The Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream – A book by Dan Washburn
Official website for The Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream, the new book about golf in China – and so much more – by award-winning journalist Dan Washburn.
Edward Chancellor writes: Attempts to explain China’s recent history often fall back on statistics showing the country’s breakneck economic growth: how many tons of steel have been produced, how many miles of high-speed rail constructed. The trouble with this approach is that the figures are …
Read MoreFergus Ryan writes: In his revealing and fascinating book, Washburn looks at China’s recent development through the lens of a game that was denounced by Chairman Mao as a “sport for millionaires” when the Communists took control in 1949, and was completely banned until 1984. …
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Last week I sat down with Jessica Marksbury in Golf.com’s New York studio to talk about The Forbidden Game and China’s complicated relationship with golf. Watch above, or click here. I was also quoted in a related story, “China’s recent golf course crackdown masks staggering …
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The following excerpt comes from Dan Washburn’s new book “The Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream,” which follows the lives of three men caught up in China’s bizarre — and, in some cases, illegal — golf scene. The passage below focuses on Zhou Xunshu, …
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Here’s a snippet of my chat with The Wall Street Journal’s Alyssa Abkowitz: THERE’S A BAN ON GOLF COURSE DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA AND YET GOLF IS BOOMING. HOW DOES THAT WORK? There’s a [Chinese] saying I have in the book, “the mountain is high but …
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WHAT CAN WE LEARN ABOUT THE “CHINESE DREAM” FROM CHINA’S GOLF INDUSTRY? I think the very fact that a golf industry exists in China is a sign that the Chinese Dream is alive and well for some. There are few things more aspirational in nature …
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Had a nice talk with Marketplace‘s David Gura last week. You can listen to part of it above, or at their website.
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For Mr Washburn golf is symbolic not only of China’s economic rise but also of “the less glamorous realities of a nation’s awkward and arduous evolution from developing to developed: corruption, environmental neglect, disputes over rural land rights and an ever-widening gap between rich and …
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“You need to hide,” the villager whispered urgently. “Government officials have arrived.” I was whisked away through a maze of shanties, trees and rubble, and finally placed inside a crudely-made shed where my only companions were discarded coconut husks and a rooster. Through a gap …
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Simon Kuper writes: The Forbidden Game uses golf – a game that most in the country probably still know nothing about – to gain a rare insight into ordinary Chinese lives. Washburn, the managing editor of the Asia Society in the US, was a reporter …
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