[edit] Ted Plafker
In Fall 2007, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Ted Plafker, China correspondent for the Economist and author of Doing Business In China at the Newsweek Offices in Beijing. Ted shared his take on doing business in China, with sharp sense of humour he peppered his business insights with great stories of a Rabbi visiting a Chinese facility who saw signs saying "Rabbi is coming put away the pork," salt-water toilets in Shenzen, and a Chinese police man surfing the crowd at a Beijing rock concert. Overall his book is the most down to earth of the business books on China I have read - in comparison to other business books I have read his was the easiest to relate to.
One ot Ted's main points was that you can't just expect to "hang up a shingle" and make money. I found a great video that reflects alot of the ideas that I saw in the book - but the book has more analysis and tips on how actually to execute on the dream. Youtube has a 10 minute limit, therefore the video comes in 7 parts, the first 3 are the most relevant. It's called "Brits get rich in China."
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Here's Ted's bio:
"Ted Plafker arrived in Beijing in March, 1989 and, with his university
degree in Russian studies, did not expect to stay long. But as an aspiring
journalist, he found his timing could not have been better. He took spot
jobs in various news bureaus during that very hectic spring and summer, and
soon began contributing to the South China Morning Post. In the following
years he became a somewhat promiscuous freelancer, stringing for, among
others, The Boston Globe, the San Francisco Examiner, Science Magazine, the
San Francisco Chronicle, The Independent, National Geographic, the
Chronicle of Higher Education, Far Eastern Economic Review China
Trade Reports, the Washington Post, and International Herald Tribune. He is
currently accredited as a correspondent in the Beijing bureau of The
Economist, where he began contributing in 1994.
He lives in Beijing with his wife, business woman Roberta Lipson, and sons
Jonathan, Daniel and Benjamin. "Doing Business in China" is his first book."
[edit] Others
There are a few other authors who either live or did research in Beijing.
- James McGregor is another Beijing author and a Dow Jones correspondent.
- Antoine van Agtmael did much of the research of his book in Beijing. He's a hedge fund manager and most famous for coining the term "Emerging Markets."
- Jonathan Spence is a Yale Professor who was also a visiting professor at Beijing University and an honorary professor at Nanjing University.
- Ted Fishman is a commodities trader and a journalist.
Below is an exerpt from a lecture by Antoine van Agtmael.
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Books: (by no means a comprehensive list; Chinese names written surname first)
The Search for Modern China, Jonathan Spence (modern Chinese history)
One China, Many Paths, Wang Chaohua (essays on contemporary intellectual scene)
China’s New Order, Wang Hui (China’s political structure and direction of reform)
Dream of the Red Chamber, Cao Xueqin (18th-century classic Chinese literature)
Diary of a Madman and Other Stories, Lu Xun (post-Qing celebrated writer)
Soul Mountain, Gao Xingjian (China’s first winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature)
News from Tartary, Peter Fleming (classic travel account, 1930s)
Red Dust, Ma Jian (Chinese autobiographical travel book, early 1980s)
River Town, Peter Hessler (autobiographical travel book, recent)