On October 12, 2002, Max was in the Sari Club in Kuta, Bali with his rugby team, The Taipei Baboons, when two terrorist bombs exploded. The blasts which included a 1000kg car bomb killed 202 people included five members of his team, and injured hundreds more becoming the biggest ever terrorist attack on Asian soil and the largest loss of Australian life due to an act of terror. Max survived the attack and spent the next eight days in Bali to locate and evacuate survivors and help affected families and friends.
Within four months of the Bali bombings, Max had quit his “corporate” job and opened The Brass Monkey Taipei with other survivors of the attack. The Brass Monkey quickly became a landmark in Taipei and is still open today. During his time in Taipei, Max met his wife Taiwanese performing artist Puffy, with whom they now have two children.
Born in New Zealand to a Canadian father and New Zealand mother, both academics. Max grew up around the South Pacific including 7 years in Goroka, Papua New Guinea before eventually settling in Brisbane. Completing primary and high school in Brisbane, Max went on to complete two degrees at Griffith University – A BA in Modern Asian Studies (Majoring in Chinese language and Asian History) and a BA of International Business. During his studies Max spent a year in Beijing, China in 1995 studying Chinese. During this time, Max’s parents moved to Brunei and eventually Singapore before retiring to the Sunshine Coast.
Upon graduation Max ended up back in Shanghai working for Snap Printing for three years before being offered a job selling Automated Optical Testing Equipment in Taiwan’s printed circuit board industry. It was here that Max played for the Taipei Baboons and joined them with his brother for the ill fated October 2002 tour.
After 15 years in Taiwan, Max returned to China in 2015 to operate the famous Zapata’s brand in Shanghai and Guangzhou. The business in Shanghai was eventually shut down by the government, forcing a refocus on the Guangzhou business where with his partners, Max opened the highly successful JoJo’s Riverside in Guangzhou, China in 2018. Max continues to operate Zapata’s Guangzhou and JoJo’s Riverside – three venues with almost 1500 seats – to this day surviving the global pandemic and now the Zero Covid policies.
Max is happy to talk about his experience during the bombings and the aftermath, as well as his career in the Asian F&B industry owning and operating some of the most famous brands in Taiwan and China. It’s a story of overcoming tragedy and coping with extreme adversity following the bombings as well as a business story with many lessons learnt through Max’s successes and failures.
Max lives in Guangzhou China while his family is based on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. He speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese and has two Bachelor degrees from Griffith University Australia in Modern Asian Studies and International Business.
Max R Murphy 