Review:
For those on Wall Street with their MBA certificates hanging proudly in the office, China is the last great economic frontier, theoretically readily for Westernisation and modernisation, fuelled by oodles of cash. Sadly for them, it's not quite like that. The thin veneer of novelisation is a threadbare cloak for Clissold's exasperated memoirs of his time as a frontiersman in China, trying to translate over USD400m of Wall Street-loaned cash into a viable, working business empire. But the combination of Red Party politics, an unwieldy government and generations of idiosyncrasy militates against the conqueror. Money goes missing, committees fail to be swayed, loyalties waver and the sheer size of the place deadens the possibilities. A country where the workers nibble rabbits' heads is not one where a Brooks Brothers suit cuts much ice in this cautionary tale, prosaically told. Clissold remains caught between a country that he loves and who's people fascinate him and the lure of big, big money, but, in its redemptive arc, its the love that wins through, though not without the rueful acceptance that if you play a game, its best if you know the rules first. --Kirkus
Book Description:
The incredible true story of a Wall Street banker who went to China, blew four hundred milion dollars and learned the hard way that China doesn't play by Western rules.
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