Mr. China, who is he?

For all China´s race towards modernity, the country´s language, script, customs and politics remain extremely alien and any visitor will be richly rewarded by reading something about the country´s history and culture in advance.

Mr. China by Tim Clissold (Constable and Robinson), an Englishman who lives and works in China, where he's been for the last 16 years.. Hilarious account of how to lose US$420 million on ill-advised business dealings in China, by a British man who did just that. THE way Mr Tim Clissold tells it, China seemed like a land of endless business possibilities when he arrived as a young tourist in 1988. Two years later, the 30-year-old auditor quit his job in London to study Chinese in Beijing and, when China opened for business in a big way soon after, he and a small group of investors raised US$420 million (S$699 million) to invest in various sectors, including automated components for vehicles.

With ambition, drive, and what he calls a "wilful infatuation" with all things Chinese, what could possibly go wrong for the Mandarin-speaking Englishman? Everything, apparently, from the usual red tape to obfuscating officials and stubborn factory managers who resisted change with the standard line: "You don´t understand China!"  Clissold tells an engaging story of the myth and allure of China, and the ways in which capitalism attempted to transform it and the rest of the world wanted to take advantage of the financial possibilities they could see.   He talks of factory tours and astonishing drinking sessions; huge amounts of money, won and lost; entangled bureacracies; and a whole new set of rules.

This is a must-read China business story, heralding back to the early days of China foreign investment in the early 1980s.