Customer Reviews
Understanding China - By: S. Hemingway, 04 Nov 2008 
This is a wonderfully-written book that shows how difficult it used to be to invest in China & get a return. It remains hard for westerners, & there is a terribly damaging legacy of forty years of communist mismanagement of the economy. However, I think that an investor reading this book today might be unduly discouraged by the difficulties that Clissold brilliantly, & hilariously, describes.
The core point of the book, that doing business the western way, having contracts that legallly enforcible & which the parties regard as inviolable, remains a problem. Free private property in the absence of good enforcement of property rights remains a chimera. Investing in China can be profitable, but is definitely not for the faint-hearted, nor for those with short-term investment horizons.
A Gripping Business Book - By: B. W. Jenner, 30 Oct 2008 
I was asked to write a speech for a Chinese-American lady, & she recommended this book. I'd read it within four days of buying it. It's fantastic story about how making agreements, & getting those agreements fulfilled are two very different things - theory is one thing, practice is quite another - China is a very different country & their way of doing things is eye-poppingly different.
Tim Clissold lived the drama. He went through hell & just about came out the other side. Even if you weren't going to do business with China, it's an excellent story of how human nature can defy management. It also shows how many things we take for granted in the West. This is a beautiful book.
China for beginners - By: Ulrik Jungersen Walther, 28 Jul 2008 I met a German chap in Hong Kong once, who was a buyer in the Chinese markets for a consortium of European companies. Every time we talked about China & doing business there, he would develop a nervous twitch & his right eyebrow would start to shake. All he would say was "Weird. It is very weird", which he would keep on repeating without ever elaborating. This book explains his behaviour.
What a book! - By: Sandeep Potnis, 25 Mar 2008 Is it a travelogue? Is it a business book? Is it an adventure book? Or is it a book for understanding a culture? I felt it is alll of those. For someone wanting to get an outside-in view of China, this book surprises, amazes, imparts knowledge, challlenges the basis of rational thought & leaves one wanting to know more.
I personallly think the author has done a fantastic job in his narration. Most definitely a must read even though it is about China as it was in early to mid nineties. It will be interesting to see how far China has changed since then.
My International Business Professor recommended this book late last year. I will probably ask for more book recommendations from him .
couldn't put it down - By: Mr. D. Turner, 06 Feb 2007 what a hilarious account. I read this on a plane on my way to canada & had to stifle loud laughs often. Written in that typical style of the unflappable englishman with the stiff upper lip who will not let anhything, no matter how trying, get to him. Read it & you will laugh, feel anger, frustration & sadness...but totallly enjoyable!!!
