China Cuckoo: How I lost a fortune and found a life in China

Product Description In booming Shanghai, Mark Kitto hit the big time. The Financial Times called him a ‘mini media mogul’. One weekend, Mark escapes to Moganshan, a dilapidated mountaintop village built by foreigners in the early 1900s as a summer retreat. It’s a familiar story: Mark falls in love with the place and decides to restore one of the villas, as if he were in Tuscany or Provence. But here the familiarity ends. The process is full of the usual pitfalls – but multiplied to the nth degree, Chinese-style. And then, when he dramatically loses his business empire to the Communist Party, what began as a weekend getaway becomes much more: Mark moves his family up the mountain and makes Moganshan his home. The ex-tycoon has gone ‘China Cuckoo’. Funny, touching and inspiring, Mark’s story gives a very different view of China today – from someone who’s chosen to stay. Review A genuinely fascinating insight into life in rural China, written with humour and nerve. --Daily Telegraph A fascinating and often hilarious insight into China and the Chinese. --Good Book Guide Evocative and lyrical. --Irish Times Book Description The story of an Englishman who went to China in search of a fortune, and found a life. About the Author Mark Kitto was a Captain in the Welsh Guards before he became a metals trader in London and then China. His series of That’s listings magazines became the most successful English language publications in China. On the verge of signing the groundbreaking deal that would make him the first authorised foreign publisher, the Communist Party took over his business. He is still in a legal wrangle over copyright. Variously accused of being a spy, pornographer and terrorist, he retreated to Moganshan where he now lives with his wife and two children. The family runs a successful coffee shop that is bringing foreigners back to the mountain for the first time since the Communists came in 1949.