The Bear and the Dragon

Rating:
Summary: Amazingly bad...in a humorous way.
Review: If you want a book you can laugh at(not for its jokes, but its stupidity) then get this book now!!! WAU!
Here is one of MANY examples:
Spy: Here, put this CD into your computer.
Secretary of Chinese Minister: What does it do?
Spy: You don't need to know, do you?
Sec: Uhh...I guess not. It won't get me in trouble, will it?
Spy: Of course not!
Sec: OK!!!
The CD is put in, and Voila! Instant information source for Washington inside the Chinese government! AMAZING!
But if you're looking for a realistic plot, then don't even bother.

Clancy has no idea about what China is like. The people there don't "dress the same, have the same awful haircut", and they definately don't call each other "COMRADES".
There are things that are written, which I won't go into, that border on racism.

Another big setback for this book is the sluggish pace, even by Clancy standards. Also, there are numerous instances where Clancy makes you cringe with the sheer cheesiness and stupidity of it all. Jack Ryan CONSTANTLY complains about being president. Apparently, he hates all the attention, hates all the people serving him, and is just an average joe who's been "tricked" into the presidency. That's great. But when this point is hammered into you time and time and time again, it gets very annoying.

Also, the work "puke" seems to be very popular with EVERYONE in Washington. "Field puke...navy puke...airforce puke...." ARRRG

Rating:
Summary: Total disappointment and waste of money, even for only $7.99
Review: I needed something to read on a flight across the continent from L.A to N.Y. At the airport bookstore in L.A., I was recommended Tom Clancy. Since I have the Chinese background (I came to the US about 20 years ago from China), I picked up the Bear and Dragon. Turned out a big mistake!

The plot is simple and the narration is long and boring, often wandering off from its main theme with too many off-subject comments, which in most cases are unnecessary and shallow in nature. The book needs to be cut at least in half to make it more focused. And the language... I don't understand how the foul languages would in any way help the story. Worst of all are the characters. They are completely stereotypes in their worst kinds. The Americans smart heros, the Russians are inferior and kissing up to Americans, and the Chinese, they are either naïve and brainwashed or stiff and stupid, and they are evils. As for the people in the White House, they are more like high school kids so awkward in their posts cracking jokes of bad tastes as if in their locker rooms..

I don't know much about Russians, so I have no comments. As far as the Chinese characters are concerned, they are nothing Chinese other than their names. Ming talks and behaves more like a street girl on Sunset Blvd than a secretary to a powerful Chinese minister. And people addressing one another "Comrade" in the 90s? Anyone doing that in China would be laughed off the surface of the earth! When I came to the part where the Vatican ambassador and the Chinese Baptist were shot dead in the hospital by the Chinese police, I finally realized that the author's brain was totally f--ucked up! I couldn't help but laughing out loud, which drew some curious looks to my direction on the airplane. From then on, I kept on reading out of nothing to, not to see how the story develops, but to see how naive and stupidly crazier this author can go...

Apparently, this author has never been to China, and knows nothing about the Chinese people and its society if he is writing about China in the 90s other than his presumptuous simple-minded belief: Communism is bad and capitalism is good. Therefore, the people in China, the only surviving Communist nation on earth, must be bad, be evil and be our enemies. And of course, we Americans, being the citizens of the most powerful capitalist nation on earth, have to be good, and smart.

Based on his own stereotype of the Chinese and the communists, the Chinese girls are naive without a brain, easily seduced by some gifts of lingerie from a foreigner (in this case, a Japanese, which the author fails to understand how much they are hated by the Chinese in reality), and eagerly spreading their legs while casually talking about other man (her boss, the minister) she went to bed with...This is just hilarious! How come I have never come across a Chinese gill like that in my life?

And the Foreign Minster at the trade negotiation...wowowo... Can't imagine a guy in that position could be that stiff and stupid with nothing to say other than repeating "you Americans can't dictate to us..." How did he even get to that position... other than in Clancy's simple-minded fiction...I guess the stupidity of the character only reflects that of the author himself.

And then came the scene of the CNN reporter reporting on police refusing the widow of the Chinese Baptist returning to her home, police cremated her husband body and scattered the ash without consulting the wife, police beating up the group of prayers right in front of CNN camera... I kept wondering to myself, which China he is writing about? Is it the China on the map in the Far East? Or something completely out of the author's shallow imagination, but stamped with the name of China by the author. I have been traveling to China numerous times each year on business... this is definitely not the China I know of. I guess the author must be still living in the cold war age chewing on the propagandas against China from Mao's era...

I haven't finished the book yet, and at this moment have no desire to do so, since I am already done with the trip. I am not sure if I would come back to finish it some day. But one thing I am sure is, anything by Tom Clancy will definitely be crossed off from my purchase list for reading in the future.

By the way, the book did make me laugh quite a few times on my trip, not because it offers anything humorous, but because of the stupidity under the pretentious disguise of self-claimed knowledge of the subject matter by the author. And I am afraid that is the best I can say about this book and its author.