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(More customer reviews)This might be the most honest and simultaneously most unreflective book I have read about life in China. It is the author's story of coming to China in March of 2006 with little money in his pocket and a failed life as an actor in LA, and how, within a year, he spoke `fluent' Chinese, had plenty of money and women and, well, a great material life. He explains how great life in `China' is (he actually only speaks of Beijing): cops are friendly, streets are safe, all Chinese are nice and warm, there are no taxes, and everyone apparently loves him. He gushes over making 18,000 RMB a month through a combination of being a part-time restaurant host, ESL teacher, sometime actor, and white office prop, and how he can live on 9,000 a month, which leaves him $1,200 a month in savings to buy a home and a car. What else? Other foreigners are rude and mean and pushy and act superior to Chinese, while he gets along with everyone. He lives in Wudaokou with most of the other foreigners, dances at the Sanlitun clubs, and has a great time trying to score Han girls. Though he assures his readers that he magically `knows' China, he does not appear to have a clue that having four different girl friends in a year will not make him cool in the eyes of Chinese people, especially guys.
As stupid as this book is, it is also profoundly accurate. If at one time `failed in London, try Hong Kong' was the mantra for Englishmen, while Americans gravitated to first Japan and Korea and later Taiwan, China today, or more accurately Beijing and Shanghai, are the promised lands for a new generation of white men who for various reasons have failed in their own societies. They of course do not think they have failed, but instead that society has failed them. Urban life in China is cheap, white guys, no matter how ugly or obnoxious they may be, can have passive and younger women, and the cops and authorities do not generally interrupt the party. So, in regard to foreigners - who are overwhelmingly male in a place like Beijing - Williams' account is more or less accurate. Cops do not bother them, some Han girls will sleep with them, most Chinese people will never speak critically to their faces, and life is, compared to North America, very cheap. The fundamental fact that life in `China' is clearly not a paradise for most Chinese doesn't really matter to the author. Then again, this is how colonialism has worked for centuries.
If only the title were, `Failed in America, try China', then Williams would be spot on. The United States does not just export its crappy beer these days (lan dai, AKA Pabst Blue Ribbon, remains in business in China for some mysterious reason), but also its second-rate citizens.
Oh, I know in advance that many people will complain how mean this review is. Whatever; as a Chinese guy in Beijing said to me, "the book sounds like something from the `Arabian Knights'".
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A young American arrived in Beijing in spring, 2006 with little money, no friends, no job, and little knowledge of the language or culture. Within a year, he knew the language, had a fulfilling social life, wide connections and many interesting jobs. This book follows David Williams' incredible journey through modern China. He goes into detail about the freedoms that he feels in China, gives hard facts about the amount of violence and crime in the U.S. compared to China, and talks about the safe feeling he has living in China. He goes into detail about the incredibly low cost of living that he has living in China. He also tells about the way new Chinese friends have welcomed him, why Chinese women make such great girlfriends or wives, and why Chinese cuisine is healthier than American food. The most interesting and at times hilarious part of this book though, is the description of the many types of job opportunities that he has experienced in the Middle Kingdom. He works as a pastor at a Chinese wedding, becomes a foreign modeling and acting agent, and works on numerous TV commercials, shows, infomercials, exhibitions, and modeling shows. He works as an actor in an American movie with a well-known action star. He tells the story of how he one day, on a hunch, he strolled into the offices of a Beijing entertainment company, told them he wanted to work as an actor, and immediately became friends with the CEO, who offered him a part in a movie being filmed in Shanghai. David illustrates the many advantages to living in China. Whether it is to find more job opportunities, a good wife or husband, lots of friends, a fast, developing economy, a low cost, safer standard of living, or just more adventure, China is the place. Mr. Williams tells how he quickly integrated with the Chinese how he won a lot of friends fast, how he approaches every Chinese person he meets, and how he made friends with the right people. He tells how to become a zhongguotong , or old China hand and what it can mean for the successful career and social life of new foreigners living in China. He explains how he learned Chinese on his own (without the aid of classes or tutors) in less than a year, and how that propelled his success in winning over the Chinese people and finding many jobs. A very inspiring story about how one man moved to China and found a new life.
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