Dan Washburn > Quotes

“The best golfers are the ones who are good at forgetting, the ones who realize the only thing they can control is their attitude toward the next swing.”
― Dan Washburn, Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream

“From 2005 to 2010, the number of Chinese courses tripled to more than six hundred. An impressive feat, especially when you consider that building new courses has been technically illegal in China since at least 2004.”
― Dan Washburn, Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream

“It’s a China thing,” he said. “They screw everybody, so they think everybody screws them.”
― Dan Washburn, Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream

“He was not a good salesman, especially if selling himself. He didn’t believe in boasting, and didn’t like listening to others do it, either. He wanted to be recognized for his actions, not his words. “I don’t know how to ask people to sponsor me,” Zhou said. “It feels just like begging people for money. I can’t do that.”
― Dan Washburn, Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream

“Sometimes, though, imagination coupled with a seemingly endless budget can drive a person a little crazy.”
― Dan Washburn, Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream

“golf isn’t taxed like a sport in China; it’s taxed as an entertainment venue, similar to a karaoke club, at a hefty 23.5 percent rate.”
― Dan Washburn, Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream

“These staffers call themselves CEOs, “chief entertainment officers,” because they’re constantly picking up the tab for meals, drinks and trips to the local karaoke joint (“chief enticement officer” might be a better title).”
― Dan Washburn, Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream

“By 2000, the Pearl River Delta was home to an estimated 22 million migrant workers. Fewer than 3 percent of them returned home permanently.”
― Dan Washburn, Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream

“Even today, the average rural family in Guizhou earns less than a hundred dollars a month – just 4,753 yuan ($780) a year.”
― Dan Washburn, Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream

“In 1935, a Fortune magazine piece profiled a day in the life of a typical Shanghai-based expatriate, or “Shanghailander”: “At noon you make your way to a club for a leisurely lunch and two cocktails… You return to your office. But at four-thirty you knock off again for a game of golf at the Shanghai Golf Club or the Hung-Jao Golf Club, both resembling the Westchester County variety except for the attendants in white nightgowns.”
― Dan Washburn, Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream

“Most successful developers have at least one person, if not a team of three or four, whose only job is to maintain solid relationships with – if not blatantly pay off – the local officials who sign off on various aspects of development projects, regardless of the directives from Beijing.”
― Dan Washburn, Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream

“Parents here only view school as a way to avoid being illiterate. They don’t see education as a way to change their future and help them out of poverty.”
― Dan Washburn, Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream

“山高皇帝远 (Shan gao huang di yuan) The mountain is high and the emperor is far away.”
― Dan Washburn, Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream

“many villagers still commonly use the unit of measurement dan, literally the amount of weight a grown man can carry over his shoulder.”
― Dan Washburn, Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream

“The Chinese have a saying about unwanted attention: “Man should fear fame like pigs fear getting fat.”
― Dan Washburn, Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream

“The Chairman demanded all presentations come with visual aids, giving him a reason to use his beloved laser pointers, of which a multicolored collection was always lined up neatly on the table in front of him.”
― Dan Washburn, Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream