Rachel DeWoskin arrived in Beijing in 1994, to work for an American PR firm. Before long, though, she was starring as ¡¥foreign babe¡¦ Jiexi in a twenty-episode television drama that was watched by an estimated six hundred million viewers. In Foreign Babes in Beijing the author describes her years in China from the unique viewpoint of a foreigner experiencing culture shock in real life, while playing out a parallel version on screen.