Inside the Red Mansion
Subtitle: on the trail of China's most wanted man
By: Oliver August
Edition: Large print ed.
Series: Clipper Large Print
Publisher: W F Howes
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Rearsby
Language: eng
Number of pages: 450
ISBN-13: 9781407413914
Subjects: Travel; Businesspeople; Shipping; Corrupt practices; Bribery; Industrial policy; Large type books; Economic conditions; Economic history
Description: Inside the Red Mansion is a journey into the heart of the new China. Due to a mix-up on a routine reporting assignment. Oliver August stumbles onto the hunt for China's most wanted man, Lai Changxing, an illiterate tycoon on the run from corruption charges. Sensing something emblematic in the outsized tale of Lai's rise and fall, August sets out to find the self-made billionaire, hoping that if he can understand how Lai reinvented himself, he will also better grasp the tectonic forces transforming modern China. Lai embodies the story of China's recent success as well as its Achilles' heel: its command economy, blended with the free market, is riddled with corruption. Moving ever closer to the elusive tycoon, August introduces us to a people in the midst of head-spinning self-transformation. We meet a nightclub hostess and her gaggle of "Miss Temporaries"; powerful businessmen on a debt-settling round of nocturnal golf; and a foie gras king who markets his goose liver by the ton and prefers it deep fried. This is a China seething with desire, engaged in a slapstick fight with its past, and hell-bent on the future.
Notes: Originally published: London: John Murray, 2007.
Table of contents: title: Writers; title: Petits bourgeois; title: The landlord; title: Boatmen; title: Dancing girls; title: Three hands; title: Villagers; title: Believers; title: The goose liver king; title: Bandits; title: The madam; title: Fugitives; title: Night traders; title: Rocket cadres; title: The vice-minister; title: Lawyers; title: The gambler; title: The gambler II; title: The officer.