“The virus affecting you is called hepatitis E. Its typical mode of transmission is fecal-oral. Yum.”
It doesn’t take long before you are acquainted with the plight of a child in a rural village in the developing world. I think it’s Pakistan, based on where the author is from, but the location and names of characters are never mentioned. The story “..find(s) you, huddled, shivering on the packed earth under your mother’s cot one cold, dewy, morning” From this point all the way through to your death some 80 years and 200 pages later, you experience the ups, downs, struggles, success’, and human experiences of someone who is trying to get filthy rich in rising Asia.
I picked this book up because of the title. Getting rich in rising Asia sounds like something that I would like to do. I didn’t know anything about it other than the title.The idea of being an entrepreneur in a developing country seemed exotic, exciting, and adventurous.
The sense of adventure, the impact I could have, and the money I could make all drew me in. I picked up the book thinking that I would be reading about someone’s experience making it big in Asia. I thought it would be a fun read about the upside of succeeding in business in a developing country. This book is so much more than that.
It is a life story in a place as foreign as it can get. You read the story of someone’s life as he is part of the great urban migration in the developing world, as he experiences a broken education system, as he works delivering bootlegged DVD’s, and as he proceeds all the way from a small time entrepreneur into a big time success.
I spent a day sitting on the couch reading the book at my house but I was lost in another world, almost living another life.
When we read fiction, we, as humans, naturally empathize with the main characters, usually the protagonist. Part of us, as we read believes that we are that character. That is why we can learn so much from narratives. We are programmed to put ourselves in the shoes of the characters, and learn the lessons that they learn. In HTGRIRA (How To Get Rich in Rising Asia) you don’t empathize with a character, though. The story is told in the second person, so you’re repeatedly told that the story that you are reading is about you, and it makes you inhabit the character and puts you in the story in a much deeper way. You feel the pain of the deaths of people you care about, the damage to your family life from your mistakes, the hassles, stress, and danger that come about from trying to be successful in a system designed to keep people in their positions in society.
I went into HTGRIRA, thinking that I would come away with some ideas on entrepreneurship, and some excitement about the idea of going to a developing country and trying to start a business. I left the book thinking about how rich I already am to be living in a largely well functioning society. Here in Canada, we have corruption, and we have to deal with the intrusions of government, but we are largely free and able to do as we please, and to provide for our families and ourselves. Entrepreneurs here have been able to create so many wonderful technologies, products, and services that make our lives so much better than they were just a short time ago. In a country like Pakistan, entrepreneurs are largely criminals. There are so many regulations, and a completely corrupt bureaucratic class setting up roadblocks everywhere to extort and extract as much wealth from the productive members of society as possible.
The end goal of getting rich in Asia for a lot of people is to escape and to end up here in Canada, or in a country like it. For those of us already here, we’ve already won in many ways. After finishing the book I was walking around my town, and I really noticed how orderly, peaceful, clean, and comfortable I am here, compared to the life I was just reading about.
When you are poor in the third world, death is lurking around the corner a lot of the time. You can’t afford medical care, proper nutrition, or living in a safe neighborhood. Crime, violence, and disease are way more likely to impact you. But being rich in the same country does come with lots of drawbacks of its own. You become a massive target as you become successful. Bureaucrats are extorting bribes from you, competitors are trying to kill you, and others just want to steal your stuff. To protect yourself you need to pay bribes, work with criminals, hire guards, buy security systems, and build barbed wire fences. You are almost earning your way into imprisonment.
Then, in the end, it all goes away. Whether it goes like it does in the story, or simply because you die, everything you’ve accumulated disappears. Money is a means to help you enjoy the limited time that you have to be alive, but it’s only a means to improve your time. Sometimes I get caught up worried about being a success in the eyes of others, whether that is making money, or getting recognition for success. Striving, and not appreciating how lucky I am to simply be in the situation that I already am in. Reading How to Get Rich in Rising Asia really helped me put some things back in perspective.
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