Vann Chow has 7 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators. The most-rated is What Were the Chinese Thinking.
Shanghai Nobody: A Novel
Summary
Top 20 Featured General Fiction of the year 2016 by Canadian book reading platform with over 65 million users. A story from China that enthralled over 85K+ readers around the world. Jong may be clever, but he was so awkward when it comes to dealing with women. After his girlfriend broke up with him, Jong got into all sorts of troubles. A chance encounter put him under the radar of Shirley Li, the daughter of Li Kun, one of the richest men in China. Shirley quickly became obsessed with him and hinted at the possibility of a long-term relationship. She whisked him away to America on a whirlwind honeymoon tour, but little did he know that there was a hidden agenda behind her apparent affection. Meanwhile, Jong met an American student Marvey who worked for the Li's. Charming, kind and optimistic, she was someone who truly took his breath away. Was he going to admit to his feelings or just let Shirley run over his life? Written in a humorous tone, author Vann Chow brought you a satire of urban life in China. The story explores China's cultural phenomenon such as gender imbalance, selfish generation, newly rich, migrant workers, digital loneliness and Capitalist tyranny, reflecting on the glamorous and not-so-glamorous side of the rise of a modern nation through the eyes of one nobody of Shanghai. Shanghai Nobody is the story of one young Chinese man's adventure to find love and purposes in the 21st-century Chinese metropolis.
©2015 Vann Chow (P)2019 Vann Chow
The Pachinko Girl
Summary
An unforgettable, breathless debut fiction by author Vann Chow, The Pachinko Girl is the winning selection of an international book award online with over 140,000 submissions. While the book appears to be a murder mystery, the author explores and exposes a slew of human rights issues such as gender inequality, hyper-sexualization of teens, homosexual discrimination, racial discrimination, and workplace bullying among others in Japan through the eyes of a foreigner with his friends from different walks of lives and professions in her seminal debut fiction series. Synopsis: An American businessman who lingered in Pachinko parlor every night in his lonely life as a foreigner in the city of Tokyo met Misa, a young Japanese hostess that worked at a the parlor by chance. Knowing her personal woes, he gave her his winning as an exchange for Japanese lessons. That large sum of money incriminated them to false accuse of sex trade. Meanwhile, an ex-adult film producer investigated the death of a certain foreign producer who happened to have filmed Misa in his legendary work, in which she was seemingly strangled to death. Was Misa the murderer?
©2015 Vann Chow (P)2019 Vann Chow
The Kiss of the Pachinko Girl
Summary
"Hell itself is also a dwelling place." (Japanese proverb) An erotic art house movie The Beginning of the End, directed by famous Frenchman Sergey Ribery, was released in Japan to critical acclaim. Little did the audience know that Misa Hayami, the actress in the movie, had died in a freak accident during filming. Its director Sergey was also murdered in what appears to be a ritual killing. Amateur moviemaker Ryuuji Tanaka became obsessed with the story. In an attempt to make an investigative documentary about the case that would reveal the shocking truth behind their deaths, he uncovered extremely sinister evidence of not only illegal gang activities but also bad pharmaceutical testing practice and even a grand scale of political corruptions. At the same time, Carson Smith, a middle-aged American businessman who made Tanaka's acquaintance by chance at work in the multinational heavy metal recycling company, was approached by a girl who took up the identity of the supposedly dead actress Misa Hayami, in the movie. He took a keen interest in the young woman's welfare. With Tanaka, the pair took on a trip to Hokkaido to undercover the truth behind Misa's true identity. What will they find? What shocking revelations await them in the snow-buried village in the ruthless mountain ranges? Listen to the audiobook to find out! The Kiss of the Pachinko Girl is the second book of a four-part crime thriller series. Listeners are encouraged to read all books in the series in sequence in order to get the full impact of the colossal, twisted story about the Pachinko girl.
©2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 Vann Chow (P)2020 Vann Chow
Shanghai Fools
Summary
In a world full of jealousy, greed, lies, trickery, and deceit, could Jong, our hero from Shanghai, beat the odds? Despite his intelligence, Jong was hardly employee-of-the-month, and he was fired from his job once again. Luckily for him, Marvey Simons, the American intern he had a secret crush on, introduced him to Mr. Qi, the manager of a major international bank, who was desperately looking for a good programmer to take over the development of a series of highly complex fin-tech projects. The man was filthy rich for a corporate employee, and when he offered Jong a mind-blowing remuneration package with the job, Jong took the bait without thinking twice. Meanwhile, Jong got himself in a tricky situation. He needed to stage a fake wedding with a woman from another province to avoid government scrutiny, in order to enroll her son into the prestigious Shanghainese social benefit system. He would adopt the boy as his own so that the poor boy, born without a father and was considered a "black child" in China, could finally get an ID and go to school. Mr. Qi took an enormous interest in organizing a wedding feast for his new star employee, all expenses paid for. There seemed to be no good reason to refuse the offer. But had Jong's luck really turned around for good? Or was he being manipulated into a plot too complex for him to untangle? Shanghai Fools is the story of one young Chinese man's adventure across the vast country to find love and purpose. Sprinkled with thought-provoking Chinese ancient philosophy and attention-grabbing popular reference, Shanghai Fools is the latest work of Vann Chow - from the Master Shanghai series that would surely make you laugh and cry.
©2016 Vann Chow (P)2020 Vann Chow
The Pachinko Girl
Summary
She was 15 when she met him on the snowy mountain. He was a charming young man from the city, and he swept her away. She moved to Tokyo for him, full of hope. Then one day, she was betrayed; her own elder sister raped and murdered by the very man she loved. And not long after, he was found dead in a ritual killing. To avoid being suspected, she had to disappear into the crowd. Three years later, an amateur documentary maker decided to investigate his death, and Misa's doctor, a family acquaintance, was unusually enthusiastic about the project. He knew the man treated her like she was his own daughter and helped her established a life away from home in the big city, when she had no one to turn to. But did he really help her? Or was he the one who caused everything in the first place? What really happened to her sister and her ex-boyfriend? And who still has secrets to hide? The Pachinko Girl is the complete book in Tokyo Faces, the four-part crime thriller series.
©2020 Vann Chow (P)2021 Vann Chow
The Bitcoin Clown
Summary
Set in Shanghai, China, the home of the world's largest cryptocurrency trading platform and the sixth largest cryptocurrency in the world, Bitcoin Clowns tells the story of a young, talented programmer Jong He who plunged into the mysterious and dark world of cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies because of a pet cryptocurrency he created as a joke to mock the ICO speculative madness happening around the world. Little did he know his invention would be quickly adopted and become the latest fad of the town, be backed by international banks, help create the world's first cryptocurrency billionaire, and even attract adoption from a slew of criminals, including South American counterfeit drug cartel and anonymous Eurasian hackers slash Robbin-hoods. In the meantime, his cousin Cao had disappeared because of financial troubles at his company that sold ill-designed cryptocurrency funds of debatable legitimacy, and his partner was found dead in the office after a client lost a huge amount of investments passing through their hands. His cousin's other sketchy business partners were reluctant to tell him anything, and law enforcement was grossly unfamiliar with these new kinds of financial instruments to see through the thick plot of deception in front of them. Jong had to rely on his exceptional luck, incredible courage, and loyalties of his friends once again to find his cousin and retrieve the missing millions. Could Jong succeed, or would he be sacrificed and fade into obscurity in the latest, fiercest fight of the century on the digital realm for the kind of new digital gold and the power to control key businesses and even governments around the world? The action-packed story told in first-person perspective follows Jong He, a highly intelligent but socially awkward Chinese programmer and his friends around the financial capital of the country in the cat-and-mouse chase of the biggest cryptocurrency heist of our time.
©2019 Vann Chow (P)2019 Vann Chow
What Were the Chinese Thinking
Summary
You are not the only ones who are occasionally confused, misunderstood, and lost in the wonderful yet sophisticated Chinese system. For those of you who have committed yourself to taking a deeper, more structural and practical, modern approach to learning Chinese culture, you will find this book informative and at the same time compassionate. Award-winning novelist Vann Chow introduces in What Were The Chinese Thinking a series of important fundamental Chinese school of thoughts on all aspects of life. The book goes from simpler topics to more sophisticated topics and is sure to be as informative as it is entertaining.
©2016 Vann Chow (P)2020 Vann Chow