The heroine of the book, "Foreign Babes in Beijing" observes her colleagues and her boss during a meeting at the PR firm she works at. She narrates:

As for Charlotte, she was one small player in a long tradition of Westerners harboring the happy illusions that they both could and should change China. While we Westerners have come and gone, China has changed at its own pace, gradually at times, quickly at others, within plan at times, but most often outside it. What may be more predictable is how China changes us.