{"id":1710,"date":"2014-07-07T12:33:06","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T16:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/?p=1710"},"modified":"2016-05-16T11:58:05","modified_gmt":"2016-05-16T15:58:05","slug":"in-enthusiastic-review-the-wall-street-journal-calls-forbidden-game-strikingly-original-and-gripping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/in-enthusiastic-review-the-wall-street-journal-calls-forbidden-game-strikingly-original-and-gripping\/","title":{"rendered":"In enthusiastic review, <em>The Wall Street Journal<\/em> calls <em>Forbidden Game<\/em> &#8216;strikingly original&#8217; and &#8216;gripping&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Edward Chancellor writes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Attempts to explain China&#8217;s recent history often fall back on statistics showing the country&#8217;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 mind-numbingly large and often dubious, while the social context is overlooked. Dan Washburn has found a strikingly original device to portray recent developments in China: It&#8217;s all about golf.<\/p>\n<p>In &#8220;The Forbidden Game,&#8221; Mr. Washburn, an American journalist who spent several years in Shanghai, tells the story of golf&#8217;s progress in the Middle Kingdom through the lives of three protagonists: Zhou, a migrant worker who takes a job as a security guard but strives to become a professional golfer; Wang, a farmer on the tropical island of Hainan\u2014China&#8217;s Hawaii\u2014who finds a new vocation as a restaurant owner after his land is given over to a golf course; and Martin, a hard-working and foul-mouthed American golf-course contractor.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Forbidden Game&#8221; is a tale of material dreams, both the absurdly grandiose and the touchingly individual. They are realized against a backdrop of public corruption and constant battles between Beijing and local governments. Ambitious developments are undertaken at breakneck speed by overweening tycoons; they involve arbitrary land seizures and environmental depredations. In short, this is a tale of modern China.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Read the rest at <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=t&#038;rct=j&#038;q=&#038;esrc=s&#038;source=web&#038;cd=5&#038;cad=rja&#038;uact=8&#038;ved=0CFgQqQIwBA&#038;url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fbook-review-the-forbidden-game-by-dan-washburn-1404684064&#038;ei=Pq66U5KjGrXfsASF9YDwCQ&#038;usg=AFQjCNFaVzf7nMPks8GVkcwKk2jh2xw0hA&#038;sig2=IuhRUkwfhNqFh-hBDqsDZA&#038;bvm=bv.70138588,d.cWc\" target=\"_blank\">The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Edward Chancellor writes: Attempts to explain China&#8217;s recent history often fall back on statistics showing the country&#8217;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 &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1711,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,24],"tags":[174,287],"class_list":["post-1710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-featured","tag-reviews","tag-wall-street-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1712,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710\/revisions\/1712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/forbiddengame\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}