Tide Players depicts a new generation of entrepreneurs and intellectuals in a rapidly transforming China through six sharply etched and nuanced profiles which capture both the concrete detail and the epic dimension of life in contemporary Beijing.The cast of characters includes: an unlikely couple who teamed up to become the countrys leading real estate mogul; a gifted chameleon who transformed himself from Maos favorite barefoot doctor during the Cultural Revolution to a publishing maverick; a tycoon of home electronic chain stores who insisted on avenging his mother, a counter-revolutionary criminal executed in the most brutal manner. Zha also brings us to the intellectuals: the cantankerous professors at Beida, Chinas number-one university; a famous, prolific writer who, after stepping down as the cultural minister, kept people divided about whether he is an apologist for the Chinese Communist Party or a great author that might one day win a Nobel Prize in literature. Then there is the heart-rending story of Zhas own brother, a dissident who served a nine-year prison term for helping to found the China Democracy Party, yet remains an unrepentant idealist.