E-publishers better than print for authors - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

Online reading is developing fast into a major industry in China and China Reading of Tencent is heading for a huge IPO in Hong Kong later this year. For authors, e-publishing has major advantages compared to print publishing, says bestseller author Shaun Rein to Knowledge CKGSB.

Knowledge CKGSB

Social network owners also see readers as a prime investment opportunity. For instance, the owner of China Reading, Tencent media group, recently announced plans to launch a $600-800 million IPO for China Reading in Hong Kong later this year, according to media reports. 

Shaun Rein, managing director of the China Market Research Group in Shanghai, is bullish on the prospects of that platform largely because of the advantages that online publication gives writers. 

“There are fewer restrictions for online authors than in the print world,” Rein explains. “It’s also more difficult and slower to publish in a physical format because you have to work with publishers… They’re often state-owned, not market-oriented, and slow and lumbering. It can also get very costly to work with a publisher, so many authors prefer to publish their work quickly online where there’s fewer restrictions so they can get their content to their loyal readers faster.”

More at Knowledge CKGSB.

Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on innovation at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

Life of a prostitute - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia's book Lotus: A Novel got already much praise from reviewers. For the South China Morning Post she describes the life of Yong Gan, the main female character in her book, and how she ended, like 10 million other women, in prostitution in China.

Zhang Lijia:

Yong Gan went to the factory all the same, and life there turned out much as the woman had predicted. She quit the production line after just three months and headed to Tianjin to join the massage parlour, a middle-range establishment on the outskirts of the city. 

After a brief training period, she started working as a masseuse, usually for male clients. For a one-hour session, she would be paid 60 yuan (HK$68). Her colleagues, however, were making a lot more. Going slightly beyond her brief, so to say, would yield more than twice as much; offering full-fledged sexual services would earn 600 yuan – her monthly salary at the factory. 

Prostitution is illegal in China but is rampant in venues such as massage parlours, nightclubs, hair salons and karaoke bars. Some researchers believe there may be more than 10 million prostitutes in the country. The government has brought in more than a dozen laws to check prostitution in the past couple of decades, in the course of which it has shifted its emphasis from eradicating prostitution to containing it. As a result, shady parlours manage to operate without hindrance for the most part, even though raids are reported from time to time – last month in Beijing, three exclusive “nightclubs” were busted. 

Yong Gan’s slide down the slippery path to prostitution was as rapid as it was painful. At every step, she rationalised it was all for her daughter. The hours were long, starting at noon and dragging into the small hours. In between, she would usually fit in a couple of “small jobs” and a couple of “big jobs”. 

She would have to pretend to be cheerful in front of the clients, no matter how exhausted she was. Yet the worst part was the constant anxiety. When a client turned up, the girls would gather in the reception area, striking alluring poses and smiling invitingly. “If I failed to be picked, I would be disappointed and anxious. If I got picked, I felt anxious, worrying he might be difficult to please, or even violent.”

More in the South China Morning Post.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you interested in more stories by Zhang Lijia? Do check out this list.

What makes China tick? - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Journalist Ian Johnson discusses his forthcoming book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao on the return of religion in China. Chinese want now to do more than only make money, he says. They are looking what brings us together. What makes China tick?

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you looking for more experts on cultural change at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

The people behind my novel Lotus - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

After the first raving reviews of Zhang Lijia's book Lotus: A Novel on prostitution in China, interviewers dive into her research and how her novel relates to real people. At ChinaReadings Mike Cormack takes a look at (among others) the photographer Zhao Tienlin.

ChinaReadings:

Can you tell us the story of how you researched the novel? 

I interviewed many sex workers in Shenzhen, Dongguan, Beihai, Beijing and Tianjin. When you don’t know them well, they don’t always tell you the whole story. I tried to make friends with them, but it was hard to maintain a friendship with them, as their lives were often transient as they moved from one city to another, from one parlour to another, they changed their mobile or they simply vanished. What really helped me to gain insight was my experience of working for a NGO for female sex workers in a northern city in China. Lotus is a purely work of fiction (not another memoir based on personal experience) but many details, Lotus’s first handjob, for example, are real, and learned from the girls I befriended. 

The character Binbing is based on the real photographer Zhao Tielin, who photographed sex workers in Hainan. Did you meet Zhao in person? 

Yes, I indeed met him, quite a few times. But I never really had in-depth conversations with him, which would have allow me to find out the deeper reasons why he would live among the working girls and photographed them obsessively, beyond the grand reason of giving a voice to people with no voice. I was hoping to do so after I got to know him better. But he fell ill and passed away. I did read all of his books. The photographer character Hu Binbing in Lotus is inspired by Zhao. What’s Hu’s motivation? I hinted – perhaps too subtly – that photographing prostitutes serves Hu as a tool to achieve success, to prove to his ex-wife that she’s wrong about him, as well as to feed his own sexual fantasies.

More at ChinaReadings.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

  Are you looking for more articles on Zhang Lijia? Do check out this list.

Why and how should prostitution be decriminalized - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

In China most women enter the prostitution on their own free will. The government is criminalizing them, forcing them into a submissive position. What can be done? Author Zhang Lijia of Lotus: A Novel on prostitution researched the sex trade in China, and possible solutions and discusses government approaches.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

Are you interested in more stories by Zhang Lijia? Check out this list.

Ian Johnson book tour in April, May, the US and China

Ian Johnson

The long anticipated book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao by Beijing-based journalist Ian Johnson will hit the shelves in April and May, and is followed by an intensive book tour, mostly along academic institutions in the US and China.

China's society is changing fast, and the rising popularity of new values, and traditional religious are a feature too often ignored in contemporary journalist. Ian Johnson is well positioned to give a nuanced look at the massive cultural change happening since 1949. More details about his book tour your can find here.

His book tour is pretty busy, and it seems unlikely he can book more speeches during this tour, but it might be a good way to suss out what his book is about, and how it might fit into your conference or meeting.

Are you interested in having Ian Johnson as a speaker, do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.  

Are you looking for more experts on cultural change at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

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An uplifting book on a sad subject: review of Lotus by Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Commentator Dan Southerland of Radio Free Asia is clearly touched by the moving book Lotus: A Novel by journalist Zhang Lijia on the life of prostitutes in China. "An uplifting book on a sad subject," he says about the book.

Radio Free Asia:

A second book, titled simply Lotus, is a novel that provides deep insights into the lives of the migrant Chinese workers whose cheap labor has created China’s economic miracle. 

Among those workers, thousands of women who feel crushed by assembly-line factory work in the big cities have turned to prostitution.  A character named Lotus is one of them. 

Author Lijia Zhang creates a sympathetic portrait of this young prostitute, at the same time shedding light on the plight of China’s migrant workers. 

As journalist and writer Ian Johnson says in a review, Zhang's book opens a window into “a land of underground sex trade, corrupt police, desperate migrants, and flawed characters trying to make the right decisions.”... 

Her sympathetic portrayal of the life of a prostitute named Lotus working at a massage parlor in the economically booming city of Shenzhen also turns out to be a love story and a testament to one woman’s strength. 

Lotus’s story begins as a typical one for many migrant workers, the unsung heroes of China’s economic rise. 

Her massage parlor in Shenzhen lies hundreds of miles to the southeast of her rural village in Sichuan Province, and she can rarely afford to make a trip home. 

Her main aim in life is to send money home to assist her family and ultimately to help her brother Shadan realize his dream of entering a university.  He would be the first in his poor village to achieve this goal. 

Her family has been told that Lotus is working in a Sichuan restaurant in Shenzhen and not as prostitute. 

Like so many migrant workers, she had arrived in Shenzhen to work in a factory outside the city. Her cousin, nicknamed “Little Red,” had talked her into taking the job. But after her cousin died in a fire at the factory, she decided to find work in the city. 

When her lack of a high school diploma disqualified her from the best jobs, she turned to prostitution, first as a street walker and later in a massage parlor, often fronts for prostitution. 

While officially illegal, prostitution has become an industry in China that would appear to be hard to eliminate, though police do launch periodic campaigns against it.  One of the most dramatic scenes in the novel describes a raid on her massage parlor in which some of Lotus’s friends are beaten. 

The camaraderie among the girls while under detention, their jokes about their plight, and the offer of one to share what little money she has to pay off the police becomes one of the most touching moments in the book. 

It’s hard to imagine that a book on this sad subject could be uplifting, but this one is.

More at Radio Free Asia.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker on the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking for more experts on cultural change at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Why writing in English makes me freer - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Author Zhang Lijia of the recently published Lotus: A Novel is a native from Nanjing, but writes in English. Writing in her chosen language makes her feel more free, she explains in an interview with Mengfei Chen of the LA Review of Books.

The LA Review of Books:

Interestingly, writing in English frees me literally as well. It frees me from any inhibition I may have: if I had written the novel in Chinese, I am sure the sex scene would be less explicit. Without the constraints, I can also be bold as I experiment with the language. Because English is not my native tongue, I use different words and I structure my sentences differently, consciously and unconsciously. Of course, my experiment doesn’t always work. But I enjoy the adventure. 

The challenges are obvious. After diligently studying English for 30 years, I have yet to command the language completely. I write slowly, too slowly, in fact; I don’t understand the subtle meanings of certain words; and I am still confused by the use of the definite and indefinite article! 

I find the relationship between the writer and the chosen language fascinating. I speak Chinese with a slight Nanjing accent. [NB: In many parts of China, this accent is viewed as a fairly déclassé one, definitely inferior to that of Beijing, where Zhang has long been based.] When speaking English, I’ve tried to cultivate a refined accent. [NB: She speaks English with what Americans might describe as a BBC accent.] Maybe there’s another reason that I went for English — it makes me feel more sophisticated than I actually am. I probably have not gotten rid of a sense of inferiority because of my worker’s background! 

In addition to a romance and coming-of-age story, readers will be given insights to a full range of Chinese social issues, including corruption, taxation, educational inequities, rural to urban migration among others.  How did you balance the desire and need to include explanatory information about China for readers who might not necessarily know very much about the country with the narrative and characters? 

From the very beginning, I intended to use prostitution as an interesting window to observe the social tensions brought by the reforms and opening up. So I had to provide context to western readers who probably don’t know a great deal about China. In the earlier drafts, I often dumped too much information to a degree that it slowed the narrative drive. Also in earlier drafts, my writing in such parts tended to be journalistic. I cut back some background information – if a reader really wants to know more about certain aspect, he/she can easily Google it. I then sprinkled the necessary information and delivered it in a less journalistic way.

More in the LA Review of Books.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you interested in more stories by Zhang Lijia? Do check out this list.

Unsung heroes - review of Lotus, by Zhang Lijia

First reviews of journalist Zhang Lijia´s touching Lotus: A Novel, are coming in, like here from the Star Tribune, focusing on the Chinese migrants, the unsung heroes who made the country´s economic development possible. "Lotus and Bing, as well as the secondary characters, feel like real, rounded human beings. Zhang portrays them compassionately."

The Star Tribune:

Still, it is a novel, not a sociological treatise. Lotus and Bing, as well as the secondary characters, feel like real, rounded human beings. Zhang portrays them compassionately: At one point Bing remarks that the uneducated migrants from the provinces are “China’s unsung heroes,” whose cheap labor has made the country’s economic miracle possible, and the novel does indeed find heroism in their struggles and conflicts while telling a darn good story at the same time. 

Although the narrative of a young girl from the provinces struggling to make it in the big city is a familiar one, the novel’s texture, setting and thought patterns seem specifically Chinese. While “Lotus” sometimes reads as if it were translated from Chinese (it is not), that is part of its charm, anchoring us in a world outside American experience.

More at the Star Tribune.

Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking for more books by our speakers? Do check out this page.

The Roma community in old Shanghai - Paul French

Paul French

Author Paul French has added yet another subject to his long list of current and historical affairs with his latest book Gypsies of Shanghai: The Roma Community of Late 1930s and 1940s Shanghai and Their Role in the City's Entertainment Industry. The book is small and cheap, Paul adds on his weblog, but it illustrates the amazing diversity of pre-war Shanghai.

Paul French:

I’ve worked for some time trying to find traces of the old Roma community of Shanghai. The Roma of Shanghai in the first half of the twentieth century are a significantly under-researched community, not falling easily into any official classifications and also suffering the prejudices and discrimination common to the Roma in our own time too. However, there was a thriving Roma community in old Shanghai that was engaged in business and the entertainment industry and while we may not have as much information on them as we do on other groups of Shanghailanders they are no less important in understanding the total ethnic make up of the city, its International Settlement and French Concession.

More at China Rhyming.

Paul French is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you interested in more stories by Paul French at our website? Do check out this list.

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New books on cultural change by Ian Johnson and Zhang Lijia

Ian Johnson

2017 is going to be a productive year for both Zhang Lijia and Ian Johnson as they are going to publish their long-awaited books. Both are very well versed in documenting cultural change in China, a development that often remain undetected for the outside world.

Zhang Lijia will publish in January Lotus: A Novel, based on the stories she noted from her grandmother, who was a concubine. Zhang Lijia has done extensive research into prostitution in China and although the book is a novel, there is a strong overlap with reality.

Ian Johnson will have his book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao on the shelves in April. Emerging Christianity pops up in the headlines now and then, but Pulitzer-price winner Ian Johnson promises to go beyond those superficial media hypes.

Are you interested in having Zhang Lijia or Ian Johnson as a speaker? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking for more speakers on cultural change in at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Earlier we discussed with Ian Johnson about the spiritual values among the Chinese.

Exploring the life of Chinese sex workers - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

In her upcoming book Lotus author Zhang Lijia explores the life of Chinese sex workers, taking the life of her grandmother, a concubine, as a starting point. On the weblog Zhen de Gender, she explains what it took to do her research. "Prostitution is just a device, a window to show the tensions and the changes."

Zhen de Gender:

I discovered that many people have the same fantasy. People ask me: are these prostitutes beautiful? They’re just normal women – some are ugly, some wear more makeup, they wear more revealing clothes, but they are just normal women. 

Their lives are very complicated. All the prostitutes I have met help their family. It is out of obligation but it also makes them feel good. They know prostitution is wrong so they argue, ‘look I’m helping my family, you cannot say I’m a bad person.’ Also, because they have money, they improve their position in the family, who are proud of them, which gives them a lot of pleasure. 

I stayed with them, those prostitutes. I was really interesting. I asked one woman, ‘what’s your favourite [food]?’ and she said, ‘toast on jam.’ She had begun to experiment with things; in the village you would never have heard of such things. I went to see her mother. I asked her what to buy for her mother, she said, ‘buy something my mother hasn’t tried.’ So this was all part of her trying new things. I bought her mother a durian. 

Why does the world need to know about China’s sex workers? 

Prostitution is just a device, a window to show the tensions and the changes. You can pack in so many important issues: migration, women’s position, the gap between city and rural. 

What challenges did you face when researching Lotus? 

Part of the biggest challenge is their life is so far removed from mine. One of my friends said: ‘try and work as a prostitute, you can satisfy your sexual needs, and you can make some money, and do your research.’ Imagine, if I had to work as a prostitute! I know I have lots of choices in life, so it’s difficult to identify with their life. 

They’re just humans, they’re very complicated. I really had lots of fun. They talk a lot about breasts and some of them have implants. One woman’s implants go sideways! You know, just awful. Before they are successful [with a client] they often go to the back room – they really compare their breasts! 

I went to another of the prostitutes’ home to visit her family. She had become quite successful, she had bought her family a flat and she no longer lived in the village. She went back because she was supposed to be sweeping the tomb for her stepfather and when she arrived she put on high heels. High heels! When we were walking to the mountain she was wearing high heels. To show [her change in status]. 

Sounds like you quite enjoyed that process. 

Of course, yes. But it took me so long! I worked as a volunteer, distributing condoms. If we hadn’t met, how could we have language, what would we talk about? If they’re not in my life, it would be difficult to imagine. So many small details in the book are real.

More in Zhen de Gender.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking for more experts on cultural change at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out list here.  

"China´s forgotten people" in Xinjiang, interview - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Journalist and author Ian Johnson interviews Nick Holdstock, who recently published his book China's Forgotten People: Xinjiang, Terror and the Chinese State for the New York Times. Terror attacks, and the government heavy-handed response have often blurred the image of Xinjiang´s natives. A snippet.

Ian Johnson:

Q. How is Xinjiang portrayed inside China?

A. Until fairly recently, the government’s media narrative was that everything was fine. All most people knew about Xinjiang was the ethnic minority singing and dancing shows they saw on state TV. It was only after 9/11 that the government put forth a different narrative. And after the Urumqi riots in 2009, a lot of people throughout China really had a shift in perception. Xinjiang went from being a place of benevolent minstrels and fruit to a place of violence and danger.

Q. One point you make is that violence isn’t confined to Xinjiang. There have been violent clashes across China over land and resources.

A. Yes, I wanted to put events in Xinjiang within the framework of national policy. We see a rural-urban divide across China, as well as pressures for water and other resources. In the book, I argue that the impoverishment of rural parts of Xinjiang, especially in the predominantly Uighur south of the region, isn’t the result of purely ethnic discrimination. But given all the other cultural, linguistic and religious restrictions imposed on Uighur communities, it’s unsurprising that many Uighurs perceive it that way.

Q. What do we know about reports about limits on so-called Islamic dress, or forced alcohol sales?

A. There are definitely local officials who are enforcing policies like selling alcohol in predominantly Uighur areas or trying to ban women from wearing veils. The problem is we don’t have good information. We don’t have reporters going to these places very much and we don’t have much contact with daily life in these places either.

Q. One point you make is that popular culture is a force for change in Xinjiang. You discussed one song about a guest who comes to a house and never leaves — obviously a symbol for Han Chinese moving to Xinjiang.

A.Yes, that tells you more about how people are feeling than an explosion somewhere. These songs  and poems aren’t expressing grievances inspired by jihadist ideology. They instead reflect the concerns of many ordinary people in these communities.

More in the New York Times.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you interested in more stories by Ian Johnson? Check out this regularly updated list.  

Is China a Copycat? - Shaun Rein

+Shaun Rein 

China veteran Shaun Rein is on a book tour for his latest one The End of Copycat China: The Rise of Creativity, Innovation, and Individualism in Asia. A report from the Business of Design Week 2014 at StylebyAsia.com. "Rein is born to be on stage, his speech is just enjoyable and enthralling."

StylebyAsia:

Rein is born to be on stage, his speech is just enjoyable and enthralling. 

He starts his speech introducing his new book, the best-selling business guide ‘ The end of Copycat China”, and addressing the audience with “China is not innovating, gdp is dropping till several years, Chinese innovation happened hundreds of years ago, they have invented compass, banknotes, but what about the last 30 years?” Than he engage the audience asking if anybody can come up with some recent Chinese innovation.

What sounds like a strait accusation to China, suddenly turns into an analysis  of the state of the art and of the challenges at the base of China’s future. 

Regulation: The innovation development  has moved from USA to Europe, Japan, Korea, and now China. Development and innovation’s  history repeats itself. Charles Dickens in 1842 says  about Europe: “I spoke as you know, of international copyright ... my blood so boiled as I thought of the monstrous injustice”. 

China is facing a wide range of  limitations like Government censorship, regulation & copyright protection. He gives the audience a personal experience. Being american, he loves the food chain Subway, and see it as a homey, safe brand.  Unfortunately, he discovers that in the whole China, only a couple of dozens are original, all others are copies. Every year the Subway brand takes the case to Court, the Court admits the fraud, but nothing happens. 

Something is changing. Chinese are investing billions in brands and are asking out laud to the Government for regulation. 

Why is China changing now?   

Pollution: Pollution is a more and more severe problem and is changing how people think in China. They care more about health and travel than fashion. “Who care for a LV bag if I die for pollution”. The new business is moving towards heathy life. Escaping or staying home is the new trend, so traveling and home decoration are booming. 

Creativity: Nationalism is raising, 9 out of top 10 Alibaba sales are Chinese brands. Western brands must understand the transformation and truly do products for Chinese consumers, not just use Chinese models. In fact, more and more people are looking for Chinese brands to announce themselves, hence, Design is going nostalgic. The outcome is an emerging rush to art and craft industry, making products  ‘for Chinese made by Chinese’. 

Urbanization: The effect of industrialization is the migration of people from the countryside to the cities. This is a big issue for the Chinese Government. In the last decades, migrants have saturated any possible and impossible space in the cities. Now The Government has entered in action to correct and stabilize the situation. The political strategy rely on two main points, renovate and relocate.  People are relocated in satellite cities built by selected big developers with eco-friendly knowhow, and city centers, once cleared,  are entering a phase of transformation and modernization. 

Corruption crack down: The effect of corruption in the Chinese economy is no longer sustainable as it affects and delays  the development.  To face the change on salary e life cost, the Government is taking serious actions to crack down corruption as the only way to push companies innovating. China is evolving from ‘Copycat’ to ‘Innovation for China’ stage, small and big Chinese venture capitalists are investing in biotech and mobile and, ‘Invention  and Innovation is most about business innovation’, business can’t evolve in a corrupted environment. 

Once China will complete the ‘Innovation for China’ stage than will be ready to evolve into the ‘Innovation for the world’ final step.

  Shaun Rein

More at StylebyAsia Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.  

Are you interested in more innovation experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out our recent list.

´China´s Second Continent´@ Economist Best Books 2014 - Howard French

+Howard French 

After the New York Times, also the Economist has selected Howard French´ book China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa for it Best Books of 2014.

Howard French is currently associate professor the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and former foreign correspondent for the New York Times at in Africa, Japan, China.

Howard French is also a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you interested in more experts on China´s outbound investments? Do check out our latest list.

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Silicon Valley should not underestimate China´s innovation - Shaun Rein

+Shaun Rein 

China is in the middle of a shift from the world´s factory to a base of innovation, argues author Shaun Rein of The End of Copycat China: The Rise of Creativity, Innovation, and Individualism in Asia. Silicon Valley and US firms in general should pay attention to that shift, he tells in the Mercury News.

The Mercury News:

Q: Talk to me about the changes that are afoot in the Chinese economy. 

 A: It would be a mistake for Silicon Valley companies and American companies in general to underestimate the rise of innovation in China. It's true that over the past 30 years, China had mostly been a copycat nation. A lot of people have said it's because the Chinese culturally can't innovate or the government stifles innovation. Those were factors, but it was really concerns about intellectual property protection and a lack of funding for research and development that stopped innovation. And there was so much low-hanging fruit -- either manufacturing something for export or copying something from the West -- that you didn't need to focus on innovation in order to get wealthy. Now that the economy has changed and it's getting harder to make money in China, a lot of companies are being forced to innovate just to survive. And what we've seen in the past six months is that some of the early innovators, like Tencent or Alibaba, have made a ton of money. That's created a wholesale change among VCs and entrepreneurs. They're now saying, "We can make more money by being innovative than by copying." 

Q: What role have venture capitalists played in the shift? 

A: Ten years ago, the VCs didn't know how to operate in China. They were scared of the country. They would say, "Let's invest in the Google of China or the Groupon of China." They wanted to minimize risk and basically recreate what worked in the U.S. and back Chinese entrepreneurs who spoke English well. Now, in just the past two years, Chinese entrepreneurs have become VCs for the first time, and they're looking to invest in innovation. Q: Will Chinese entrepreneurs' new approach help or hurt companies in the valley? A: There's a threat in the mobile space because some Chinese companies are light years ahead of what a lot of the players in Silicon Valley are doing. Many of the dominant players in Silicon Valley were made for a PC environment. When they shifted to mobile, they had to transport the experience, and the result wasn't always great. In China, companies like WeChat (a messaging app) were built with the mobile interface from the very beginning because many Chinese have never accessed the Internet through a PC. You'll find a security guard who makes $100 a month, and he's accessing the Internet all day from his mobile device. However, there are also great opportunities for Silicon Valley companies. Some Chinese tech companies that originally were copycats are cash-rich and looking to buy innovation by investing in and acquiring Silicon Valley and Canadian startups. And the valuation they'll pay is often higher than an IPO.

More in the Mercury News.

Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking for more innovation experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check our recently updated list here.

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Paul French's next books

Paul French

Every successful author needs to have his next book ready before the previous book is out. Celebrity author Paul French of Midnight in Peking has two in the making, while he is touring to promote his latest book, he tells The Scotsman. 

The Scotsman:

He is fascinated by Old China hands like Werner (who had been in China for half a century when Pamela was murdered) and brings his vanished world back to vivid, pulsating life. But it is the storytelling flair that marks Midnight in Peking so highly above the run-of-the-mill true crime stories: with its false leads and twists, and the care taken never to reveal anything ahead of his protagonists, it sucks the reader in like the best fiction. 

Exceptionally, this is a story that also casts light on the kind of characters who normally live only in darkened margins of history: White Russian gangsters, half-Korean brothel madams, hermaphrodite cabaret stars, prostitutes on the run from the authorities. 

It is these demi-mondaines who will be the subjects of his next two books. First, there will be a short book giving more of the back stories of some of the shadier characters in Midnight in Peking. Then, he’ll switch to the city he knows best: Shangai. “It’s going to be girls, gangs, jazz, sex, the badlands, casinos. Everyone has an image of the Shanghai between 1939 and 1941. It was the Chicago of the East, a real wild town. You’ve got to imagine the whole international concession is surrounded by the Japanese but they didn’t invade until after Pearl Harbour in 1941. Until then, there’s this wild party going on in the Bund (European central area) while outside the Chinese are fighting for survival. Inside the Bund, the foreigners can’t escape and there is no effective policing, but they all have a lot of money – and that’s a hugely combustible mix. Even if you don’t get all of the history, I hope you’ll get a sense of a world falling apart, as in Isherwood’s Cabaret. Everyone knows things are going to be bad – though nobody can imagine quite how bad they actually will be – so they party like there’s no tomorrow. “

More in The Scotsman.

Paul French is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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Paul French' "Midnight in Peking" to become TV drama

Paul French

The successful book "Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China" by the author Paul French will be turned into a TV drama, according to Forbes. Forbes:

Penguin Books, the publisher of Shanghai-based author Paul French’s hit book “Midnight In Peking,” announced today that television serial rights have been sold to Kudos Television of London. 

“Midnight in Peking,” released in Asia last year, tells the story of British teenager Pamela Werner’s brutal murder in Beijing in 1937, and French’s efforts to solve the case. (Click here for an article about the book.) 

Interest in the television mini-series will be piqued by the untimely death of 41-year-old British businessman Neil Heywood in China last November.  Recent reports in state Chinese media suggest the death may be linked to the family of Bo Xilai,  one of China’s most powerful politicians until he lost his Communist Party posts this month in one of the world’s scandals to rock China’s government in decades. (See related article here.)

More in Forbes.

Paul French is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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