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1. The forbidden game golf and the chinese dream pro#
2. The forbidden game golf and the chinese dream professional#

The story of golf in China is so complex and touches on so many different aspects of life in modern China, that I thought I needed multiple storylines to do the topic justice.

Why did you choose these particular stories?

The forbidden game golf and the chinese dream professional#

The book focuses on three main characters: Martin, an American golf course construction executive in China Zhou, a professional Chinese golfer and Wang, a Hainan lychee farmer whose land is confiscated for golf course construction. In order to learn more about how this banned business can be so lucrative in China-and what it says about the country’s economic rise-we caught up with Washburn for an interview on his book and what’s next for the Chinese golf industry.

The forbidden game golf and the chinese dream pro#

Their stories show that China’s economic development is rife with growing pains-Zhou spends years struggling to make ends meet on the new and poorly organized pro golf competition circuit, Wang represents millions of peasants victimized by land grabs who often receive far below market value for their property, and Moore learns to navigate the tumultuous business environment in China’s golf industry, complete with corrupt officials and Thai mafia members. The book follows three characters realizing their own version of the “Chinese Dream” through the golf industry: Zhou Xunshu, a rural villager who rises to the ranks of China’s growing middle class through a professional golf career, Wang Libo, a lychee farmer who becomes a shop owner when his village’s land is seized for the massive Mission Hills complex in Hainan, and Martin Moore, a golf course developer from the United States who cashes in on China’s golf boom when the American Dream fails him.

The Forbidden Game not only tells the story of the rise of golf in China, but also one of the human experience behind China’s quickly expanding economy. Thanks to a lack of enforcement and ease in bribing local officials, the ban certainly hasn’t stopped the sport from taking off: developers have tripled the country’s total number of golf courses since the start of the policy. After construction of new courses began to take off as golf became popular with China’s ultra-wealthy, the Chinese government abruptly prohibited all new courses in 2004 on the basis that they were taking up too much of the country’s vitally important land resources. With the nickname “green opium,” the preppy sport’s volatile rise alongside China’s rapid economic growth has been the subject of years of research for Dan Washburn, author of the newly published book The Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream.įirst outlawed by the new Chinese Communist government in 1949 for being too bourgeois, golf began its ascent in the country when it was legalized in 1984 as China pursued its reform and opening up policy. In China, many industries are illegal, yet highly lucrative: prostitution, narcotics, counterfeit goods, and-surprisingly for many Westerners-golf. The Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream (L) by Dan Washburn (R) tells the story of the unpredictable rise of golf in China.