a New China, is a novel published in 2005 by Rachel DeWoskin. Production is also underway on a movie of the same name based on the book, to be directed by Alice Wu. The novel details the author's personal experiences in Beijing shortly after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 as an actress in a Chinese soap opera.

The soap opera, entitled 'Foreign Babes in Beijing' (Chinese: 洋妞在北京, pinyin: yáng niu zài běi jīng) features two pairs of Chinese men and American women. In one of which, Rachel plays Jiexi, a seductress who lures away her married counterpart, Li Tianming. In another, a more demure and traditional exchange student falls in love and marries Li Tianming's younger brother. But the novel follows DeWoskin's life as well as her character's plotline, and with an attention to detail and cultural analysis she inherited from her father, Kenneth DeWoskin, who was a noted Sinologist at the University of Michigan. From romantic interactions to globalization, Rachel DeWoskin observes China from an outsider's perspective with candor and humor.