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After six years in the United States, and having secured a "green card" for permanent residency, Chinese novelist and former TV starlet Wang Yang has decided to move back to China.
"America is good, but it will not give me what I need," she says.
Wang will soon start work with a TV drama crew in Beijing on an adaptation of her latest novel "Yang Jia," or "Marrying Across the Ocean," depicting a Chinese woman's love story in America.
While Wang personally wrestled with whether to settle away from China, her protagonist also goes through a similar decision-making process. Crucially, unlike many previous stories with similar topics that venerate foreign cultures when depicting Chinese lives abroad, Wang's novel has been credited with providing a more truthful, contemporary picture.
It has made a difference by putting experiences across Chinese and U.S. cultures on an equal footing, according to literary critic Mu Gong.
Wang and "Yang Jia" are therefore emblematic of a re-balancing of assumptions on the desirability for Chinese of expatriate life. Foreign residency is starting to lose some of its luster for Chinese, with greater opportunities in their increasingly invigorated home country.
**A literature dream **
Wang is no stranger to the Chinese TV industry, and her upbringing couldn't have been more culturally Chinese.
For years, she was a local TV station presenter in her hometown of Zunyi, a city in southwest China's Guizhou Province where late Chinese leader Mao Zedong established his authority within the military during a leadership conference, paving the way for new China's founding.
Wang began writing and publishing essays when she was at school. She kept up the practice and published her first book in the 1990s, while still working in television in Zunyi.
At the age of 30, she decided to become a full-time professional author.
Resigning from the TV station to concentrate on writing, she moved to Beijing in 2002, and four years later, Los Angeles. Seven books have followed.
Wang says she feels much luckier than her heroine in "Yang Jia" with her experiences in the United States. The novel's protagonist is offered the chance to marry an American, thus securing a green card, but refuses to do so and finally returns to China. "I secured a permanent permit by myself and did not have to make such a 'difficult' choice," the author explains.
She recalls that living overseas expanded her vision of the world, enabling her to review her previous life in China from a different perspective.
"However, I finally came to realize that America will never be home for my spirit and career," she says. "Unlike the previous generations of immigrants to America, it is not a problem of language or the bread-and-butter things. The country is materially affluent, but sheer material well-being will not provide real happiness.
"Add to that the fact that China's rapid economic growth these past few years has made it unnecessary for me to stay in the United States just for a comfortable life. As a writer, I found my readers, my development and my roots lie in my motherland."
China's publishing industry is indeed booming, providing opportunities for people like Wang. In 2012, it produced a total of 8.1 billion copies of books, and the value of its output placed it third in the world by this measure, according to a recent government white paper.
Official statistics also reveal that the sector last year registered 1.65 trillion yuan (266 billion U.S. dollars) in revenue, a year-on-year increase of 13.6 percent.
**A Chinese dream **
Some of Wang's friends in the United States questioned her decision to move home, but her family, including her brother, an architect who had also returned from America, supported her.
Her return comes as the "Chinese dream" is a term very much dominating the zeitgeist. Speeches by Chinese President Xi Jinping have brought to prominence this concept, widely understood to mean a renewal of the Chinese nation. Wang and others like her have been inspired by such a feel-good factor to recognize not just the practical advantages of life in China but also the roles they themselves can play within Chinese society at this formative time.
"People in China are talking about the Chinese dream, and I think my decision attested that such dreams really exist," Wang says.
According to Xi, the Chinese dream "is a dream of the whole nation, as well as of every individual."
"The Chinese dream is an aspiration around which the people and the nation are striving to take on meaning," says Xin Ming, a professor with the Party School of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.
"People work for benefits, but benefits can never be their sole pursuit," Xin says. "That's why, while China has made remarkable progress in recent years, some people are feeling that the dazzling development of the economy is leading them nowhere."
The "Chinese dream," however, will bestow significance and value upon the individuals' efforts, the professor believes.
Moreover, it fleshes out the common ideal of socialism with Chinese characteristics, making it tangible and accessible for all Chinese people, according to Xin.
**More dreams **
China has set the goals of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by the time the CPC celebrates its centenary in 2021 and turning the nation into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious in time for the People's Republic of China to mark its centennial in 2049.
A nation's dream should be commensurate with its own development stage, Xin says. "When these goals are accomplished, Chinese people can dream even bigger."
As for Wang, she is taking stock of her own aspirations. With the TV adaptation of "Yang Jia" scheduled to start and finish filming within 2014, she has also been contacted by publishers wanting to translate her works into English.
But the author is unsure about this plan. "I don't know what a foreign readership would think about my novel, and I don't want to appear to be preaching specific messages to them," she says. "The simple fact that more people will read my books, though, is like another dream being realized."
