Mr. China: A Memoir（中国先生）

Mr. China tells the rollicking story of a young man who goes to China with the misguided notion that he will help bring the Chinese into the modern world, only to be schooled by the most resourceful and creative operators he would ever meet. Part memoir, part parable, Mr. China is one man's coming-of-age story where he learns to respect and admire the nation he sought to conquer.

From Publishers Weekly A British businessman with a background in accounting and auditing, Clissold joined up with an entrepreneur in the early 1990s and set out to buy shares of Chinese firms and to work to make them more profitable. Within two years, Clissold's venture owned shares in 20 Chinese businesses, with 25,000 employees among them, but the story really centers on Clissold's encounters with the nation's "institutionalized confusion." Firing entrenched middle managers became a protracted process that led to factory riots and employees using company funds to set up competing businesses; the anticorruption bureau demanded cash bribes before opening investigations. Clissold's narrative is somewhat aimless, slipping from one misadventure (taking American fund managers to a condom factory) to the next, and there's a certain amount of too-easy humor derived from the exoticism of Chinese culture (e.g., the inevitable banquet where unusual body parts of rabbit and deer are served). Even in these passages, though, Clissold's fundamental respect for the Chinese culture is unmistakable, and the scenes where he leaves his office and interacts directly with the people can be quite vividly detailed. By the late '90s, millions of dollars poured into the companies yield disastrous results from an investment standpoint (and Clissold himself suffers a heart attack), but the Chinese economy as a whole hums ever more loudly. Crossover appeal of this title may be limited, but business readers are likely to be entertained. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Booklist In the early 1990s, British businessman Clissold--with a passing knowledge of China and of Mandarin--found himself the point man between a group of Wall Street bankers with hundreds of millions to invest and a budding entrepreneur class in China strapped for cash and foreign expertise. This seemingly perfect marriage would become, as one investor put it, "the Vietnam War of American business." By decade's end, hundreds of joint ventures would fail and billions of dollars would be lost. If Clissold was well placed to help create many of these ill-fated partnerships, he's even better positioned to explain, through his own horrific experiences, what went wrong: a labyrinthine legal and political system that Westerners (even with Chinese help) could never decipher, a rickety and hidebound system of factory management in China, an almost-willful lack of respect by Wall Street for Chinese sensibilities, and often-flagrant abuse by Chinese managers of the Western largesse made available to them. A compelling account, related with sly humor and hard-earned wisdom. Alan Moores Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Newsweek "Lots of Western businessmen have China war stories, but only Tim Clissold has written . . . this funny book." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Tucker Carlson, co-host of CNN's Crossfire "One of the wittiest, most compelling accounts of anything I’ve read in a long time. A terrific book." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Library Journal "A compelling account, related with sly humor and hard-earned wisdom." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Washington Post "Hugely entertaining ... Clissold loves China . . . but he also views it with clarity and no small amount of humor." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Playboy "Hard to put down... with passionate characters and vivid landscapes. Clissold excels at analyzing a strange business culture...." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Time "Present at the creation of China's economic miracle, Clissold's memoir is an instant classic. Sharply observed, funny as hell. Indispensible." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Time magazine "Present at the creation of China’s economic miracle, Clissold’s memoir is an instant classic. Sharply observed, funny as hell .Indispensible." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. USA Today "An adventure tale. Clissold is a wonderful and compassionate narrator (with) a deep respect for the culture, language, and history." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Washington Post "Hugely entertaining…Clissold loves China…but he also views it with clarity and no small amount of humor." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Tim Clissold has been working in China for seventeen years and has traveled to almost every part of the country. He lives in Beijing with his wife and four children.

Map of China
Preface:Mr.China
ONE:We Are Wanderers at the Ends of the Earth
TWO:A Journey of a Thousand Li Begins from Under One's Feet
THREREE:If You Won't Go into the Tiger's Lair,How Can You Catch the Cubs?
FOUR:We Tramped and Tramped Until Our Iron Shoes Were Broken
FIVE:Three Vile Cobblers Can Beat the Wisest Sage
SIX:Wind in the Tower Warns of Storms in the Mountains
SEVEN:The Magistrate 'sGates Open Toward the South
EICHT:Crushed by the Weight of Mount Taishan
NINE:The Bottle Finally Bursts:Nineteen Thousand Catties Hanging by a Single Hair
TEN:The Siege of Jingzhou:Up in the Sky There Are Nine-Headed Birds
ELEVEN:The Battle of Ningshan:The Mightiest Dragon Cannot Crush the Local Snake
TWELVE:The Iron Tree Blossoms
Postscript
Author's Note