Tiger Woman on Wall Street: Winning Business Strategies from Shanghai to New York and Back

CHAPTER 4Window of Opportunity

Shanghai, 1976–1989

UNTIL DENG XIAOPING, A REFORMIST WITHIN THE COMMUnist Party of China, officially kicked off his Reform and Opening Up program in 1978, there was not much to do in one’s daily life. The schools had been closed for a decade. City children had been sent to work on farms. Even when they returned to the cities upon Mao’s death, there was still little to do but work one’s manual labor job, bike around town, and watch street-side games of checkers.

Everyone was poor. It was not a point of shame then, because we were all on equal footing. A concrete, one-story house with a tile roof was the only choice of residence for many families. Public toilets were the norm. The streets bustled with bicycles and ...