The story of a young man's outrageous adventures in China and his search for identity in the most unexpected of places.

Mitch Moxley came to Beijing in the spring of 2007 to take a job as a writer and editor for China Daily, the country's only English-language national newspaper. The Chinese economy was booming, the Olympics were on the horizon, and Beijing was being transformed into a world-class city overnight. Moxley planned to stay only through the Olympics and then head back to Canada.

But that was six years ago. In that time, Moxley fed a goat to a lion, watched...