Sloppy Old China Hand

Colleague Jasper Becker of course has plenty of British flair. He gained himself a certain international acclaim with books such as “The Chinese” and “Hungry Ghosts”. I just finished reading his latest book “Dragon Rising” published by the National Geographic Society.

Becker of course is entitled to his opinion, although I profoundly disagree with what he has written in his previously published books. As a ‘veteran’ correspondent having spent 14 years in China one would have expected him to write a summary of China in 2006 for a coffee-table book such the National Geographic had in mind.

It was not to be. Becker sprinkles his latest book with anti-China rhetoric which of course doesn’t need to be substantiated such as writing that China is a militaristic country. Well now, are British troops occupying Iraq or are they Chinese?

Anyway, what is really hard to understand is that there are so many factual mistakes in Beckers’ ‘Dragon Rising’.

• Taiyuan, the capital of ShAAnxi Province?
  
• Mao’s body embalmed in his mausoleum on Tian’anmen Square BEFORE the arrest of the Gang of Four?
  
• A massacre having taken place ON Tian’anmen Square?
  
• The tallest building in Beijing in 1980 had only SIX floors?
  
• China having MORE poor people than Africa?
  
• Establishment of a Shanghai Municipal People’s COMMUNE in May 1949?
  
• China amassing large foreign exchange reserves by … running huge trade DEFICITS?
• GUANGDONG province being better known in English as Canton?
  

The list of blunders is too long for this blog. Becker messed up, luckily it’s only a book. Bush and Blair messed up a whole country…

Claiming to be an Old China Hand and then messing things up so thoroughly equals misleading the readers who turn to the book hoping to gain some knowledge. 

Something to Crow about

I have recommended Carl Crow’s book “400 Million Customers” to many of my friends. It is an extraordinary book about doing business in China, written in 1937 and still relevant today. It is certainly in my personal Books Top 20.

British author Paul French has written a book about Carl Crow and presented it tonight at Beijing’s The Bookworm. Paul is a gifted and witty speaker. He introduced his research on Crow, how he found out about the existence of the Crow Archives at the University of Missouri and about trying to invent a possible excuse to justify a trip to Missouri. Until a casual acquaintance planned a trip to Missouri anyway and copied valuable material for Paul French.

What I didn’t know was that “400 Million Customers” is the most widely read book on China, translated in several languages. It was reprinted in 2003 and is still available at Amazon. When I read it two years ago, I didn’t know it was such a famous book, but felt it was indeed remarkable.

Now I can’t wait to read Paul French’s book “Carl Crow – A Tough Old China Hand”. If French’s writing is as good as his talking, it’s going to be a hell-of-a-read.