7 h 7 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if you pay a friend to kill you, then discover you desperately want to live?
Kin-Fo has money, leisure, and a comfortable home in Shanghai, but none of it gives him pleasure. When news arrives that his fortune is lost, he decides to die—and wants his death to benefit those he loves. His philosopher friend Wang becomes part of a deadly bargain.
Then Kin-Fo finds reason to live again. Wang has disappeared, and permission to kill is not so easily withdrawn. With his servant Soun beside him and two insurance agents eager to keep him alive, Kin-Fo sets off across China to stop the arrangement he puts in motion.
What you’ll discover
- A bargain turned trap Follow a man whose greatest danger comes from a choice he now desperately regrets.
- Happiness under pressure Wang's belief that hardship makes happiness possible gives the chase a sharp philosophical edge.
- An unlikely survival team Soun and two insurance agents join a journey where keeping Kin-Fo alive matters urgently.
- China on the move Travel through cities, roads, and waterways as social customs shape the course of pursuit.
- Money meets dark comedy Discover how practical matters of insurance turn a bleak decision into an absurd adventure.
Who will love it
Readers who like a brisk adventure with a sense of humour, a sharp-tongued servant, a chase across a whole country and a light touch of philosophy about what makes a life happy.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A bored millionaire announces his wedding
- Wang, Kin-Fo and the old Taiping rebel
- A late letter brings news of ruin
- Kin-Fo buys a death worth two hundred thousand dollars
- A friend is asked to strike him down
- A celebrity on the run
- A wedding halted and a voyage with coffins
- What the story says about happiness
- How Verne tells a farce about China
Who’s who
- Kin-FoA rich young man of Shanghai, bored with everything, who seeks one last strong feeling and then finds he wants to live.
- WangKin-Fo's philosopher and teacher, a former Taiping rebel taken in by Kin-Fo's father, who promises a terrible favor.
- SounKin-Fo's greedy, cowardly valet, who fears the scissors more than the cane and wants only rice and sleep.
- Lé-ouA young widow of Peking, gentle and learned, who loves Kin-Fo for himself and waits for him to come home.
- Craig and FryTwo American cousins who work as one person, finishing each other's sentences while guarding a client worth two hundred thousand dollars.
- William J. BidulphThe cheerful chief agent in Shanghai of the Centenary insurance company, who promises that every client will reach a hundred.
- Lao-ShenA former Taiping chief turned highway robber in the north, who holds a letter that puts Kin-Fo's life in danger.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 7 h 7 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 14 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Die Leiden eines Chinesen in China
by Jules Verne · 1879
A bored Chinese millionaire hires his philosopher friend to kill him, then learns he is not ruined after all.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Tribulations of a Chinaman in China is a comic adventure novel by Jules Verne, the French author of Around the World in Eighty Days. It was published in 1879 and sets its hero loose across the Chinese Empire of his day, from the flower boats of Canton to the walls of Peking and the open water of a northern gulf.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A bored millionaire announces his wedding
The story opens in a flower boat on the Pearl River at Canton, where six men are finishing a dinner of a hundred and fifty dishes. Verne keeps the reader guessing about the place. He notes only that the guests talk philosophy and not politics, so they cannot be French. The room has black lacquered tables, a painted ceiling fan called a punka, and young women who serve with a fan in one hand. Singers perform a piece called the Bouquet of Ten Flowers, and the tea is of the purest kind.
The host is Kin-Fo, thirty-one years old, healthy, clever and very rich. His guests argue over whether life is good or bad, and when they press him for an opinion he answers with a single word, Pah. The narrator calls it the word of the indifferent, a spoken sneer that exists in every language. Kin-Fo has everything a man could want and cares for none of it.
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What is Tribulations of a Chinaman in China about?
It follows Kin-Fo, a bored Chinese millionaire who thinks he is ruined and asks his philosopher friend Wang to kill him. When his fortune returns, he must race across China to escape the arrangement, guarded by two insurance agents.
Who are Craig and Fry?
They are two American cousins who work for the Centenary insurance company. They act and speak almost as one person, finishing each other's sentences, and they guard Kin-Fo because a policy on his life is worth two hundred thousand dollars.
Who is Wang in the novel?
Wang is Kin-Fo's philosopher and teacher. Years earlier he was a Taiping rebel, saved by Kin-Fo's father. He believes happiness only comes to those who have known unhappiness, and he agrees to carry out his pupil's odd request.
The author
Jules Verne
1828–1905 · French adventure novelist
Jules Verne was a French writer born in Nantes in 1828. He lived in Paris and later in Amiens, where he died in 1905. His novels include Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).
More by Jules Verne
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