My China

The Chinese author and journalist, who grew up during the Cultural Revolution, gives her perspective on China's changing fortunes

The buildings go up so fast in Shanghai, I feel I'm in a computer game. I visit China twice a year now and every time I find it changed drastically. Last time I wondered if I was actually Chinese any more!

I was born in Beijing in 1958. In the Cultural Revolution my parents were imprisoned and I was taken to a children's home. It was only when I became a journalist in the Eighties that I began to travel through China and was shocked by what I saw.

Even today, 78 per cent of the people are peasants and farmers. In April I drove two hours north of Beijing to meet people whose lives depend on the limited food and wild vegetables they grow. There is a huge gap between life in the cities and the countryside.

In the 5,000-year history of China, we've only been open twice: first in 1840 during the Opium War, then when we opened up in the 1980s. When I travelled as a journalist I found that people respected everything Western almost without question. Even top governors invited diplomats to eat at McDonald's. Last year they even opened a Starbucks in the Forbidden City! They thought it was the perfect union of Western and Chinese cultures.

In 20 years you can change a street with Western money and ideas, but you can't change people's minds, their history and culture so quickly. In 2003 free travel was allowed for the first time. Before then you could be arrested if you travelled without a permit. Many people didn't even know what happened in the next village. Now they can be educated with their own eyes - it's a freedom we've never had before.

The West has had freedom and democracy for hundreds of years. China needs another two generations but I think it is going in a very positive direction.

· Xinran is the author of the seminal The Good Women of China. Her latest book, Sky Burial, is published by Vintage. Information on her charity, which helps Chinese children who are growing up in poverty, can be found at