The sharper edge to traveling in Asia

WoWasis book review: Asian Godfathers, powerful, influential, dangerous business barons in Asia

For those of us who frequently travel to and do business in Asia, it becomes increasingly important to understand who the major players in the business world are, and how they have traditionally operated. Two books we here at WoWasis have reported on before are Martin Booth’s The Dragon Syndicates: The Global Phenomenon of the […]

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WoWasis book review: Stephen Leather’s ‘Hungry Ghost’ from Hong Kong

Stephen Leather never ceases to tantalize us. It’s not just the vicious murderers or the fetching murderesses, either. Hungry Ghost (ISBN 978-0-340-96072-1), originally published in 1992 and re-released in 2008, is replete with all the cerebral stuff we’ve grown to expect from the author. His “no stones unturned” approach is something we figure he picked […]

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WoWasis book review: Revisiting Han Suyin’s ‘A Many-Splendored Thing’

Han Suyin died in November of 2012 at the age of 95. Her book A Many-Splendored Thing, published in 1952, was the basis for the film starring William Holden and Jennifer Jones, and has influenced numerous writers. A recently written book, Janice Y.K. Lee’s The Piano Teacher, is probably one of those. So we went […]

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WoWasis book review: ‘The Piano Teacher’ by Janice Y.K. Lee

After finishing Janice Y.K. Lee’s ‘The Piano Teacher’ (2009, ISBN 978-0-14-311653-0), we went scurrying back to Han Suyin’s landmark novel of 1952, A Many-Splendored Thing. There are similarities, to be sure. The setting for both is pre-1955 Hong Kong, and they are essentially love stories that revolve around the unsettled military, political, and social situation […]

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WoWasis book review: ‘The Vets’ … Hong Kong and Bangkok intrigue by Stephen Leather

British novelist Stephen Leather has written an amazing body of fiction books centering on Southeast Asia. In The Vets (1993, ISBN 978-0-340-59770-5), he includes Hong Kong in the mix, in a fast-paced thriller that displays his knowledge of HK prior to its takeover by the Chinese as well as his understanding of the powerful mainland […]

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WoWasis book review: Jonathan Kwitny’s ‘Crimes of Patriots’

Here’s a book about one of the great bank swindles of the 20th century, that touched countries as disparate as the U.S., Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, and Indonesia. And it touched them all in a big way. The bank was called Nugan Hand, named after its co-founders, lawyer Frank […]

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WoWasis book review: Boye De Mente’s ‘Women of the Orient’

Many men have loved exotic women from the Orient, but few have written as passionately on the subject as adventurer Boye De Mente, in his small but encyclopedic Women of the Orient (1995, ISBN 0-8048-1880-0).  Here, he chronicles the habits, looks, and proclivities of women from six Asian countries, China (Hong Kong & Taiwan), Japan, Korea, […]

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