Covid Numbers Climb; Oscar-Nominated Ascension

Babies and toddlers seems more at risk of Covid-19 now

Hong Kong had another record day of cases -- 7,533 -- and sadly 16 deaths, one of which was an 11-month old baby girl. There is a big concern now about children becoming infected and how they are not getting vaccinated or are too young to be vaccinated in the case of this baby.

Meanwhile the government is still going ahead with the vaccine pass that starts on Thursday. In order to get a haircut or go to a religious service you must have at least one jab and have this vaccination certification uploaded on your LeaveHomeSafe app.

Uploaded vaccine passport is on left, none on right

If you are going to a shopping mall, supermarket, department store or wet market then you may need to show your vaccine pass if a security person stops you. So there may be some people who are not vaccinated and may take the risk of going into a supermarket without having to show anything. How is this helpful?

And perhaps even worse, no vaccination is needed at all to go into a hotel! Why is that when almost all hotel staff were pushed to get the jab? It boggles the mind.

Something completely unrelated to Covid -- I watched a documentary called Ascension that was nominated for Best Documentary at this year's Academy Awards.

I didn't know quite what to expect and was surprised at the end and how it all came together.

Oscar-nominated documentary Ascension

There is no one main character, no particular storyline, but it becomes more apparent the longer you watch it. It starts off with scenes of people looking for jobs and those trying to entice them with decent labour conditions, like free wifi, air conditioning in the dormitories, but the pay is very low at around 20 kuai (US$3.15) an hour. We are not sure what the jobs entail, but some say you get to sit while working, others say the job is in an office.

People get rounded up and taken in coaches to their new destiny.

Some make rugs for Ikea, components for spray bottles, bottles of water, others make microchips, Christmas trees, jeans, and shirts. 

Perhaps the most amusing scene is watching mostly women putting sex dolls together. They are made of silicone, with large pendulous breasts, and curvy bottoms. They have permanent surprised expressions on their faces. Each one is custom made -- "Her nipples need to be pink!" one worker says, another has her wig changed from blonde to brunette. Another flings the doll's legs apart to inspect her down there. Each one is photographed to make sure it is correctly done up.

Worker checks the sex doll's face with the order

An interesting tidbit is that director Jessica Kingdon said a subsequent talk that all the sex doll factories they went to were owned by women.

Then the film shifts to jobs that have been created in the last few years, such as cryptocurrency mining (mostly young guys playing video games and eating lots of junk food), men collecting rented bikes that are dumped in a pile, people talking into their smartphone streaming online to sell things, and what looks like a pyramid company, where everyone is aiming to make over 10 million yuan in three years.

There's also people who are training to be bodyguards, hitting each other until there are scratches and bruises on their chests, and to be professional-looking assistants where they should smile to show eight of their upper teeth, while others are training to be butlers, measuring the distance between glasses and plates. The instructor asks them if they have ever watched Downton Abbey and none of them have, leaving them with little understanding with what career they have chosen.

It's an interesting look at what Chinese wealthy people think what being rich should look like, and the butlers trying to fulfill that fantasy. They probably assume everyone in England lives like that, ringing a bell for the butler to appear. 

People waiting around to get work in factories

This is similar to the aspirations of China's middle class. They think they have made it when they buy luxury brands or they go to a water park and sharks swim around them in an outer pool. It's all quite overwhelming the sheer numbers of people all trying to enjoy themselves at the same time.

Kingdon herself has an interesting background. Her father is Jewish-American, her mother is Chinese. Her brother went to China for a few years, learned Mandarin and persuaded his sister to come look at the country.

Before Covid-19, Kingdon and her small crew filmed in 51 different locations around the country and she says in interviews she had the best Chinese food. Kingdon also managed to meet relatives on her mother's side, one of which is now a cousin who works in Silicon Valley in the US.

Nevertheless, the title of the film comes from her great grandfather who wrote poems. One of them is Ascension, where he writes that the higher one climbs, one is horrified by what they see down below.

Director Jessica Kingdon, her mother is Chinese

This encapsulates the film -- how people are struggling to get ahead in some way, whether it's factory work to escape the poverty in the countryside, or to become a butler in the hopes of getting away from a terrible work environment. And with all this production and capitalism leads to terrible environmental damage, climate change, and exploitation of labour.

But Ascension doesn't preach a particular message, nor is it judgemental -- it has a fly-on-the-wall approach to the film and lets the viewers see what is going on and decide for themselves what they see in the documentary.

Ascension

Directed by Jessica Kingdon

97 minutes

HK Govt Bungles Coming Clean on Masks

Some 2 million people have signed up to get these reusable masks

 

Over 2 million people have ordered the government issued reusable masks online, but now there is a fiasco over why the government was not more forthcoming about which companies took part in the production process, and why there was no public tender for it.

Months ago when there was a mask shortage, the Hong Kong government kept missing out on crucial shipments of surgical masks because it insisted on going through a tender process. And now it seems tendering to make 7 million masks is not necessary.

Annie Choi (left) speaking on RTHK today about the masks

What gives?

Finally today the permanent secretary for Innovation and Technology, Annie Choi Suk-han, said on an RTHK radio program that the masks were being produced by Hong Kong-based textiles company Crystal International Group Limited, which has a factory in Vietnam, as well as TAL Apparel, which has a small production line in Hong Kong.

The completed masks are then sent to a company in the Tai Po Industrial Estate where they are sterilized and packaged, and then sent to The Mills in Tsuen Wan, owned by Nan Fung Group, for storage, as well as Novetex Textiles.

Choi said officials initially didn't want to disclose the names of the companies because they didn't want to "inconvenience anyone" but did not elaborate further which raised eyebrows.

Novetex is one of the companies involved in mask production

She said Crystal International Group, which usually handles orders from Uniqlo and H&M, set aside work to handle this "special project".

"I am actually worried, as I don't know if [the manufacturer] can recover the cost," Choi said.

Is this her way of trying to get sympathy for a company that is getting a massive order? What about all those businesses that were struggling for the past six weeks because of the pandemic?  Does she feel sorry for them?

And more telling is that the masks had to be produced in Vietnam, as there is no factory in Hong Kong certified to produce these kinds of masks and could be easily exported here.

The mask was developed and patented by the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel, a government-funded non-profit, and costs around HK$800 million. Interestingly the heads of Crystal Group and TAL Apparel are HKRITA directors.

Remember when people queued for hours for masks?

 When asked why there was no public tender, Choi explained the project was done according to the government and World Trade Organization procurement guidelines.

"According to the government regulations, in case of public health emergency, we can conduct direct procurement," she said.

Again we ask -- why wasn't that measure taken a few months ago back in late January when Hongkongers were desperately looking for masks? Or the coronavirus wasn't considered a public health emergency then?

China's Painful Economic Woes

The chances of finding a job is harder with more people out of work

The New York Times recently reported how the economic slowdown in China is affecting its workers and it's very worrying.

It's not just the factory workers and construction workers who are hurting -- it's also the white-collar ones with university degrees, making them wonder how stable their futures are.

There are fewer jobs available, some companies reporting layoffs of up to 30 percent in firms that employ hundreds of people, while jobs ads across all sectors have dropped by 10 percent. Start-ups have had it the hardest with new positions falling 51 percent in the third quarter of 2018 from a year earlier.

Not just factory workers, but white-collar ones are laid off too

Just after Spring Festival in February, Didi Chuxing, China's largest ride-sharing and taxi-hailing service, told employees that it would cut 2,000 jobs, or 15 percent of its workforce.

Previously the Chinese government would create an economic stimulus by throwing money at infrastructure projects like bridges and airports, and that would generally solve the problem, but not anymore.

Fraser Howie, co-writer of three books on the Chinese financial system says now, "there is no obvious catch up, and therefore it makes it all the more important that China makes important, difficult decisions to move forward."

The government really should be restructuring its state-owned enterprises that have grown into lumbering behemoths but they are the elephants in the room that aren't being addressed. Instead the government is in denial and hoping things shall pass, but perhaps not this time.

The economic slowdown is impacting young professionals like Sherry Xu, a 34-year-old finance professional who did all the right things, studying at a prestigious university and then rising up the ranks of the finance industry.

Infrastructure projects aren't solving China's economic issues

And then recently, right after she had just pitched a group of potential investors Xu was called into a meeting with human resources who told her that her employer, a financial firm was having difficulties and she would be laid off.

Xu then accepted a job as a freelance contractor with the same firm for half her previous salary. "The job marketing isn't looking good. I feel this time, it will be harder than ever for me to find a job."

Not only that but people's budgets have tightened which means less disposable income for shopping, dining and travel.

Maybe it's because of this worrying sentiment that the government just announced on Friday the May Day holiday would be extended to four days instead of one in a desperate bid to stimulate the economy.

But really, who is in the mood to spend when their futures are uncertain?

Love China and Get a Green Card

Tesla boss Elon Musk met with Premier Li Keqiang in Zhongnanhai, Beijing

China is hoping the upcoming Tesla factory in Shanghai will help keep the country's economy going.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met Tesla founder CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday at Zhongnanhai, headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party, two days after Tesla broke ground at its Gigafactory 3 project in Shanghai, its first production base outside of the United States.

The first overseas Tesla factory will be built in Shanghai

Perhaps Musk is looking for a more efficient and hardworking workforce and believes China is the ticket to help him fulfill all those orders for the Tesla 3.

"I love China and want to come here more often," Musk was quoted as saying in a report by Gov.cn.

"If you do, we can issue you a Chinese green card," the premier replied.

There was no word on what Musk's reaction was, though he can very easily apply for a 10-year visa, or however many more years are left in his passport...

Sounds like Li is keen on making Musk happy, as the factory will be the first car plant to be wholly owned by a foreign company -- all previous ones were joint ventures -- after Beijing relaxed this requirement last year.

 Li offered Musk a green card... did he take up the offer?

Tesla must be the envy of other car manufacturers in China for being able wholly owned... we shall see if it all works out for Musk.

In the meantime, is he going to take advantage of Li's green card offer?

A Portrait of a Left-Behind Child

Jia Yi shows what life is like for a left-behind child in Hunan province

I recently saw a documentary at Asia Society called Jia Yi, which focuses on a family from a farming village in Hunan province. The parents make the decision to go to Guangzhou to make more money to provide for the family, but that means leaving behind seven-year-old Jiayi and her younger brother with their grandparents.

The film gives a rounded portrait of the family, though mostly following Jiayi as she walks several kilometres to go to school, a bare room with antiquated wooden desks. After school she has to take the cows out to graze before dinner, wash clothes in the river, and then feed her young brother his food before doing her homework.

For us in the city folk to watch this child do this and then come home to a dirt floor with no running water and very little electricity is a rude awakening to realize people in China still live like this, that there are still tens of millions who have yet to benefit from economic reforms.

Jiayi does her best with her chores and cares very much for her younger brother, but she gets scolded for getting low grades -- her grandmother says she watches too much television, and yet the television is on all the time in the room... how is she supposed to concentrate on her studies?

Jiang Nengjie has made several docs on left-behind children

Director Jiang Nengjie follows her, her younger brother and grandfather as they make the long trek to Guangzhou by train to visit her parents. While her father is excited to see them, their mother is alternately exhausted and upset -- she works the night shift in the factory and the children interrupt her sleep, and at the same time she feels guilty for leaving them behind.

Jiayi's father explains his wife got pregnant before they got married, and so they had to find other means of income to raise a family as farming wasn't enough. He can't get a good job because he doesn't have much schooling. Meanwhile his wife misses her children terribly and she cries a lot. She worries they won't even know who they are as they only see their children a few times a year.

These are the sacrifices the parents make when they leave home to work -- tens of millions of them doing mind-numbing work in factories to make more money than they would tilling the land. As a result there are millions of left-behind children all over the country, left behind not only because the parents aren't there, but because they do not have access to good education and other resources which makes them even more behind than their counterparts in the cities.

Jiang brings these issues to light and in stark focus -- there have been many news stories about left-behind children but hardly a face to them, and Jia Yi gives a very good picture of the situation for many of them.

What's also interesting is that Jiang himself is a left-behind child. In fact his family is neighbours with Jiayi's family, which is why he was able to film so much of the family for many months.

He recalls as a child his mother was away the whole time he was in primary and secondary school, and even university, while his father left later to earn more money to pay for Jiang and his younger brother's school fees.

A typical rural school with left-behind children

While us city folk may think Jiayi may need more financial resources, Jiang disagrees. He believes what she lacks the most is a good education, not just academic, but also family education; this is hard to remedy as her parents aren't there to raise her.

The parents also believe others look down on them, thinking they have deserted their children, when in fact they are doing whatever they can to keep in touch with them via video chats or phone calls. Remote parenting may not be the best solution, but technology has allowed them to correspond often with their children.

It is hard to figure out what the solution is, except to somehow create industry near the places where the families are so that the parents don't need to go so far away. But factory owners aren't going to do this due to the lack of good transportation networks for distribution and so on.

While the Chinese economy is slowing down, some factory workers have returned to their villages to farm -- at least they can feed themselves. However this leaves the state off the hook for providing a safety net despite the huge sacrifices these people have made.

It's a story that won't go away right away, but it is a plight we should all be aware of and the consequences that will result from having so many left-behind children in China.

China's Cheap Labour No More

There are still armies of factory workers -- but they want better pay to stay

On my first day at work in Beijing at a state media company in 2007, my new boss took me out to lunch and I remember him saying the supply of migrant workers was "limitless".

He believed (or wanted me to believe) there was an endless supply of cheap labour for factories.

I was very skeptical -- eventually the country would run out of migrant workers because everyone had one-child families save for ethnic minorities.

Ten years later I wish I could go back to him and say, "Remember you told me the supply of factory workers was 'limitless'? You were completely wrong!"

Workers come from the countryside and are hardly "limitless"

Factory owners are having a tough time not only finding but retaining workers these days.

Rising labour costs have led to a high turnover rate among factory workers. Wuhan University did a survey of factories in Guangdong and Hubei and found 26 percent of workers in the Pearl River Delta had changed jobs.

"With high turnover, they have to pay workers more to retain them," said Albert Park, one of the designers of the survey and is a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

The average monthly wages in China rose to 4,126 yuan (US$603.78) per month in 2015, almost comparable to Brazil and much higher than developing economies like India and Vietnam.

In addition, in order to gain subsidies and tax benefits from the government, more than one-third of mainland factory owners try to gain favoritism from the state or the Communist Party. More than half surveyed received government subsidies, which account for 2.6 percent of their sales revenues.

Some factory owners resort to using robots to cut costs

About 23 percent of factory owners do this by serving in local parliaments and political consultative committees, while 39 percent are party members.

Because of rising labour costs, 40 percent of manufacturers in Guangdong and Hubei use robots in production. To Park, this means factory owners aren't sure demand will improve and so they are cautious about making large investments.

How much has changed in a decade! While we're pleased to know migrant workers are earning more money, the cost of living for them has increased too.

What they really need is access to education to further improve their employment opportunities. However, this is the next hurdle that really needs to be tackled so that children of migrant workers will at least see more hope for the next generation in terms of social and economic mobility.

China is Open for Business

Chinese President Xi Jinping addresses the World Economic Forum in Davos

Xi Jinping is the first Chinese President to address the World Economic Forum, and today he used the platform to take the high road, making the case for globalization in a time when the UK will implement Brexit and President-Elect Donald Trump advocates isolationism.

In his speech, Xi promised to improve market access for foreign companies, and said China has no intention of devaluing the yuan or launching a currency war.

He said protectionism had to be opposed and the finger-pointing stopped.

"Those who push for protectionism are shutting themselves inside a dark house. They have escaped the rain and clouds outside, but also missed the light and air," he said. "A trade war will only lead to suffering on both sides."

Xi says China is open to foreign companies... really?

Since his predecessor Hu Jintao's leadership, China has been protectionist too, making it harder and harder for foreign companies to do business in the Middle Kingdom. And with the further media suppression on foreign journalists and outlets, people on the outside find it harder to get the information they need to objectively assess the situation.

So if Xi really does keep his word, it will be interesting to see China open its doors for more business -- but are companies willing to pay higher wages for labour? And will this still be cheap manufacturing, or something higher up the manufacturing chain?

In addition, Xi said there was no point in blaming globalization to the Syrian refugee crisis or the 2008 financial crisis. He said there was "no justification for wiping out economic globalization all together".

How does the Syrian refugee crisis have anything to do with globalization, when it's a civil war in the country?

What kind of president will Donald Trump be?

Nevertheless, it seems Xi is keen to stimulate his country's economy -- apparently it grew just over 6 percent in 2016 -- and perhaps get rid of its overproduction.

As the inauguration of Trump drawer closer, many are trying to come to terms with the new normal in Washington. Will he continue to see it as one big reality show in the White House, or will he really take the job seriously and help those who voted him into office?

Xi is probably looking on horrified at having to deal with a man who makes knee-jerk pronouncements that may or may not have substance. However, he is probably impressed by how Trump handles press conferences by shutting reporters down...

Photo of the Day: A Slice of Blue Sky

Taking in the view from this angle at the JACCAC

Yesterday I went to the Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre in Shek Kip Mei in Kowloon. I was there on assignment and it was my first time visiting the place, a 10-minute walk from the MTR station.

The building is former factory and about eight years ago was turned into the JCCAC with 150 studios for artists, arts groups, and students. On the walls were posters advertising for various art classes, like ceramics, painting, photography for all ages.

As a result many of the rooms are studios, or offices related to the arts. Perhaps PMQ should have been turned into something like this than focusing on just retail.

It was quite hot yesterday and so by the time I arrived for my appointment, I was dripping with sweat.

But outside on the balcony, there was a cool breeze and I saw this slice of blue sky in between two tall residential buildings.

It kind of sums up Hong Kong -- if you are privileged enough to have any kind of view...

Have HK$2.1 Billion to Buy a Home?

An undated photo of Chen Hongtian, the new owner of a HK$2.1B home

There may be a lot more uber rich people in Hong Kong than we thought there were.

The latest zillionaire came out of the woodwork yesterday and plonked down a record HK$2.1 billion for a 9,212 square-foot property at 15 Gough Hill Road on The Peak.

That works out to about HK$220,000 per square foot.

Chen Hongtian is a major stakeholder of China South City Holdings, a public company listed in Hong Kong worth HK$2.5 billion.

The home is unfinished so Chen can make modifications

He explained to a local media outlet that he bought the massive property because the other one he bought in August was too small.

"I initially planned to move into the home I bought with HK$380 million last year. But I felt it was a little too tiny [for my family] and [I would need] to live in a bigger one later on. That's why I bought this house," Chen said.

Uh huh.

The "tiny" property he bought was at Opus Hong Kong, the Frank Gehry-designed curvy building, purchasing a flat that is 5,154 square feet, or HK$75,000 per square foot.

According to Chen's autobiography called Aerial View on the World of Mortals, he explains he made his first pot of gold in 1979. Then age the age of 20, he ran his own tailor training school after two weeks of teaching himself the trade.

Surely that would raise red flags, as it takes years for someone to master the art of tailoring. But perhaps if you're teaching others, it's all about the number of students, not necessarily what they learn...

His other home, Opus Hong Kong, designed by Frank Gehry

Then in 1984 he started importing and exporting, buying up garment factories in Guangdong. Six years later he began real estate development in Shenzhen and neighbouring areas.

It was around that time that Chen bought his first luxury property in Hong Kong to live in on Kennedy Road for HK$4 million, followed by another property on May Road. He apparently also have many properties abroad.

Despite the dubiousness of how he initially made his money, Chen is a smart investor, putting his money into real estate.

And probably not surprisingly, he is quite pro-Beijing in his views, publicly calling for severe punishment for those who start online rumours, and those who were at the Mongkok riots.

Has anyone checked to see if he or his company is named in the Panama Papers?

Just wondering...

Home At Last

Zheng Fayan (right) reunited with her mother after 18 years

I just read a tragic story from Chongqing.

A woman has been reunited with her family 18 years after she was abducted.

Zheng Fayan was welcomed back to her village in Chongqing last Monday. The last time she saw her family was when she was 16.

However, she was unable to see her father -- he passed away in 2009.

Like many other rural residents in the 1990s, Zheng went to Guangdong province to get a factory job. There she met a woman who took her to a remote village in Chaozhou the following year.

There the woman sold her to a man surnamed Chen, who was about 40 at the time. "I the first few months, I was chained to the door," Zheng said, adding Chen feared she would flee.

In 1998 she gave birth to her first child with Chen and went on to have four more.

Zheng said she tried to send letters to her family back home, but they were all returned.

Finally a chance to escape came when Chen, who was too old to work, sent her to a factory in Dongguan, in Guangdong.

There she met Zhang Dajun, also from Chongqing who helped her get back to her home in Wuxi county.

"In these 18 years, I imagined countless times meeting my family. Today I can finally see my mother and brother," Zheng said after arriving home.

County police have launched an investigation into her abduction, but the chances of finding that woman again are few and far between. They will probably find Chen with the children, and then what? Charge him with abduction and violating the one-child policy?

And how does she feel about leaving behind her five children? Does she have any affection for them despite having them with a man she did not love?

The fact that abductions like this still happens in China shows how people in the cities continue to take advantage of those from the countryside, exploiting them for their own gain.

The government has to stop these abductions and severely punish those who enable this heinous crime.

Zheng is not alone. There are thousands, probably tens of thousands of cases like hers. Even more heartbreaking are babies and children who are abducted and have no idea what their names are, let alone their parents' identities, and where they are from. Finding these children are near impossible.

Hopefully Zheng will make up for lost time with her family and try to piece her life back together again. What happened to her will be a lesson to others in the perils of being too trusting...

Migrant Labour Crossroads

Young people in rural areas are lured into factories hoping for good pay

When I lived in Beijing from 2007-2010, there was a lot of work for people with little education -- restaurants, factories, security guards, retail. But there didn't seem to be enough work for educated people.

Millions of graduates out of universities were keen to start their careers and wean themselves off of their parents, only to find their wages hardly matched their expectations. They were soon ground down psychologically and for some physically by the monotony of their work. Many were depressed to find they were a tiny cog in a massive machine that kept churning mindlessly in one direction.

When I first arrived in the Chinese capital, my boss enthusiastically said China's economy would continue to boom for sometime because there was a limitless supply of migrant workers from the countryside who would be lured to the city to work.

Many migrant workers find it hard to move up in society

They really are the ones doing the mundane work. There is a steep learning curve in the beginning, not only in how to do their job, but adjusting to city life and hoping not to be taken advantage of. But once they understand the lay of the land and where they fit in society (near the bottom), it's a near impossible climb up.

My boss' prediction was completely false as I predicted, and these days fewer migrants are taking the gamble of moving to the cities. The good thing for them is that factory wages have increased significantly in the last few years, but can migrant workers keep up with factory work becoming less labour intensive and more mechanized?

Do they have enough education to keep up with labour demands?

Development economist Scott Rozelle at Stanford is concerned about this issue.

He and other co-authors have written a paper and found that China does not have a very well educated workforce. From analyzing census data, Rozelle found far fewer migrant workers completed secondary education, contrary to Ministry of Education official figures.

One of the reasons they may be dropping out of school is because the lure of getting a relatively high-paying job, and also many kids of migrant parents living in cities are unable to get a decent education because of hukou or residency permit issues.

Development economist Scott Rozelle

As a result the next generation of migrant workers are going to miss out on job opportunities because there will be a demand for more educated workers.

The paper says:

Wages are rising and low-wage manufacturing is moving out. China is already making plans to become an economy that will be based on higher value-added, high-wage industries. This will mean, of course, that there will be a high demand for skilled labour. International experience demonstrates that individuals will need to have to have acquired skills taught at the level of high school or above if they hope to be competitive in these higher value-added industries. If China fails to endow its labour force with such skills, not only will many individuals have a difficult time finding employment, the newly emerging industries may also falter from a short supply of skilled labour. The whole economy may experience slower development.

This may not be a prediction China's leaders want to come true, but they have not done anything to help migrant workers and their families get a leg-up on society through education and other social benefits.

The authorities seem to purposely keep this segment of the population at the bottom rung of the ladder, thinking China always needs to have cheap labour. They close down schools for migrant children and because of hukou issues, they cannot go to the same schools as Beijing residents, thus creating an even greater social and economic divide.

But if Beijing wants the economy to develop, then its people need to have the right tools to progress along with it. And if migrant workers are left behind in the next step of China's economic development, there will be lots of unhappy people who could spark civil unrest -- the last thing senior officials want to hear.

So why not give migrant workers a chance? It's a win-win situation.

Review: Mr. China

A memoir on the perils of doing business in China

When I was almost finished reading Paul Midler's Poorly Made in China, the friend who lent me the book suggested I also read Mr. China by Tim Clissold.

I had actually bought the book several years ago on one of my trips to Hong Kong when I was living in Beijing. I read through about half of it and then gave up because the business jargon went over my head and I lost track of the characters in the book.

But my friend encouraged me to try it again and so I picked it up again. With the Poorly Made in China background, it was easier to understand the complexity of what was going on in Mr. China because of Clissold's writing that was both engaging and intellectually witty.

Mr. China is about Clissold's own experience of living in China, learning the language and then teaming up with a flamboyant Wall Street banker named Pat and an ex-Red Guard named Ai Jian.

The trio saw the potential goldmine in opportunities in the early 1990s. There were factories all over the country that had the possibility of becoming big, if only they had a cash infusion.

And so Clissold, Pat and Ai Jian raised over $400 million, bought up a number of factories all over China, signed contracts, put seemly capable managers in place, and then expected the money crank out too fast for them to count.

But they soon discovered that China didn't follow by the West's rules. Abiding by the contract? There was no such thing -- the Chinese would always find some way of worming out of it.

Clissold talked about similar factory production problems as Midler did, illustrating this in the Chinese beer factory they invested in. The bottles either had flat beer, or not enough, or labels were plastered on upside down.

Tom Clissold's witty writing makes for a fascinating read

And then there were strong allegiances people had to their own which made it difficult for Clissold to sack incompetent people or get rid of excess workers.

Meanwhile factory managers or owners who had 49 percent of the shares in the business were always scheming, taking the funds deposited into their bank accounts and building newer factories instead of plowing the money into the existing ones to improve efficiency or quality.

Trying to kick these people out of the business took up most of Clissold's time, energy and sanity. It was a race against time to secure the factory and equipment, bank accounts and authority over the place. The fights ran from the verbal to physical, to standoffs that lasted for hours and was really a test to see who blinked first.

Although Clissold was well versed in Putonghua and had lived in China for many years, he was still not prepared in how to play the game.

In the end only a few factories made money, while the trio lost millions of dollars everyday and needless to say it was difficult to explain to investors in New York where their money went.

As he writes: "At that stage I was more worried about making sure the electricity wasn't cut off and the accounting records weren't thrown into the furnaces in a factory where our most sophisticated HR strategy was to invite everyone to an enormous fireworks party".

It's a fascinating read and hard to fathom that all this did happen 20 years ago.

There's a postscript to this story -- a few weeks ago I met a lawyer who works for Morgan Stanley who told me that he worked with Clissold at Goldman Sachs after his book had come out.

This lawyer said the author was a very clever man, having studied physics before business and Chinese. He's still in China, and even put his children through the tough elite schools, learning by rote method and completely fluent in Mandarin.

Mr. China documents the crazy times of the 1990s, but two decades on, things haven't changed much when doing business with the Chinese. There's still the problem of quality control, counterfeits, intellectual property stolen, managers refusing to yield and companies having a bloated work force.

So if you're still interested in doing business in China, it is imperative that you read this book. You have been warned!