Jack Ma: The authorised version

JACK MA (FOUNDER AND CEO OF THE ALIBABA GROUP)
The Authorized Biography by his Assistant
Chen Wei
Pigeon Books
246 pages; Rs 295

By definition "authorised biographies" carry an embedded disclaimer for readers, and no one can fault this offering for lack of disclosure. Jack Ma: The Authorized Biography by his Assistant, says the no-frills title, so readers are forewarned that authenticity will be sacrificed on the altar of hagiography.

In a baldly titled "Recommendation by Jack Ma", the man himself commends his assistant's "relaxed, humorous and entertaining style that keeps you reading on." He suggests that this book presents a more accurate portrait than many non-authorised biographies.

Chen Wei certainly needs all the endorsement he can get because this is a strange little book.

The shabby production values alone - which do little justice to one of China's wealthiest men - tell you instantly that this is not a work on a par with, say, Walter Isaacson's deeply researched, posthumous door-stopper on Steve Jobs. Mr Chen purports to present to readers "The real Jack Ma you may never have imagined to know". This subtitle suggests that, even if the subordinate relationship of the writer were discounted, we would get some interesting little nuggets about the lesser-known side of one of the most dynamic new-age businessmen to emerge from Asia in the new century.

The founder of Alibaba, the world's biggest e-commerce firm, is all the rage. His $25 billion initial public offering on Nasdaq ranks as the world's biggest. US president Barack Obama took time out to meet him. So did Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His investment in Vijay Shekhar Sharma's Paytm created paroxysms of excitement in India's infant e-commerce world.

From various profiles, we know Mr Ma is charismatic, maverick and unconventional - he is known as "Crazy Jack" for his purported iconoclasm. Little of this is in evidence in the book (bar a photograph of him in punk gear). Here, Mr Ma comes across as a regular stand-up guy, with a native intelligence, a sense of compassion and a puckish sense of humour - and, judging from his assistant's fawning prose, not immune to sycophancy.

Okay, we also discover, among other things, that his wife is terrifically supportive, helping run the businesses in the early days, and selecting all his clothes. That he has a quick brain and his hair grows fast. That he never prepares speeches. And three per cent of Alibaba's turnover is set aside for public welfare. Is this the sum total of the real Jack Ma we may never have imagined to know? Yawn.

Much of the problem has to do with Mr Chen's struggles with language, if he is the original writer (there is no mention of a translator). He started as a student of Mr Ma's "English Club" in Hangzhou. Even given the unique difficulties of translating an ideographic language like Chinese - visitors to China double up with laughter at some of the English signage - Mr Chen is no great advertisement for Mr Ma's teaching skills (in the latter's defence, he was largely self-taught, having done the standard thing of guiding foreign visitors for free to practice speaking the language).

Eccentric grammar and punctuation and a failure to provide context for non-Chinese readers combine to make the point of many of Mr Chen's anecdotes decidedly mystifying. For instance, Mr Ma was once asked to teach spoken English to some 200 young ladies who had signed up for a Miss Etiquette contest and shortlist 50 of them ahead of a local festival. His male students teased their teacher: "'What's your standard for choosing Miss Etiquette, figure, looks, or the level of spoken English?' We'd ask Jack Ma sometime."

"'None! The festival is approaching. In this case, bribing hams talk.' Jack Ma jested." Anyone get that?

There are many more "jokes" like this, comprehensible perhaps if you know Chinese. The sheer effort required to decode the idiosyncratic language plus the random introduction of a bewildering array of characters and events without explanation detract from the more enlightening parts of the book.

Having been duped by a company in Las Vegas, Mr Ma decided to explore the business potential of the Internet, which he learnt about from a colleague at the Hangzhou Institute of Electrical Engineering. But he struggled to sell the concept; the students of his English class were sceptical and tried to dissuade him. But Mr Ma kept faith, registering a "China Page" - the first to do so - in the US.

Then he raised some capital, including borrowing from his mother-in-law, and set up Hope Computer Service Co, China's first commercial internet company, with a staff of three - himself, his wife and a university colleague. Then follows several passages of mangled syntax about how Mr Ma went about building the business, from which the author concludes that "Jack Ma's entrepreneurial experience at that time was sauced with all the flavours in his heart".

Mr Chen also sees fit to regale readers with inane snippets - "gossips" - about his own life. They are included, he explains, because his "life's track is changed to make me who I am today due to Jack Ma's 'tampering'." Among them is a story of how a student at the English Class emigrated to Australia and Mr Ma encouraged Mr Chen to visit her. He doesn't because, "I preferred to keep the beautiful image of her in my mind, as I know beautiful girls' biggest 'enemy' is time." So he's not just a toady but sexist too, scarcely a credit to Mr Ma's "tampering".

The biggest puzzle about the book is the inclusion of a letter from Vice President Hamid Ansari to the chief executive officer of the Indian publisher. He found it "lucid and informative," he wrote. Seriously?