She says she’s not an author but her book reads perfectly. She writes with expressions so beautifully detailed and packed with meaning and history that they mimic the poetic idioms of the Chinese.

She tells a story of a life fraught with adventure, emotional turmoil and finally peace that she’s found with her 3 children and German husband.

Her name is Jin Xing and Shanghai Tango is her story.

It’s a story about a young boy in the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Dance Troupe who grew up to be a man who couldn’t find himself until he became a woman, a prima ballerina, a mother and a wife.

And when you meet the 39-year-old Jin Xing, like UrbanWire did, you’ll be blown away by her passion, opinions and grace. She flips her long, curly hair and gestures with the flair that only a true dancer has and she embraces you with the warmth that a mother has for a child.

Jin Xing has lived a life out of the ordinary, traveled to New York to study dance, been backed by high-ranking officials, started her own Modern Dance dance troupe in China, opened a popular bar and penned her memoir, but she’s neither boastful nor arrogant. She doesn’t travel with an entourage because she’s vehement that she doesn’t need one. After all, she says, “I’m not idiot, I can take care of myself.”

Chapter 1

It was with this awareness of her own abilities that she approached this book. Asked by her publishing company to write a story about her life when she was 36, she hesitated much.

“For me, to be writing an autobiography at 36-years-old is too young. The understanding is that after getting old, you go look back in life and write,” she says. But the publishing company was sincere and Jin Xing wanted to share with others her journey and stop the nattering about her life and her choice for sex re-assignment surgery.

“People have so many different ideas, many different imaginings about transsexuals. Instead of talking about it, they’re wondering about it, gossiping about it. So I said I will write about myself and what I’ve been through and maybe help people get a clear picture and a much better understanding,” she continues.

Though armed with a mission and decision to help people understand, she didn’t just pick up a pen and etched a tonne of words that were ready for publishing.

She confesses that she’s hardly a writer and that she only writes her name correctly because she signs too much. But she’s not one to harp nor exploit her inability. Even without considering having “someone from the outside” write her story for her, she decided to dictate her life story and have a close writer friend type, or rather transcribe her story, under strict orders to “don’t add any words and don’t polish”.

It’s such measures that make Shanghai Tango the enjoyable and personable book that it is. The many exclamations, reflections, thoughts and screams from the hospital bed, in the chapters will bring the readers so much closer to Jin Xing. As you skim the pages, you’ll hear Jin Xing’s pain, happiness and determination ringing in your ears.

Jin Xing and her friends are aware of her approach to having her book written, she says, and she explains gleefully that when they read her book, they went, “My God! Typical her!”

Honesty

The voice recorder and excellent writer friend solved one of her problems but then came another.

“You have to really clearly, honestly go back in time. The truth, the honesty – it’s very difficult,” Jin Xing says.

For her, it was of utmost importance that she painted a “true picture” and that her auto-biography or memoir was “not polished” and the times in which she was naïve were not glazed over with euphemisms and false better judgment.

Indeed, the toughest part of telling her story was summoning all the demons and mistakes from her past and she admits, “It’s a difficult journey, looking back.”

The Star that Shines so Brightly

But she’s not one to wallow in regret or the could-have-beens. “My attitude towards life is to enjoy today, have no worr[ies] for tomorrow and no regret[s] for yesterday,” she proclaims.

“What’s there to regret about? If you regret it, that thing’s already passed. So tomorrow, something could be happening, and it could be beautiful,” says Crystal-Face, the name the Chinese citizens gave her.

Her name, Jin Xing, also means Golden Star or Venus in Chinese. Born with a name that seems to have set her destiny as one that goes against the grain (the Chinese believe that Venus spins in a different direction from all the other stars), Jin Xing was always the centre of attention even when she was only 9-years-old.

Young Jin Xing

She remembers her childhood as a young boy in the PLA fondly and her book tells many great tales about the scraps and predicaments that the young Jin Xing got into.

The constant centre of attraction bore training at the dance troupe with clenched teeth and rode out the pain of having legs strapped split-style on pillars.

Jin Xing jokingly notes that, “In European culture, this is child abuse but in China, everyone is looking for it.”

Embracing Mao’s China

Unlike other Chinese authors like Adeline Yen Mah, Ye Ting-xing and Nien Cheng, who set their stories during the Cultural Revolution, Jin Xing doesn’t lament about the atrocity of Mao’s rule but instead, embraces it.

She speaks, in her book, somewhat stoically about the self-criticism exercises and the interrogation sessions her mother, who’s of Korean descent, was subjected to. But she’s not the least bit resentful.

Rather, she longs for the time when China’s doors weren’t opened to the world. She expresses this desire quite blatantly and tells of her expression used to describe the new and old China, “Before China opened, we had empty pockets, no money but the soul was peaceful and the mind simple. Now the doors open, everybody puts money into the pockets and the soul is twisted and the mind complicated.”

She recalls when she was 5 or 6 that children would just run around the neighbourhood with just the house keys on their necks. “Nobody can take care of us but we were happy,” she points out.

For All My Children

And that’s exactly the kind of childhood she wants for her children. Raising her 3 children, Leo, Vivian and Julian, in a way that would make competitive Chinese parents shriek in horror, she tells her eldest son, Leo, “If other children get 95 and you get 65 for the exam, it’s okay because you choose your life and you must be happy.”

If anything, it seems to be working because Leo’s one tough kid who’s ready to withstand the wrath of those who don’t accept his family. In fact, he once stood up for his mummy in school. While always ignoring jokes and snide remarks, he had once calmly told a schoolmate that he should remove his nose from other people’s family business.

With the same ferocity as Leo, Jin Xing protects her children against the media and she’s asked them to have some heart and leave them alone.

Jin Xing, Heart of Gold

Just as she lives, she writes with her soul and just as she writes, she lives with gusto and concentrates, not on looking back in seething anger, but at moving forward and achieving so much more.

Jin Xing’s truly come full circle in her orbit against all the other “stars” in the universe who dare not take that alternative path. She’s finally at peace with herself and yet, she’s not at all listless or the slightest bit dull or mumsy. She’s still got the soul of a revolutionary and the determination of a maverick. Vivacious, opinionated and yet so down-to-earth, Jin Xing’s a princess with all that she wants now – a book that tells her story, 3 lovely children who’ll never judge and a husband she can love and care for.

So, what’s next for her? Well, she’s leaving it up to fate (superstitious person that she is) and her family.

Shanghai Tango by Jin Xing is available at $32.95 at all good bookstores.