Shanghai Cocktales: A Memoir

by Tom Olden

Tom Olden arrives in China in 1999, armed with only a few thousand bucks and a couple of suitcases. He's come to Shanghai, the Paris of the East, to seek his destiny and his fortune. Or perhaps he's come to the other Shanghai—the Whore of the Orient—to lose himself in a self-destructive cavalcade of booze, bongs, and women. Either option sounds good to a young man nursing a badly broken heart.

Shanghai at the turn of the millennium is a swirling cauldron of contradictions and paradoxes—a city where rigid communist control cohabits with sensual excesses. A place where bamboo scaffolding gives way to modern towers of steel and glass. A place where change is the only constant. Anxious but eager, Olden finds Shanghai's constant state of flux both exhilarating and overwhelming.

A bright young twenty-something, Olden rides the Chinese Internet revolution to the top of the dot com bubble, only to fall at terminal velocity just before the bubble pops. He discovers that blue eyes and a winning smile gain him access to the charms of an adulterous Taitai housewife. He develops a friendship with a Kashgar warrior who may be the most over-qualified drug runner in China. He weathers the local outrage generated by the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade; he is chased through streets by an outraged boyfriend, and discovers how generous the citizens of Shanghai are when he's down on his luck.

Welcome to Shanghai. She's waiting. Just remember, she's as much a whore as a lady.

378 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 7, 2014

Reviews

[Isham Cook · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lively account of Shanghai expat bar scene, but Olden made the mistake of publishing a memoir without any attempt at editing; reads like a series of gassy emails.