Born in Yorkshire, Chris has spent over 30 years working in Asia. He studied Chinese at Oxford University and Japanese at Sheffield. After graduation, he sold soap in Newcastle, before moving to China with a metal trading company in 1983. He has subsequently worked in finance in Tokyo, Taipei, Edinburgh and Hong Kong and planted a vineyard, with a Scottish castle in Shandong. This experience was described in his earlier memoir A Decent Bottle of Wine in China (Earnshaw Books, 2015). His play about the burning of the Summer Palace, Before the Wall, was performed at the National Museum of Scotland in 2019. Chris is married with four children.