"If you're not working in China, you're probably not working at all...."

Despite China's legal moratorium on the development of the golf industry, a policy driven by concerns over illegal farmland seizures and the potential misallocation of agricultural land and water resources, the golf industry has experienced an unprecedented frenzy of development over the past thirty years, with the very government organs that overtly disapprove of the luxury sport often promoting its growth, leading to a situation where not even the central government has more than a vague inkling of how many courses actually exist in the country.

With rumors of an impending crackdown on the industry circulating in the industry though, and questions of whether this kind of growth will or can continue, we are delighted to be joined in the studio by Dan Washburn, former founder of The Shanghaiist, and now Chief Content Officer for the Asia Society in New York, where Dan has lived while working on his latest book: The Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream.

Like Sinica? Don't forget that you can download this show and all of our previous shows as a standalone mp3 file. And if you have any suggestions on topics you'd like to see us tackle or just feel like yelling at Kaiser or Jeremy, feel welcome to write us anytime at sinica@popupchinese.com.
 said on
November 25, 2014
@kaiser: If you've never seen golf on CCTV-5, you must not watch the channel much. These days, there is almost *daily* broadcast of golf tournaments on CCTV-5 (cf. official CCTV EPG) -- not to mention the fact that CCTV has an entire channel named "CCTV Golf & Tennis" (channel #170 on Beijing cable TV, or on the EPG website above, click "数字" on the left edge, then "CCTV高尔夫网球").
Mark Lesson Studied