Books: SHANGHAI TANGO by Jin Xing

Title: Shanghai Tango

Author: Jin Xing

Published: 2005

Genre: Memoir



This was a quick read in between the flurry of activity typical of this time of the year. Wishing I had an e-reader given all the books I want to read this Summer...Shanghai Tango is the memoir of a prima ballerina; Jin Xing who danced for the Shanghai Ballet and other prestigious Ballet Companies both in the US and Europe. It is a story told from a very detached voice about a young boy, who is recruited into the People's Liberation Army Dance Corps as a soldier and a dancer at the age of nine. He becomes a celebrated, internationally-acclaimed dancer who goes on to become the first person in China to undergo a full sex-change operation. 

The narrative is factual even though the subject matter is potentially tragic. It tells of the emotional challenges the writer experiences as both a young man in the Chinese Ballet Corps, not yet fully aware of how different he is from his fellow dancers; to his transformation into a female ballerina and mother. It is retold very objectively, almost too much so, as it skims over the real emotions about her post operation experience and fails to sufficiently delve into what life was like away from the glamour of the stage for her.

There is an innocence to Jin Xing in his early years that is the result of being shielded from the harsher realities of being transgender; either because he is was the Army's brightest star or because he himself did not fully understand what he was. Only in his twenties does he fully comprehend that his attraction to men is not because he is gay, but because he is a woman.

Shanghai Tango is the first book I have read that deals sufficiently with the disambiguation around the term transgender. It is a good read if you have ever been curious about the topic. It follows closely on a recent Book Club read; Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, historical fiction that deals with gender and identity.

The more sinister side of China's Ballet Corps is revealed in Shanghai Tango, in a non-judgemental manner by the writer. For all its faults - the stymied creativity and propaganda agenda- he credits his ballet technique, which opened up doors to his international career, to the rigorous training the People's Liberation Army Corps put him through.