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Actor and writer Mark Kitto talks about his novel China Running Dog (Plum Rain Press, 2025) based on his experiences living in China in the 2000’s. Many of his encounters, surprisingly, parallel those of foreigners living in Japan, but certainly not all of them! Take a deep look into what it means to be an outsider in China. Particularly a foreigner who has fallen in love with the culture, is determined to make a life there, and aspires to start a business. But if that person is hoping for their enterprise to prosper, think again!

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In his novel China Running Dog, a young man in his early twenties lives in Shanghai in the year 2000, in a greed-crazed free-for-all, in a moral and lawless vacuum created by the Chinese Communist Party. Johnny Trent, small-time entrepreneur from Basildon in the UK, ends up in China, where he meets Felix Fawcett-Smith, fresh off the boat and from the other side of the tracks. An unlikely friendship begins.

Johnny impresses the well-bred Felix with his street smarts until Felix takes Johnny’s advice too literally – and too far – and slips into Shanghai’s murky underbelly. He enters a world where the Party, power, and connections to them, are all that matter: where criminals are given sainthoods and saints sent to hell.

Johnny tries to stop Felix’s spiral, not least because Felix is taking a sweet, angelic Anita, down with him and Johnny has feelings for Anita that he has never dared to put into words. But Felix thinks he knows best.

It’s up to Johnny to save whoever he can, besides himself.

Books mentioned in this podcast: Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui, Shanghai by Richie Yokomitsu (transl. Dennis Washburn), Candy by Mian Mian

Mark’s recommended books on Asia:

Six Records of a Floating Life by Shen Fu.

Frank Dikötter’s trilogy of China

The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima

See Mark Kitto’s one-man show, Chinese Boxing.