Review: Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built by Duncan Clark

4 stars for Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built by Duncan Clark.

This book is a joy to read.

It is easy to read about the success of people, the founders of so-and-so companies, but it is not often that we get to learn about the difficulties faced or the sheer amount of hard work put in or even the many failed attempts undergone before these people come to be where they are today.

In the book, the author tells the remarkable story of how Alibaba Group Holding Limited - a company registered in the Cayman Islands but based in China, controlled by a partnership which does not actually own the business assets in China, and subsequently listed in the United States New York Stock Exchange - come to be and its goals for the future.

Another reason this book provides enjoyment reading is that the author has a good grasp of the Chinese language. By using the Hanyu Pinyin, a Mandarin phonetic transcription system, together with corresponding English explanations, he succeeds in relating the story content in his own way while retaining the Chinese flavour of what the book is like.

Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, a former English teacher turned businessman, philosopher, philanthropist, environmentalist, has big vision for the company. It does seem as if Alibaba wants a share in everything, from business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce to business-to-consumer (B2C) to health care to environment to sports and entertainment to even the newspaper industry which some consider to be a sunset industry.

Can Alibaba survive long enough in today's cutthroat industry to span three centuries from its incorporation in 1999 to see its vision come to fruition? Only time will tell.

Review: The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea's Abduction Project by Robert S. Boynton

2 stars for The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea's Abduction Project by Robert S. Boynton.

I feel bad giving this book a 2-star rating given that it is deeply reported and thoroughly researched and that the author has invested countless hours of hard work fact-checking to get this book published.

The thing is, this book reads very much like a boring history lesson, albeit perhaps a necessary one for better understanding as it alternates between the abductees' stories and history of Japan and North Korea.

Regardless of unexciting historical events, this book does address political and social issues such as:

- Why did North Korea go to the trouble of snatching ordinary Japanese people from beaches and small towns?

- Why did Kim Il-sung invite Japan’s Koreans to move to North Korea? With all the challenges it faced in the wake of the Korean War, why would North Korea want such an enormous infusion of people?

- Anyone who is born and raised in the North knows that identity within the society determines fate. It does not matter how smart one is or how hard one works. If identity or public image or presentation is not correct, one will never marry well, will never get the right job and will never succeed.

Review: Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West by Blaine Harden

4 stars for Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West by Blaine Harden.

Kaechon political prison camp, also known as Camp 14, was established in 1959. At time of this post, Camp 14 is a sixty-year-old Skinner box, an ongoing experiment in repression and mind control in which guards breed prisoners whom they control, isolate and pit against one another from birth.

Born (1982) and raised in a political prison, Shin In Geun is reputed to be the only known prisoner to have successfully escaped from a "total-control zone" grade internment camp in North Korea, one of the world's most brutal totalitarian regimes.

Escape from Camp 14 is Shin's account of the misery of life in the North Korean gulag and his subsequent escape. He is not only a witness to but also an example of North Korea’s cruelty to its own people. His body is a roadmap of the hardships of growing up in a labour camp, a walking proof of those tortures he has been subjected to.

I am very much affected by what I read in this book. It is a depressing story. But what makes it even more disturbing and scary is that these hardships and cruelty are not dealt by enemies but by the country's leaders to its very own people.

Camp 14 and all the other labour camps are clearly visible in satellite photographs. Yet, North Korea government denies the existence of these camps. Read this book to find out more and decide for yourself what the truth is. But be forewarned, not all that is presented in the book is real. In 2015, some years after the first edition of publication, Shin discloses that his life in the North Korean gulag differ from what he has been telling government leaders, human rights activists, and journalists. I will recommend to read the new foreword first to prepare for Shin's admission of fabrication.