The child of an ethnic-Chinese street vendor in Bangkok, Mr. Charoen started a small distillery with partners after dropping out of school and successfully bid for a government liquor concession.

WSJ: Heineken, Thailand's Charoen Reach Deal on Asia Pacific Breweries

There are many fascinating aspects to the tale, which has just taken a new turn with a report in the Wall Street Journal that the automaker will be giving Chinese workers significant raises to get them back to work.

FORBES: The Chinese Strike At Honda

The paper's comments, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, refer to a saga that has been brewing for a while, in which Chinese customers have claimed they're not receiving the same quality of after-sales care as those in the US. These allegations were given prominence in a recent show on national TV, prompting Apple to rebut them in a press release.

ENGADGET

Amy Chua created quite a stir this weekend when people caught wind of her wildly controversial essay in the Wall Street Journal on how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids.

FORBES: Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior: The Video

Her high-end restaurant Mandarin, which was a fixture in Polk Street and later Ghirardelli Square neighborhoods through the early 1990s, focused on the classic northern Chinese and Shanghainese dishes she ate growing up in a wealthy Beijing family.

WSJ: Cecilia Chiang, the Queen of Chinese Cuisine

Ian Bremmer and Nouriel Roubini, respectively president of the Eurasia Group and a professor at New York University, pointed out in The Wall Street Journal last week that 39 of the 42 Chinese companies listed among the Fortune 500 are state-owned, and three-quarters of China's 100 largest publicly traded companies are state-controlled.

WSJ: China Might Have Over-Reached Itself