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Chasing China: How I Went to China in Search of a Fortune and Found a Life
An astonishing, cautionary tale of how Westerner Mark Kitto built a successful media empire in China, creating and running 3 magazines, only to have the state take his business, and his livelihood, away.
“I had fought off attacks from jealous rivals and been investigated by every bureau with the slightest connection to publishing, and by many who did not: nine in total. I had paid over 1 million Yuan in fines, and who knows how much more in administration fees to government 'agencies.' I had been accused of being a pimp, a China 'splittist,' a Falun Gong supporter, a pornographer and a spy. My staff had been extradited, my office computers confiscated, and my magazines impounded at the printers. I had got them all back. I had been through eight government publishing partners before China Intercontinental Press, and half a dozen advertising agencies.” —Mark Kitto on his experience as a business owner in China
“I had fought off attacks from jealous rivals and been investigated by every bureau with the slightest connection to publishing, and by many who did not: nine in total. I had paid over 1 million Yuan in fines, and who knows how much more in administration fees to government 'agencies.' I had been accused of being a pimp, a China 'splittist,' a Falun Gong supporter, a pornographer and a spy. My staff had been extradited, my office computers confiscated, and my magazines impounded at the printers. I had got them all back. I had been through eight government publishing partners before China Intercontinental Press, and half a dozen advertising agencies.” —Mark Kitto on his experience as a business owner in China
- GenresChina
368 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 16, 2013
I don't know. Maybe the title of this book is a little misleading.Chasing China ?Chasing fortune ?Mark failed to accomplish that in China obviously .He says he liked China.Why .maybe he just wanted to find his fortune there only he didn't. And then he begins his revealing of China ,of the social system and so on .Most of them are true ,however it's like a grumpy guy rambling about a so complicated country.By the way I am a Chinese and I am totally OK with those critiques of the negative stuffs in China .But I don't like the way Mark puts it .It's like China owes him or what .Like China should be operating in a way with which Mark is satisfied ,or most importantly he can gain profit from. Grow up man, that's the way China is .Stop grumbling about it.If you don't like it just get out of here ,(in fact he did lol)
September 18, 2020
Protected species fyfe
March 24, 2014
This book would help the reader in several platforms; for it could be (and it is) a guidebook on starting, running and surviving in business in China dodging the official onslaught. Or it could be a tour guide to china or more precisely Moganshan. Simultaneously it would strike you as a source of inspiration, which gives you a “well-detailed” tale of a man who fought the Chinese official dragon and its several sister entities in course of doing his business in china.
The book could be divided into o few segments based on what the pages bestow(what I think they do J) in the first pace-50 , tell the details of his early days in china, starting, running business, small skirmishes with the authority, the way he dealt with them etc.. Then with the intro of Moganshan(even if the first chapter describes his visit to Moganshan with a “head-turningly” beautiful shanghai girl, they shift to the place only after several chaps)
Mark Kitto teaches us how difficult it is to “Make things happen” in china, with all the official complication ruining everything. The reader will be astounded by Mark’s persistence and will to remain in the Chinese mainland after having stripped off his hard earned business by the Chinese Communist party. The reader is sure to bestow certain respect for the author. In several accounts of his “troubles” with the unyielding Chinese system, Mark dazzles the reader with his exceptionally positive attitude that of never backing down. Nevertheless it is indispensable to state feature of the book that strike me as a negative and unnecessary – ‘excessive details’. I think the book would have been a lot better if it was briefed to half of what it is now, with some alterations of course.
1) By adding more details of “staring a honest business in china by dealing effectively with the authority” that way it will be a perfect guidebook to those desiring to open a business in china. A GUIDE FOR FOREIGNERS TO START BUISENESS IN CHINA it would have been.
2) With a little more detail about how he made all the money. I mean the book says how he spends it only. A little more light to his past could have helped.
3) Deduce unnecessary details of nature/Moganshan/Purchase/travel/room shift…….etc
I could find some serious grammatical errors too, the editing should have been more perfect.
The book could be divided into o few segments based on what the pages bestow(what I think they do J) in the first pace-50 , tell the details of his early days in china, starting, running business, small skirmishes with the authority, the way he dealt with them etc.. Then with the intro of Moganshan(even if the first chapter describes his visit to Moganshan with a “head-turningly” beautiful shanghai girl, they shift to the place only after several chaps)
Mark Kitto teaches us how difficult it is to “Make things happen” in china, with all the official complication ruining everything. The reader will be astounded by Mark’s persistence and will to remain in the Chinese mainland after having stripped off his hard earned business by the Chinese Communist party. The reader is sure to bestow certain respect for the author. In several accounts of his “troubles” with the unyielding Chinese system, Mark dazzles the reader with his exceptionally positive attitude that of never backing down. Nevertheless it is indispensable to state feature of the book that strike me as a negative and unnecessary – ‘excessive details’. I think the book would have been a lot better if it was briefed to half of what it is now, with some alterations of course.
1) By adding more details of “staring a honest business in china by dealing effectively with the authority” that way it will be a perfect guidebook to those desiring to open a business in china. A GUIDE FOR FOREIGNERS TO START BUISENESS IN CHINA it would have been.
2) With a little more detail about how he made all the money. I mean the book says how he spends it only. A little more light to his past could have helped.
3) Deduce unnecessary details of nature/Moganshan/Purchase/travel/room shift…….etc
I could find some serious grammatical errors too, the editing should have been more perfect.
February 17, 2009
Crazy story, this.
So my husband and I decided to take a small vacation over our winter break to a local mountain called Moganshan - about an hour and a half from Hangzhou. We arranged to stay at a hotel through a guy who runs a restaurant at the mountaintop called "The Lodge," where we also made arrangements for dinner.
So that evening we arrive to have dinner there, whereupon our host mentions that he's just written a book about the mountain - the first of its kind in English about the area. Joel, who's a freelance writer, is piqued with interest at the idea, and offers to see if he can pitch a book review to That's Shanghai, an expat magazine - to which our host replies with a steely glint in his eye:
"Do you know who I am?"
Turns out he's Mark Kitto, author of book now being reviewed by myself (although what I read was an unproofed copy), ex-owner of That's Shanghai whose tragic story of being muscled out of a multimillion dollar business empire by the Chinese government and subsequently setting up a hermit-like existence on a remote Chinese mountaintop is detailed within the covers of this debut.
Alternately the high-rolling media mogul and the hale and hearty mountaintop explorer, Kitto's certainly got the hooks to pull you into his exploits. His writing seems more suited to short magazine pieces, however, and the story runs in a somewhat choppy manner. I read this in a few hours (partly because we were only there for two days, and had to return the copy to the author). There are experiences mentioned that expats can relate to and chuckle softly in recognition.
My reading of the book was obviously colored by the fact that I was at the place of the book's subject, not to mention given the actual book by the actual author. Nevertheless, it was a decent and enjoyable read.
So my husband and I decided to take a small vacation over our winter break to a local mountain called Moganshan - about an hour and a half from Hangzhou. We arranged to stay at a hotel through a guy who runs a restaurant at the mountaintop called "The Lodge," where we also made arrangements for dinner.
So that evening we arrive to have dinner there, whereupon our host mentions that he's just written a book about the mountain - the first of its kind in English about the area. Joel, who's a freelance writer, is piqued with interest at the idea, and offers to see if he can pitch a book review to That's Shanghai, an expat magazine - to which our host replies with a steely glint in his eye:
"Do you know who I am?"
Turns out he's Mark Kitto, author of book now being reviewed by myself (although what I read was an unproofed copy), ex-owner of That's Shanghai whose tragic story of being muscled out of a multimillion dollar business empire by the Chinese government and subsequently setting up a hermit-like existence on a remote Chinese mountaintop is detailed within the covers of this debut.
Alternately the high-rolling media mogul and the hale and hearty mountaintop explorer, Kitto's certainly got the hooks to pull you into his exploits. His writing seems more suited to short magazine pieces, however, and the story runs in a somewhat choppy manner. I read this in a few hours (partly because we were only there for two days, and had to return the copy to the author). There are experiences mentioned that expats can relate to and chuckle softly in recognition.
My reading of the book was obviously colored by the fact that I was at the place of the book's subject, not to mention given the actual book by the actual author. Nevertheless, it was a decent and enjoyable read.
July 21, 2009
The description lead me to believe that this book would focus on living and working in modern day China from Kitto's perspective, who is an ex-patriot entrepreneur. All of that was true.
What the description didn’t reveal was that Kitto’s account would be ponderous, poorly written, and an appallingly edited book of clumsily compiled essays written by a pompous, whiny egomaniac. Most of the stories were painfully dull. By the time I was two-thirds of the way through I began skimming. Really disappointing.
What the description didn’t reveal was that Kitto’s account would be ponderous, poorly written, and an appallingly edited book of clumsily compiled essays written by a pompous, whiny egomaniac. Most of the stories were painfully dull. By the time I was two-thirds of the way through I began skimming. Really disappointing.
Want to read
November 2, 2009Just started it, but intriguing account of a forgotten resort city in the mountains has me hooked.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews