I read this book.
I learned about it from this note article.
Introducing a masterpiece that shows the "real deal" of a "seriously corrupt power" = China, and how Japan should respond
For a clear synopsis, the note above is easier.
Simply: the author — born in China, raised in Hong Kong, university in the US — builds finance expertise, then meets and marries an aggressive Chinese woman entrepreneur. As is well known, the Chinese Communist Party heavily interferes in business. In that warped setting, "cunning" entrepreneurs build connections with politicians and related people, dig into vested interests, and run huge businesses. The scale reaches jaw-dropping amounts — but whenever the Party changes course, it's over. And one day that moment suddenly arrives… That's the story.
It's a memoir based on the author and his wife's real experience.
Reading it, I found many things — new perspectives on China's market, politics, and how people think.
Books like this make you feel you've grasped the whole of China.
Put another way: "When you gain a new perspective on something, you start feeling you've deepened your understanding."
If you lived it, maybe — but feeling you understand from hearsay alone needs caution. Even if you experienced it, that experience might still be limited.
Understanding may have deepened a little, but it's only the tip of the iceberg.
Feeling you've understood just because you gained a viewpoint is dangerous.
Especially dangerous: when context and background are opaque — different cultures, ethnicities — it easily births bias that leads to racism.
I studied abroad for only half a year once — short as that already was, I want to avoid declaring things with blunt cuts.
For example, even when media pile up criticism of Korea or China, people from there I met while abroad and after returning to Japan were kind to me, and those friendships were valuable — I'll never forget that.
Those risks are a premise — but trying to gain new perspectives by looking things up still matters. It becomes a trigger for thinking like this.
And gaining a new perspective still falls short of "deep understanding" — yet it can be a door, a starting point toward deep understanding.
While I'm at it, I want to write what an individual should do on the way to deep understanding.
Commonplace, but this much is a minimum.
And if you can, go yourself and hear from people who actually lived the experience.
That's all for now.
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