Customer Reviews

Inside the Red Mansion: On the Trail of China's Most Wanted Man

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This belongs to the well-stocked genre of "young western newspaperman goes to China and then writes first book telling world of what he has seen in the Middle Kingdom." It is among the best of such books in terms of relaying information and providing insights, although it falls short of the first literary rank.

The use here of one specific corruption case is an excellent device to show the shadowy ambiguities of the striking political, social, and economic transitions that have been underway in the PRC over the past two decades.

The author gives a very good picture of the tension between the needs of modernization and the country's still highly authoritative government: it being no surprise that since Mao's death the stunning economic expansion in China has been propelled in no small part by massive official corruption.

Since it appears Mr. August is now working in the Middle East, I expect another enlightening (and even better written) book in the years ahead on that troubled area.

Tracking China's super-smuggler, Oliver August manages to capture the breadth and speed of change in modern China. August is by turns intrepid in his mission and charming in his account of his findings, as his search takes him from a foie gras farm where goose livers are grown as large as beefsteaks; to a golf course where games unfold at midnight between drunken competitors attended by girl caddies in hot pants; to an upscale holding cell (when the Chinese police interrogate him in a hotel room). The portrait of China that emerges from this informative book is lovingly-rendered in August's wry, winking prose. A fast read, this book is a must for anyone interested in China and the impact it's having on the world.

This book combines a portrait of China's exhilarating social and economic transformation with one of its underbelly, which in Oliver August's telling proves to be sleazy, gaudy, and often very funny. Many of the characters whom the author meets and chronicles during his time in China demonstrate the same breathtaking entrepreneurial daring and wild imaginativeness as the book's supposed antagonist, the bandit king Lai. By comparison, the American robber barons of old seem boring, their aspirations staid. But "Inside the Red Mansion" raises serious issues too, particularly in its implication that the Chinese government plays a dangerous game with those on the front lines of capitalism in that country. Just who controls whom, and how long the government can continue to pull all the strings before the puppet collapses - or breaks free and dances on its own - are real and urgent questions, and this book provides a lot of food for thought along with its colorful and constantly surprising narrative.

Few books are as good as Oliver August's Inside The Red Mansion. For anyone interested in the development of China, or just wanting a fascinating and gripping story, they should look no further than this book. Written with consummate skill, Inside the Red Mansion will be a favorite for years to come.

The story is well researched by an accomplished and vivacious writer and is as much a thriller as a commentary on modern China. Hard to put down, yet insightful, worldly and sometimes just downright funny.

What was most helpful about this book was learning how things are really done in China. American firms have long complained about the backroom deals that are necessary to get anything done in China, and you will better understand that after reading this fascinating account of Lai Changxing. I think the marketing of this book is too narrow. It's not just an account of China's most famous outlaw. It's an important key to understanding the China of today. I highly recommend. Additionally, as a Mandarin student I also appreciated the author's introduction of slang terms and their meanings. Very useful.

an amazing thrilling yet true expose of the adventures behind the scenes in contempary "communist" China by an author who has clearly spent a great deal of time there.

I was confused at first by Oliver August's title for this book. I thought it was going to be about a classic Chinese book variously translated as Dreams of a Red Mansion, Inside a Red Chamber, etc
Instead the story of this book is a metaphor about how the Communist Chinese party has adopted to recent economic change and all the logical incongruities involved.
The main character is Lai Changxing, a self-made billionaire by means of smuggling and shady enterprises before the Chinese government went after him. Why did the government let his illegal activities go on for so long? Because modern China is not a country ruled by law (despite what they say). The government allows laws to be bent/broken so long as there are plenty of bribes all along the way. At any stage the government feels free to reign in the relaxed laws and kill off the people behind them as criminals. This way the Party never has to say they made any mistakes or they changed their minds. They turn a blind eye to illegalities so long as the bribes continue lubricating the breaks, and if it gets out of hand at any point, the perpetrator can be punished without regret.
The book is very readable and makes many of the seemingly illogical actions of the Chinese Government more understandable. There is also a very good feeling of place because the descriptions of the people and places are superb.
I read this book from the library and then bought a copy from Amazon because I wanted to own it. I can recommend it to anyone who has the slightest interest in Modern China.

This is a meandering, though interesting, account of a journalist's observations of boom-time China and its now disgraced robber baron, Lai. The author recounts Lai's iconic status and the seeming desire of the whole country to become "rich, like Lai."

Oliver finds that Maoist ideology has lost all sway -- and so too has traditional cultural mores binding the Chinese to their land and immediate local area. What, then, is holding the country together? The pursuit of wealth like the gilded age of 19th Century America? A still effective authoritarian regime? A little of both, Oliver argues. He contends that the State is a participant in the capitalist economy and still manages to wield an enormous, if dysfunctionally corrupt influence.

Lai ends up being a bit smaller than life once Oliver catches up with him at the end of the book. We never quite get his story, which is a great flaw in the book.

Nonetheless the book is worthwhile in providing some insight to what is going on in China. I tend to think that given China's dysfunctional government and the importance of a creative and energetic state to the rise of a sound economy and polity, that the "Chinese Century" stuff coming out of the media is so much hype.

I enjoyed reading this book because I am interested in learning about modern day China. The author, a young reporter for an English Newspaper goes to China on assignment.

Once there, he learns about a smuggler bandit king named Lai Changxing, a Chinese Robbin Hood who is reviled by the Chinese authorities but envied and loved by the money worshiping popular culture.

The author has a bug in his bonnet to learn about Lai but nobody wants to talk about him because they are afraid of the authorities. The authorities are embarrassed that Lai is at large and they do not know where he or his billion$ went

His search for Lai brings him to Xiamen, a boomtown in Fujian province. The author learns that Lai was the Donald Trump of Xiamen.

His search for Lai becomes a microcosm of Chinese social morays and sensibilities.

It seems that in modern day China, wealth and status are all the people think about. They are also very focused on food. We also learn that prostitution plays a central role to many aspects of Chinese business and politics.

The author eventually loses his objectiveness. He becomes a sympathetic to Lai.

This was a good book. I read it in 4 hours. The prose is compelling and it contains many funny things.

a very readable and fascinating account of present-day china through the eyes of a british journalist (former bureau chief of the times) as he investigates the spectacular rags-to-riches rise and fall of lai changxing, a former farmer who made billions smuggling various goods like cars into mainland china. supposedly lai was able to smuggle so much into the country (and build large skyscrapers and his own folly of an exact replica of the forbidden city) because the gov't allowed him to (via a massive bribery system/turning of the proverbial blind eye). and supposedly lai's efforts helped stimulate china's economy, until he got too big for his britches and had to disappear. along the way august oliver unveils a fascinating country (and its peoples) where the best way to get ahead is through "banditry." at the same time the gov't can step in anytime with a scary, creepy orwellian swagger. well written in an informative journalistic way, with very good insight into a country that is increasingly becoming a major, major real-time presence on the global scene.