HONG KONG (AFP) — When asked for his advice on how to survive the financial crisis, global investment guru Jim Rogers often tells his interlocutors: "Teach your children Mandarin."

The 66-year-old financial commentator has practised what he preaches, in 2007 selling his mansion in New York and moving his family to Singapore.

"I am (in Asia) because this is the exciting part of the world. This is the future, and I want my children to grow up knowing Asia, and knowing things Chinese," he said during an interview from his exercise bike.

Indeed, he said his five-year-old daughter is now a fluent Mandarin speaker.

He had thought about moving to China or Hong Kong, but decided against it because of air pollution, adding: "I don't want to breathe Hong Kong air."

Rogers, who is due to speak on regional investment opportunities at the Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong on January 19-20, made his name and fortune with investment legend George Soros. In 1970 they co-founded Quantum Fund, which saw its portfolio gain 4,200 percent in 10 years.

In recent months, Rogers said, as the global financial crisis has unfurled, he has been buying shares in Chinese firms, his top choices being agriculture, water, infrastructure and tourism.

"Mao Zedong ruined agriculture. China has to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to repair and revitalise it," he said, referring to the Chinese communist leader's rural reforms in the 1950s, which led to famine, poverty and environmental destruction on a massive scale.

The political and economic mess that followed the communist revolution in 1949 created abundant opportunities that Rogers said Chinese people jumped at as soon as they got the green light from the reformist leader Deng Xiaoping.

He said this was clear during a long motorcycle journey he made across the country in 1986 -- less than a decade after Deng launched economic reform policies in 1978 aimed at bringing China into the modern world.

"I was dumbfounded at how much work, initiative, excitement and investment there was," Rogers said of his trip. "I went back realising that all of that propaganda that the American government was saying was wrong."

The reality, he said, was that many Chinese people did not care about Mao and his communist ideals because "they were too busy trying to make money".

In 1990-92, he motorcycled 100,000 miles (161,000 kilometres) across the world, a feat that landed him in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest motorcycle journey.

In subsequent best-selling books based on his journeys, including "Investment Biker: On the Road with Jim Rogers" and "Adventure Capitalist: The Ultimate Road Trip," he analysed the countries he rode through as investment destinations.

Turning to the current crisis, Rogers believes that Beijing has coped better so far than the US and Europe, but says efforts by the communist government could be stymied by the fact that the Chinese yuan is not fully convertible.

"You need the free flow of capital to become a fully developed major world currency. That is a mistake the Chinese are still making," he said.

Despite his optimism, there is growing concern about how resilient the Chinese economy really is with its heavy reliance on exports and foreign direct investment.

(Source)⇒AFP