Two faces of an empire: Beijing, the capital in the North, and Shanghai, the former fishing village turned business centre and booming mega city. With humour and a wealth of information, Adrian Geiges gives us his uniquely personal take on the two rivals. What is the place to be for artists? Where does one find the most stylish women? What should one eat and where? Why do residents of Beijing purchase a car first, while people from Shanghai choose an apartment? What do the Olympics and Expo have in common, and how do they differ?

From communist to TV reporter to CEO in China: An adventurer of his generation tells his unbelievable story.

Thin shoulders, blue corduroy trousers, cheap glasses, long hair, good middle-school student, non-smoker, shy – and nevertheless Adrian Geiges is feared in the cosy Black Forest town of Staufen as a rebel. Why? He is a member of the youth organization of the German Communist Party. Active in the peace movement and firm in the theories of Mao, Marx and Lenin, he dreams about leaving bourgeois existence behind and starting a new life as a professional revolutionary. When the party sends him one year to a secret cadre school in East Germany, he gets acquainted with the dialectic of the socialist reality: singing revolutionary songs, strange prohibitions, and even communist sexual morality. With enthusiasm he starts his long march to change the world – but instead he himself changes like the world around him: As a tabloid TV reporter he looks for sensations in the Moscow red light areas, becomes a tough boss of an international corporation in China and enjoys the company of Shanghai beauties.

Totally honest, totally funny and totally frivolous he tells about his life between Mao studies and Chinese night clubs, oral sex and peace marches, class struggle and corruption.

Russia after the breakdown of the Soviet Union: Drunken red armists near St. Petersburg drive around with atomic missiles. The TV reporters succeed without problem in smuggling nuclear material out of a factory. In Rostov at the river Don a serial killer is on trial live on TV. A children’s mafia controls the streets of Moscow… In addition to bizarre scenes of Russian life at that time Adrian Geiges and Andre Zalbertus describe the political events – from two coup d’etats, which they covered from the centre of the fighting, to the bloody conflicts in the Caucasus.

Was on the Spiegel magazine bestseller list, the most renowned bestseller list in Germany.

“The book is interesting, because curious young journalists describe first hand a changing world. And it is thrilling, because excellent writing and a clear structure make the reading easy.”
West German General Newspaper

“It catapults me into the world of flowing borders between politics, war and crime.”
Book Market