Out of the Gobi

Out of the Gobi: My Story of China and America is a 2019 non-fiction autobiographical book by Weijian Shan.

It was published in January of that year. John Pomfret of The Washington Post wrote that due to internal factors, there had "not been a single credible memoir by a Chinese insider who played at the nexus of the nation’s business and political elites."

Janet Yellen wrote the introduction of the book; she was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who advised Shan on his work.

Background
Shan started writing the book when he was a professor at Wharton in 1990. He revisited the book in 2017 and published it in 2019, which serendipitously coincided with the 40th anniversary of the US and China normalizing ties.

Synopsis
Out of Gobi: My Story of China and America (2019) is Shan's debut memoir. With acute observation, eloquence, and unvarnished honesty, Shan recounted his journey with profound insight, captivating detail and a splash of humor. His personal saga humanized China for the Western readers while providing a unique perspective on America through the eyes of a keen foreign observer. Janet Yellen, the United States Secretary of the Treasury, former Chair of the Federal Reserve, and Shan's PhD advisor, wrote a foreword for the book and opined that this book “has the potential to reshape how Americans view China, and how the Chinese view life in America,” compelling readers to possibly reassess their perception of both countries.

The memoir opened with Shan’s recollection of the Great Leap Forward, a time when severe food shortages and rampant malnutrition plagued the nation. The subsequent onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, when Shan was 12 years old, disrupted his education and turned him into a city scamp, running around with neighborhood boys. Through Shan’s eyes, readers witnessed firsthand the horror of the Red Guard violence, including a struggle session against Hu Yaobang, who later rose to become the highest-ranking member in the Chinese Communist Party and whose death sparked nationwide protests culminating in the Tiananmen Square crackdown of 1989.

At the age of 15, Shan found himself swept up in Mao's “Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement.” He was assigned to the desolate expanse of the Gobi Desert where he endured brutal winters, scorching summers, and constant military drills in anticipation of the looming specter of Soviet invasion. While spending his formative years in a perpetual state of near-starvation, he bore witness to the immense futility of forced labor and the systematic squandering of human potential. Yet, against all odds, he clung tenaciously to his optimism, work ethic, and thirst for knowledge. He worked as a barefoot doctor, healing pigs and people; he devoured every scrap of reading material under the dim glow of a flickering kerosene lamp; and he secretly tuned into forbidden shortwave foreign radio stations to learn English.

Eventually, Shan emerged from the Gobi, landed at the hallowed halls of UC Berkeley as a Ph.D. student and the Wharton School of Business as a professor, despite lacking formal secondary education. His journey further took him from the World Bank to Wall Street. Ultimately, Shan became one of the world's most powerful and respected investors.

Out of Gobi is more than just a chronicle of Shan's experiences. It is a poignant testament to the enduring human capacity for suffering and soaring. Moreover, by masterfully intertwining his personal narrative with broader domestic and international political currents, Shan offered profound insight into the forces shaping China's tumultuous metamorphosis and provided a nuanced perspective on the evolving dynamics between China and the United States.

Release
Shan conducted promotional activity for this book in his city of residence, Hong Kong, as well as New York City in the United States and London in the United Kingdom.

Reception
Pomfret wrote that people who have not yet studied China may gain a lot of understanding by reading the book though people relatively familiar with the subject matter would perceive it as "a little old" (meaning too familiar).

Isabella Steger of Quartz wrote that the author "demonstrates a kind of frankness that is increasingly hard to find among Chinese people in" 2019.

The USC US-China Institute of the University of Southern California wrote that the work is "powerful and personal perspective on China and America".