No comments about 1421: El A~no En Que China Descubrio El Nuevo Mundo (Huellas Perdidas).

2 comments about Turkestan Reunion (Kodansha Globe).

1. Turkestan Reunion is a collection of the letters written by Eleanor Lattimore to her family in the United States documenting her honeymoon travels from Beijing, through Siberia, into East Turkestan, and over the Karakorum mountains into British Kashmir.
   
   The route Lattimore takes is epic and ranging, crossing everything from arid deserts, Siberian tundra, and towering mountains. Such a journey would make fascinating reading regardless, yet an even greater part of the intrigue and charm of this book comes from its authorship by a woman in time when even hardy, professional male adventurers sometimes couldn't endure similar conditions. Ms. Lattimore is truly a trailblazer, in the literal sense of trekking across routes tread by the feet of very few, but also in the sense that her adventures in the early part of the 20th century very clearly run contrary to what where then very strong and revered concepts of female domesticity. In 1927, the idea of a traveling, white woman was so foreign and novel that many officials and friends who hosted the Lattimores, European or otherwise, were sometimes at a loss in deciding what kind of arrangements should be made for Eleanor. Not only does Lattimore shatter "womanly domesticity" just by traveling, she also consciously chooses to travel in the most down-to-earth way, reaching for the most authentic experiences. Often she chooses horseback over carriage (when physically possible; the weather in Turkestan often did no permit), she voices preference for the rundown accommodations and authentic food of the locals rather than the plusher European lodging and food that sometimes was available.
   
   Beyond the gender angle, Turkestan Reunion additionally presents a sort of ethnographic experience much less condescending to locals than many travel writings and exploration writings of the time. Lattimore's writing inevitably retains an element of colonial privilege, for example, in the repeated tendency to bestow comical Western names on their guides rather than learning their real names. However, relative to other writers of the time, and to other Westerners in general of the 1920s, the Lattimores display a unique willingness and even desire to commune with locals and acknowledge the hardships of their existence. Eleanor Lattimore with a keen eye documents everyday proceedings of everyday villagers; games among herdsmen, a witch-curing ceremony, marriage and divorce, the arbitration of disputes, these and others are documented in Lattimores casual yet elegant prose. As white travelers in a China still mired in a pseudo-colonized position relative to the rest, there still are many instances where the Lattimores are regaled by obsequious officials and conniving businessmen with banquets and galas, but while these celebrations often compose the bulk of 19th and early 20th century travel writing, Lattimore's book is balanced by the ground-up perspective she is willing to describe. As such, there is a pre-ethnographic element to Lattimore's writing that anticipates the academic enlightenment which led to the understanding that the lives of locals are worth documenting and should be observed from more than just a colonial-overlord perspective.
   
   What drew me to this book was the simple premise of it all; even in our intrepid modern times, young and energetic newly weds are more likely to choose Cabo San Lucas or Paris to celebrate their honeymoon, yet Owen and Eleanor Lattimore chose the foreboding deserts and towering, ice-capped peaks of East Turkestan to celebrate their marriage, and at a time when traveling through such extreme environments was not as easy as buying a bus ticket or boarding an airplane. However, Eleanor Lattimore's simple and descriptive writing style exceeds the novelty of this underlying premise, anticipating a sort of feminist traveling philosophy and capturing an ethnographic ethic to observe, and therefore understand the peoples of the places they visited.



2. Turkestan Reunion is a compendium of letters written by Eleanor Holgate Lattimore to her family while traveling on her over one year honeymoon trip in Siberia, Turkestan and the Karakorum. These letters are arranged according to their date having been written at approximately fifteen day intervals. Each letter is forewarded by a brief resume of the happenings and is heralded by a nice drawing, which I believe is by the Author. It could be called an epistolary travel book and this is not common among travel literature. This very characteristic lends the book its grace and appeal, that emerge strikingly after all these years (it was assembled in 1934 from the journey which took place in 1927-28).
   Why a companion book? Eleanor Lattimore was Owen Lattimore's wife and her husband is famous among students of politics and of the Eastern civilizations for his many contributions to the knowledge of those little known countries in those times. Owen wrote his own books on their original wedding trip, the Desert Road to Turkestan and High Tartary, that are famous in their own right, and probably Eleanor's book is often picked up because its mentioned in these other works.
   However even if it describes events that are already known, Eleanor's outlook on these same occasions is completely different and orginal. A woman's sensibility? Probably, a woman that possesed courage, curiosity, wasn't afraid of disconforts and was able to relate herself with empathy towards her travel companions and the people she met.
   The endurance of the great disconfort of the couple's trip assumes in the Author's prose almost a sense of liberation from the material preoccupations of the civilized world to go back to the essentials of living: protection from cold and heat, food, rest, traveling necessities such as carts and horses, good company.
   The first part of the book contains the description of the seventeen day travel through Siberia, that Eleanor accomplished alone, while the rest narrates the common path through Chinese Turkestan and the five Karakorum Passes. Much attentions is dedicated to the nomads encountered during the journey, the Qazaks the Qirghiz and others.
   The book can truely be defined ethnographic because it is first hand description of a traveling experience accomplished with curiosity and the desire to learn. "One can understand a little of how difficult a province is to rule when one relizes that it still contains flotsam and jetsam remnants of every variety of people who have passed through or conquered the land as well as the scamps and villains who have run away from Chinese law", is an example of the deeply empathic outlook on her experiences.
   Another aspect I particularly love in travel books is the "spirit of place", the ability to make the reader feel inside a different reality. Eleanor Lattimore's Turkestan Reunion truely evokes this feeling, more than Owen Lattimore's High Tartary which is more scholarly and detailed.
   As David Lattimore, the couple's son, affirms in the Biographical Note at the end of the book Eleanor and Owen's journey and love story deserve to be remembered because of their uniqueness and the sense of adventure and youth they are still capable of conveying.

No comments about Wanderings in Balochistan.

No comments about Camps and Trails in China: A Narrative of Exploration Adventure and Sport i.

2 comments about Yunnan: Southwest China's Little-Known Land of Eternal Spring (Passport Books) (Odyssey Passport).

1. This book has a lot of information on this less-popular but nonetheless worth-visiting region. The author's voice is quite objective, unlike Lonely Planet's, which can sometimes be sarcastic. The photographs are pretty captivating. There were lots of good facts. There aren't very many books on just this region, so if you're planning to go, I'd definitely recommend getting this one. One drawback: no Chinese characters for the names of cities, sights, and other Chinese terms.



2. This book is very useful for planning the trip. For example, the author suggests that the "bamboo temple" outside of Kunming is of most interest. It is a bit off the path, and would have been missed if not for this recommendation. The brass drums in the Yunnan Museum are very interesting.

   I found that almost everything mentioned in the detailed advice about less permanent sites had changed, but then noticed my bookstore had sold me the 1987 edition! There were some amusing discoveries: the restaurant for workers, peasants, and soldiers had been changed to an expensive linen tablecloth place called "Ambrosia."

2 comments about The Last Barbarians: The Discovery of the Source of the Mekong in Tibet.

1. Just about the only redeeming thing about this book is that it deals with Tibet. Peissel is a complete bore through most of the text. He spends way too much time bitching and moaning about how he wished he was a true Victorian explorer and hardly discribes the scenary or the people he encounters. He spends over 200 pages whinning about his lot in life, intertwined with his trip to the head waters of the river, then in only 12 pages he recounts a later trip to Tibet to study native horses. It's sad to say but I much preferred the 12 pages to the 200.



2. Traveling to the source of the Mekong River - and in Tibet no less. The premise of this book (and its cover) offered the potential of an intriguing account of exploration in a (largely) undiscovered and exotic land.

   Sadly, reading (and finishing) the book became a chore. Occasional lapses into "stream of consciousness" writing - where one had to connect the dots between the thoughts, personal opinions on historical events, and the continual ruminations on horses and their origins, served to rob the book of the depth that the author craved.

   The deficit was exacerbated by the lack of contact that the author had with the "Barbarians" referenced in the title, and that potentially humorous situations and relationships (his recalcitrant Chinese guide, for instance) were left virtually un-mined.

   That said, I did not mind his repeated reference to the Victorian explorers of yesteryear. If one has to hang their story off a hook that is as good as any for me - just make sure the hook doesn't work itself loose in the process....

No comments about 100 Wonders of China.

5 comments about Memories of an Eastern Sky.

1. I loved this book. The book was so powerful and touching. I cried for Andy Zhang's family. I am the parent of an adopted girl from China. I can never read enough about China and it's culture. The struggle and sacrifices that the author's family had to endure is remarkable. This book captures the true meaning of the human spirit. I highly recommend this book.



2. It was hard to put the book down! It certainly makes one appreciate the fragility of life, freedom, and the God-given blessings we take for granted. I pray the USA will never encounter the atrocities so many others have experienced.



3. Andy Zhang's novel is really his own story of growing up in Communist China. From the very first chapter, Zhang boldly carries the reader into the lives of Mama who is about to give birth, Baba who is accused of being a counterrevolutionary by the government, older brother Biao, and little brothers Ming and Dong. Eventually we are introduced to Baby Hai, sister Meili who belongs to the Sent Down Generation, and little Hui, our charming narrator.
   
   The story is an achingly honest account of the Wang family's trials under the Mao regime, including Baby Hai's uncertain future, Baba's imprisonment and Mama's arrest. It is also a personal and touching coming-of-age story during which Zhang reveals small triumphs and great joys hidden in the cruelties of Communism. As Hui grows up and is presented with opportunities and tough choices, we learn that pain and humanity can carry equal weight inside the temptation of revenge. Through Zhang's tender characterization and fresh voice, readers will find themselves endeared by Hui's vulnerabilities and willingness to bear witness to a complicated time in Chinese history.
   
   Also recommended: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini



4. (Posted on behalf of B. Murray)
   The natives of Harbin, China, were no strangers to struggle, but their resourcefulness and community spirit managed to pull them through--until the Cultural Revolution ruptured their lives and destroyed the fabric of their society. This powerfully moving story of the harrowing impacts on the Wang family and their neighbors, based on the experiences of the author's own family and village, brings home in a highly accessible way the damage done; the tortures and summary executions, the shocking ease with which powerful bullies could wreck the lives of their neighbors, the enslavement of a generation of children as farm laborers, and, most powerfully to me, the aftermath as the children who grew up in this chaos try to come to terms with their own experiences. Andy Zhang manages to convey all of this with an almost-deceptive simplicity of language and a fast-moving story line that makes it impossible to put the book down. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Chinese history and culture, the triumph of individual moral courage and kindness in a topsy-turvy world of chaos and thuggishness, or simply a good read
   --B. Murray



5. Mr. Zhang's book contains layers of messages. First there is the one that depicts a society and culture deprived of the freedom that is cherished by ours, but even now under attack by a paranoid government. Then there is the uplifting one where the greatness of the human spirit shines through in adversity and chaos. It is a story that should be included in all high school literature classes. Thank you.

No comments about Kathay: a cruise in the China seas.

No comments about Tourism and the Branded City (New Directions in Tourism Analysis).