Tribulations of a Chinaman in China

Infobox Book |
name = Tribulations of a Chinaman in China
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Sampson Low Edition
author = Jules Verne
illustrator = Léon Benett
cover_artist =
country = France
language = French
series = The Extraordinary Voyages
genre = Adventure novel
publisher = Pierre-Jules Hetzel
release_date = 1879
media_type =
pages =
isbn =
preceded_by = The Begum's Fortune
followed_by = The Steam House

"Tribulations of a Chinaman in China" ( _fr. Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine) is a novel by the French author Jules Verne, published in 1879. The story is about a rich Chinese man, Kin-Fo, who is bored with life, and after some business misfortune he decides to die.

tyle

The book is a traditional adventure, similar in style to "Around the World in Eighty Days", which is one of the author's more well-known books. However, it does contain more humour as well as criticism of topics such as British opium trade in China.

Plot summary

Kin-Fo is a very wealthy man, who certainly does not lack material possessions. However, he is terribly bored and when news reach him about his major investment abroad, a bank in the United States, going bankrupt, Kin-Fo decides to die. He signs up for a $200,000 life insurance covering all kinds of accidents, death in war, and even suicide. Rejecting seppuku and hanging as means of dying, right before taking opium laced with poison, he decides that he doesn't want to die without having ever felt a thrill in his life. Kin-Fo hires his old mentor, the philosopher Wang, to murder him before the life insurance expires.

After a while news reaches Kin-Fo that the American bank he had invested in didn't go bankrupt, but instead had pulled off a stock market trick and is now wealthier than ever. Unfortunately, Wang has already disappeared. Together with two body guards assigned by the insurance company, and his loyal but lazy and incompetent servant Soun, Kin-Fo travels around the country in an effort to run away from Wang and the humiliation from the affair.

One day he receives a message from Wang, stating that he can't stand the pain of having to kill one of his friends, and instead decided to take his own life while giving the task of killing Kin-Fo to a bandit he once knew. Kin-Fo, Soun and the two bodyguards now try to get to the bandit, planning to offer money in return for his life. The ship they travel with is hijacked, and they are forced to use their life vests with built-in sails to return to land.

After being kidnapped by the bandit they were looking for, they are blindfolded and returned to Kin-Fo's home, where his old friends (including Wang, who we now find out staged this entire history to teach him a lesson about how valuable life is) are waiting for him. He marries a young, beautiful woman and they live happily forever after.

Trivia

A film starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, "Chinese Adventures in China", was loosedly based on this novel.

External links

* [http://jv.gilead.org.il/works.html#TC E-text of "Tribulations of a Chinaman in China" in various languages at the Jules Verne Virtual Library.]