An American Bum in China

Featuring the Bumblingly Brilliant Escapades of Expatriate Matthew Evans

By: Tom Carter

Narrated by: Eryk Michael Smith

Down on his luck and disabled, cancer survivor Matthew Evans had nothing to lose by fleeing the farmsteads of Muscatine, Iowa, at age 21 to pursue his Chinese Dream. With all the makings of a classic folk tale, his curiosity became an epic five-year adventure that would find him homeless, stateless, posing as a professor, imprisoned, deported, and caught in the middle of the 2014 Hong Kong protests.

Though it has all the form of great fiction, An American Bum in China is a true story and all the crazier for it.

©2019 Tom Carter (P)2022 Eryk Michael Smith

China's Anti Hero Finally Gets a Memoir

Tom Carter's American Bum has replaced my favorite book on China, which was Peter Hessler's Rivertown, I know Matthew Evans personally. Tom Carter has wrote a masterpiece. It's such a shame that this book has not gotten the shine it deserves. I was left pleasantly entertained. I never ran through a book faster. I wanted to savor every morsel. In a way it made me envy Evan's life. It's as if Frodo Baggins f--ked up every part of his journey and we are left with the damaged genius of Matthew Evans. He took the road less traveled, got shat out and then decided to take the road more traveled and was shat out again dang it!. All jokes aside, a must read/listen about modern China. Masterpiece 10/10. I miss Shanghai and the times I had with Matthew and Don. We named ourselves the 3 stooges at one point. As of Feb 17th 2023 Matthew Evans is now hanging on a thread in Lop Buri Thailand. I'm praying for him. God bless him. He has been through so much.