About Chris Devonshire-Ellis and this website


CDE GogolWelcome to my personal website.
I am an experienced Asia hand, having lived in the region for nearly 30 years. This includes 23 years in mainland China, as well as time in Hong Kong, Singapore, and India. More recently I have expanded my reach to include Eurasia – having been so long in the Far East I have grown to miss my European roots. I currently live in Sri Lanka during the winter months and in Mongolia and Russia during the summer. Malta acts as my European go-between.

Apart from my professional life, I am a keen naturalist and ornithologist, writer, musician, and have also been described as a gourmet chef! I am today the senior member of the Devonshire-Ellis industrial family, best known for their ownership of the John Brown Shipyards and the building of many great Ocean Liners, among them the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, Mauretania, Lusitania and the Royal Yacht Britannia.

My professional career as the Founding Partner and Chairman of one of Asia’s largest foreign investment consulting practices has been mirrored by my professional writings on China and the region, which may be found via Amazon and Asia Briefing. My most recent book, about China’s One Road One Belt is a regional best seller, and I hope to continue my career as a writer. My professional profile is here

My non-business books, which are rather more interesting, include a Travel Guide to Mongolia, and China Expat Tales and may be downloaded on a complimentary basis. I am also a titled Baron, having been assigned the Barony of Coigach in 2011, and support several charitable institutions, including Care for Children, the Surmang Foundation and the Snow Leopard Trust.

The important thing to know is that aged 25, I was homeless, having experienced a failed business, and living in sheltered accommodation in the UK with drug addicts and petty criminals. This is not a blog about self-promotion. It is a blog about never giving up and when you’ve reached bottom, what can happen when you start to go back up. Because there is only one way to go when you’re down. This blog is proof of that. I have come a long way.

Today, I am a regular traveler throughout the Eurasian region, and have set up this blog to share my personal travel and life experiences with any interested parties. If it helps encourage people to take life by the balls and live it usefully, then hopefully it will have succeeded. Life is there to be enjoyed, albeit under a reasonable element of responsibility, and there is a big world out there. I thoroughly recommend getting out and seeing it, and I hope you enjoy this website.

Finally, anyone that wishes too may reach out to me via chris@chrisdevonshire-ellis.com