Not the sort of thing one expects to see at a book launch. Unless of course, it is a Jaivin launch. In which case giant rubber penises wobbling the macarena on the hors-d’oeuvres plate are not only expected but de rigueur. Even if, in this case, they are of marginal relevance. Expectations are everything; raising a question of what Jaivin’s fans will make of Confessions. Touted as the latest ‘outrageous’ offering from the author of bestsellers Eat Me and Rock ‘n’ Roll Babes, this collection of essays and journalism offers a number of amusing diversions into comic­erotica. But diversions they are. Despite some very droll and occasionally hilarious forays into the subjects of genital swapping (literally), orgasm, and PMT, Confessions’ centre of gravity is fixed squarely within Jaivin’s original area of expertise, China.

An accomplished speaker of Mandarin with qualifications in Chinese studies and nine years in-country, Jaivin contributed heavy political and economic reportage to conservative, buttoned-down publications such as the Far Eastern Economic Review, leavened by funkier pop cultural analysis for the likes of Rolling Stone. The latter is the dominant house style for Confessions where Jaivin gads about Beijing with Billy Bragg just before the Tiananmen massacre, parties with Chinese headbangers, and peers into the furtive underground world of gays and lesbians in the People’s Republic. Put-upon local artists looking for a reflection of their circumstances in the repressive environment of mainland China will be disappointed. Jaivin’s analysis of the difference between undergrounds and subcultures is enough to wither the pretensions of all but the hardiest poseurs. ‘Subcultures are basement rooms with windows looking out on the pavements,’ she writes. ‘The underground by contrast is a tunnel with a guarded entrance. You choose to move into a subculture; you are forced into the underground ...’ There are no underground artists in Australia because no one persecutes artists here – except, she remarks dryly, for art critics, postmodernist bores, and parents who insist on asking, ‘When are you going to get a real job?’

Surprisingly Jaivin also finds the situation in China becoming increasingly looser. Having unleashed the dragon of market forces, Party and State find themselves distracted from the traditional pastimes of repressing writers and painters. Approached by a Chinese youth who introduced himself as an ‘underground poet’ the author astonished him by asking why he was underground; was he hiding from someone? He thought her mad and told her he was an underground poet because he published his work in an unauthorised journal. She burst this bubble by asking whether he had ever attempted to get authorisation. He fled the exchange. Comparing his situation with the life-threatening travails of an earlier generation of Chinese artists Jaivin concludes that, even after Tiananmen, the dead hand of communism has twitched aside a few grey fingers which once relentlessly bore down on the local art crowd.

The sense of a China living beyond the myth and monolith of contemporary reporting comes through very strongly in these stories. Totally immersed in the local culture – and subcultures – she was witness to episodes which crustier Sinologists would never understand. Consequently Confessions would make an excellent companion piece to the teetering stacks of learned tomes on Communist China which are sure to grow like topsy in the next ten years.

Of course that is unlikely to happen, because no Sinologist worth their salt and pepper squid is likely to make reference to or seek enlightenment within a book entitled Confessions of an S&M Virgin. A pity, because Jaivin’s writings on the ‘89 massacre rank amongst the finest pieces of reconstructive journalism published by an Australian. Perhaps the future release of her biography of Hou Dejian, described as one of the heroes of Tiananmen by The New York Times, will address this; assuming Text don’t try another shell and pea game by touting the book as being in the tradition of her earlier novels.