2 comments about Tibet (Bradt Travel Guide).

1. The second (October 2006) edition of Tibet, the Bradt Travel Guide, is a welcome updating and expansion of the guidebook first published three years ago.
   
   Michael Buckley has been writing guidebooks to Tibet for over twenty years, and brings a thoughtful maturity to the subject that is distinctive and invaluable.
   
   I would recommend this book as the first and best to read before a visit to Tibet.
   
   I have read every guidebook to Tibet published in recent years and have visited Tibet a dozen times. Michael's book is distinctive in having an attractive, easy style, speaking as though one traveller to another. He is never patronizing or pompous, he does not pretend to know what he doesn't know, and he does not flaunt his knowledge; among writers of guidebooks, those are rare achievements. Despite that, Michael is knowledgeable (there are many quite surprising bits of information) and forthright in expressing his own considered opinions about cultural and political matters. He is interesting, persuasive and readable.
   
   The phenomenon of Tibet is so extraordinary and the questions raised by its occupation by China so profound that a visit to Tibet goes far beyond mere sightseeing. Many travellers find that their experiences in Tibet contribute importantly to their understanding of the world. The Bradt Guide is a book whose depth will satisfy the needs of what might be called the thoughtful traveller.
   
   When the Chinese speak of "Tibet" they mean only the so-called Tibetan Autonomous Region, effectively a province of China. Also governed by China are other territories totalling as great an area again, inhabited by Tibetans and styled by China variously as Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures (subdivisions of provinces) or Tibetan Autonomous Counties (subdivisions of prefectures). These territories, often overlooked by travellers, include some of the most important and spectacular destinations in the Tibetan world. The Bradt Guide includes some coverage to these territories as well. Particularly valuable is the coverage of some Tibetan parts of western Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces - especially the important Tibetan territory of south-east Qinghai, seldom covered elsewhere.
   
   In addition, some welcome coverage is given to Bhutan and Mongolia (countries whose religion is Tibetan Buddhism), and to Tibetan areas of Nepal and India, including the seat of the exile Tibetan government at Dharamsala in northern India.
   
   The presentation of maps is excellent.
   
   There are useful appendixes on the Tibetan and Chinese languages. The usefulness of the section on Chinese language would be greatly enhanced if tones were indicated and Chinese script included: the foreigner, even with the benefit of tone markings, often finds it more effective to point to a phrase than to say it. A new, illustrated section on "Useful Gestures" will be particularly helpful for travellers without language skills.
   
   Appendixes include an extensive bibliography and Web directory.



2. This is NOT a travel guide! I didn't find this book very informative but rather annoyed by the author's political comments. The entire book is politically loaded, with comments against Chinese government on almost every page of the book. Yes, I know that Tibet is a politically sensitive region and a good travel book shouldn't avoid the topic. However, the authors goes too far to turn this travel book into a personal political statement. In addition, as a Chinese reader, I found many details described in the book highly selective and biased. The author was trying to demonized Chinese - not only the Chinese government but also the average Chinese people! I bet you'll never dare to go to Tibet after reading this "travel guide" because the place was described like a communist hell!

4 comments about Shanghai.

1. This is a work of exceptional richness and observation. Beautifully constructed and written -the author draws from converations across the work, the most sensual yet critically insightful portrait of this strangely synthetic city. Having reviwed much of the literature of prewar Shanghai, Ms. Sergeant's work gives the most complete sense of life and death of the city and of the culture.



2. While living in Shanghai I made a point of buying memoirs or oral histories of the old China-Coast communities. This book was the least informative, most fatueous one of the lot. Ms. Sergeant obviously had impeccable connections through her husbands business contacts into the upper reachs of the old Hong families and managed to say nothing interesting. Not even gossip.



3. The most memorable part of this fine, absorbing account of pre-war Shanghai is the description of the horrific factory conditions in the Chinese- and Western- owned businesses there. Here are tales right out of Dickens! I realized, unfortunately, that the unsavoury reputation of modern China's horrible factories has a long and sad history. The description of girls from the chrome plating factories with "chromium holes eating into their arms" was particularly awful.

   The book is also full of interesting stories and anecdotes of all aspects of old Shanghai - the parties, social gatherings, etc, and carries on right up to the communist takeover (when newer and even more devestating things happened). Many interesting photographs. For anyone who's been to the city recently and seen how much of the pre-war architecture survives, this book will be a treat. The author gets a little lost at the end - perplexed (sarcastic?) at Europe's seeming abandonment of the place to the Japanese without a fight, though it seems obvious that London was more worth saving than a ruthless mercantile city like Shanghai - kind of a pre-war Hong Kong is what it was, and clearly from these pages not so much glamorous as crass. Well-worth the read, this book will give the reader much food for thought as to China's current direction and unhealthy work conditions. Must Peking try so hard to follow in the ways of its more ruthless ancestors?

   Another good description of Shanghai's interesting and horrible sides is W. H. Auden's and Christopher Isherwood's 1930's account, "Journey to a War."




4. Through her skillful narration interspersed with rich vignettes, Sergeant delved into the fate, suffering and individual triumphs of 4 representative strata of the pre-World War II Shanghai society ¨C the English (the snobbish old colonial master), the Japanese (nouveau rich old-colonial-slaves-turned-new-colonial-master), the White Russians (the royalist Russians abandoned by fate and humiliated by self-degradation), and the Chinese (downtrodden colonial slaves seemingly condemned to unending cycles of oppression from within and outside its own community) ¨C in so doing Sergeant succeeded in vividly recreating the eerily exciting pulse and ambience an extraordinary city unique to the social, economic and political climate of its time.

   As a modernized China re-engages the world confident of its destiny on one hand and betraying insecurity about its traumatic past on the other, Sargeant's work is an essential background reading for any foreigner with a serious interest in engaging China at a deeper level.

1 comments about First Pass Under Heaven: One man's 4000-kilometre trek along the Great Wall of China.

1. I thoroughly enjoyed Alone on the Great Wall by William Lindesay several years ago so I was very excited to read this book. It was excellent. I congratulate Nathan on his perseverence to complete this amazing journey and the many successes that it brought him. Anyone interested in the Great Wall or in well-written tales of extraordinary adventure will savor this unforgettable story.

No comments about The Great Wall Revisited: From the Jade Gate to Old Dragon's Head.

4 comments about Looking for Chengdu: A Woman's Adventures in China (Anthropology of Contemporary Issues).

1. I lived in Japan for 9 years and this is a book I want to give friends who ask what it was like. Even though this book is about China, and China and Japan are not the same thing, reading this book helped me to understand much about what I had seen and been through in my own experience. Yes! Yes! Yes! I kept saying when I read it. This is how it was. And here is somebody putting it into words.

   There are the underlying truths about Asia, and greater yet underlying truths about crossing between any two cultures. Finally, there are the truths about any woman's life whether she stays home or travels far. Hill Gates calls them as we all have seen them, from getting your period to getting your hair cut in a foreign land. There are the long van rides that constitute "vacations," the forced alcohol, the question of breakfast foods, unheated living quarters, unexplained prohibitions, glorious discoveries of beautiful scenery, and the eternal question of whether being a foreigner means you're also actually a woman.

   But most of all, it's about the work. In this case, the work is anthropology. Here again, universal truths apply. Good work gives you an adequate struggle. You want to solve things, you want to apply your own talents. You want to learn and contribute, get and give, laugh and cry. Really, you do. You hope to be changed by it and come back with something to report. You enjoy sinking into the luxuries and comforts of your own familiar culture once you make it back to dry land. And then, one day down the road, you get that hankering to leave those comforts again...What a privilege having this life is. All it costs is the belief that you have control over anything.

   My favorite quote from the book ought to warn off anyone who thinks you get to control your own dignity once you choose to put yourself out there. Gates nails it as she observes that, "When it comes to etiquette, the home team has the advantage."




2. Perhaps a third of the book is about traveling in China, mostly in southwestern China, where private enterprise blossomed during the 1980s. The other two thirds are about trying to do research funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, sponsored and administered by the Sichuan Fulian (Women's Federation--literally "Women United"). Anthropologists' fieldwork memoirs are published after more academic presentation of their research results--in Gates's case, a 1997 book _China's Motor: A Thousand Years of Petty Capitalism_ (that compares what she observed in the 1970s in Taiwan, historical records, and her 1987-96 research in Sichuan). The discomforts, including sickness, depression, frustrations about transportation, food, lodging, access to information, and the misunderstanding by "the natives" of the anthropologist's wisdom and good-will may not be vented in public at all.

   Although the author is the major character in the account of her research in the years before and after the crackdown of the PRC gernotacry on private consumption and the accumulation of riches by anyone other than the families of high-placed officials, unlike much contemporary postmodernist anthropology, Gates remains interested in the agency of people (particularly women) trying to prosper in changing and difficult conditions in societies organized differently than the anthropologists' own one. Gates is engagingly honest about her frustrations with Chinese life as well as her joys of solidarity with those she studied and the reader learns some things about living through rapid change in the Chinese interior from her insightful book.




3. Yes, I have read some of Gates' work, but not this one - it doesn't matter in this system. I am merely balancing a double counting of a positive textual review that registers numerically as a zero, thus artificially generating a very low average.
   On balance Amazon reviews are useful, but the lack of control leads to this sort of nonsense. Note also the lack of signature on the doubled review; presumably just an error but one wonders given the recent Canadian site boondoggle with these reviews.



4. This book is a memoir of a decade past written following a Rockerfeller grant to study the women's emancipation movement in SW PRChina, to later compare and contrast with a similar study in Taipei, Taiwan. This fieldwork is undertaken with the cooperation of the Propaganda Dept, Women's Federation, Chengdu, Szechwan province, PRChina.

   Structurally this book is a daily diary which covers, in part, her travels in China as well as some highlights of 100 interviews on women-owned, small business entrepreneurs, that were formed during the Deng's Reform and Opening campaign of the late 80s.

   Her POE is Guangzhou, where she decides to initially travel alone much as the natives do. Her travel scenarios, including her visit to Kunming, City of Eternal Spring, in the first 50 pages of the book, where she had local academic acquaintances to show her the sights. She speaks Putonghua, a form of Mandarin, so she can slowly communicate with the locals in a basic form. It appears that she does not like reading Chinese. In part, she writes with the older Wade-Giles form of romanization, so Szechwan is Sichuan and Taipei is Taibei. Armed with an Academy letter, she uses it to travel, as best she can to cajole the ticket sellers and hostel and guesthouse desks, the way the natives do, and cites prices in RMB, and FEC only when there is no other alternative or she wishes to splurge with a hot bath.

   The more memorable scenarios is her visit to Kunming, capital of the mountainous Yunnan province p36-44 in December 1988. They travel up the Burma Road a bit and discuss the minority people and their distinctive dress p54-8. She eats the native food and promptly gets a bad case of diarrhea, spends two days in bed. She buys a beautiful Naxi cape from a leather maker that was destined to be another bride's dowry.

   Halfway through her anthropological project, her tired workgroup of four demands that she take vacation and unknownst to her, her host department arranged a 7-day holiday with a drive and excursion into far Western Szechwan province to enjoy the Fall colors and stay with a Tibetan family p109-138. Anticipating a boring trip and getting behind in her project, she crankily accompanies the group during another PMS episode. Contrary to her expectation, she enjoys the trip immensely, romps in the forest, and sees blue sky. At each stop, there are local Women's Federation reps to show the group around and introduce them to native families, translate discussions, and describe what they are seeing. They discuss the Tibetan-Han dichotomy and how each culture tries to co-exist.

   There are about 20 scenarios on interviews on women-owned businesses in the book. Most businesses are small, from mom & pop format to ones with handfuls of employees. They are the stereotypical grocery, restaurant, garment, and etc format. What I got out of the book was that women's survival during the "Great Leap Forward" and Cultural Revolution was very harsh, especially in the countryside. Initially the Politburo encouraged formation of these businesses, the owners used the profits to improve their houses, and then the tax collectors came to even things out in the socialist's tradition. So the Politburo is inventing their policies at time goes. It seeds flourishing entrepreneur until they become successful, then taxes them for an increased revenue stream.

   Her writing is fairly well crafted and she discusses scenarios of general interest, so that one can finish the book without getting truly bored of repetitious fieldwork details. The book, divided into 19 chapters, includes about 20 photos of subjects, maps and travel itineries to follow along. There is no index and any notes are referenced on the bottom of the page. Comparatively, I would consider her prose better and more comprehensive than Paul Theroux, a China travel writer covering the same time period. But Peter Hessler is a better describer of Chinese thought and behavior; of course he spent 2 years at a teachers college and learned the local dialect. But as indicated in the preface, she notes her literary limits and includes her published bibliography of academic work.

   The author is a Canadian born, UK raised and educated, who writes in UK prose, so you have to decipher the usual suspects that differ in UK vs US English. She earns her doctorate at Central Michigan U, but is at heart a Brit feminist, and constantly refers to it during her sojourn. From time to time this divorced, pre-menopausal woman titillates the reader with her fantasies as a ravishing redhead in China. To me this was pulp-fiction that the editors must have required her to put in the scripts to help sales. I could have also done without the monthly PMS issues.

   She keeps contemporaneous notes on her notebook computer, so hopefully 10 years later, she doesn't over embellish or forget the details of her 6 month sojourn in Chengdu. I read this book at a local library.

   She attempts to unify her prose by introducing a historical mentor that went before her, a fellow Brit, Ms Isabella Bird Bishop, who does China research in Szechwan a century earlier. Since she merely references her work in a couple pages p48-9, I find it rather distracting, yet amused that she compared her journey to hers.

5 comments about Let's Go China (Let's Go China).

1. I used the Let's Go Eastern Europe book last summer and liked it so I gave this a shot for a trip this winter to China (Beijing, Shanghai, Changsha, Guilin, Yangshuo, Guangzhuo, and Hong Kong). Overall I like the way that information is presented/organized in the Let's Go books better than Lonely Planet, but this particular edition is due for an update. Some small (but possibly confusing) problems: certain large streets in Chinese cities have different names indicating the north/south/east/west side. This wasn't explained until deep in the book on a section on a particular city, but it is pretty important for orienting oneself. That should have been foregrounded and the street names for addresses and maps made consistent throughout. Also more detailed/comprehensive maps (with coverage of subway systems in cities where they exist would have been great). We came across a number of places that were no longer in existence, but that just harkens back to my earlier comment. It also would have been nice to have more Chinese on the maps (in addition to Romanizations) when asking for directions,etc.
   All in all, well done but there is still room for improvement. I would use a Let's Go guide again.



2. After just returning from a two week adventure in Chile, I found the guide book very helpful navigating through the major destinations in the country. Not only does the book give travel information, but interesting background information such as history, government, and social norms any traveler should know before setting off. The information is accurrate and really easy to use. The only flaw of the book is that it does not include some of the really small towns. However, these towns seemed to have no real major attractions in them. The book helps normal travelers and those people who like to experience a country on their own schedule.



3. This book was indispensable when my husband and I lived in Beijing for 6 months. I bought it together with Lonely Planet's The Best of Beijing, but found later on that I preferred to use this book because it contained a lot of leads to great deals on shopping, restaurants, etc. (Read: Good but cheap, and that's where most locals go) After checking out places from both books, I found Lonely Planet's contained a significant amount of "high end" places. Gave this book four stars only because I found that some prices quoted on particular restaurants are a bit outdated. Other than that, I loved it.



4. I just returned from Chile. This book was horrible. Maps were wrong. Prices, hours and addresses were way off. The section on the Torres Del Paine is absolutely worthless. I doubt their guide writer even went there. Buy the Lonely Planet guide instead. I ended up throwing the Lets Go away and borrowing a Lonely Planet guide from a fellow traveler.



5. I used this book two years ago during a trip that took me from Hong Kong to GuangZhou, XiAn, TianShui, JiaYuGuan, DunHuang and Urumqi, and even though it was useful as a geographical and cultural guide, ALL the prices were way way off for all the places I visited in XiAn and Western China. I don't know about Eastern China, but the prices to most of the hotels and sights/parks were actually DOUBLE what they were supposed to be, according to the Let's Go guide. Big big disappointment there.
   
   I ended up expecting prices to be double what the book said, and was able to plan the last part of my trip pretty accurately.
   
   Another big mistake was NOT to include the PinYin accents on all the city and sight names. In the Lonely Planet, you just look up a section about a city and you get the PinYin for it AND the accents, which are important if you want to pronounce the name properly. I had to borrow a Lonely Planet on China in order to find the names of the places I was going to and write down the tones so I could say them properly. Miss your pronunciation, and most Chinese people won't understand right away what you're talking about!
   
   Note that the Lonely Planet other travelers had was way wrong about prices as well for the whole of XinJiang and GanSu.
   
   I love Let's Go in general, but they need to work on this one a bit better! I recommend this guide, BUT be careful when you make your budget! Expect some prices to be much higher than anticipated, and if you speak mandarin, double check how to pronounce the names of the places you're going to. Have a great trip!

1 comments about Days Like Floating Water, A Story of Modern China.

1. This book would inspire anyone to get out of their comfort zone and embark on a transforming journey. The McKees leave family, friends and a comfortable retirement to teach English to Chinese university students. Along the way, they find what fun they can have in getting to know and teach young people who understand very little of the world outside of China. As they embrace this new life, they have encounters in restaurants, food markets and on rickity buses that are more than amusing. Eating strange and unknown creatures makes dining out an adventure to rival any "reality show." Overcoming the everyday challenges, the McKees teach their students more than English and welcome the memories they gain.

1 comments about China Map by ITMB.

1. I purchase this map to plot our upcoming tour to China. It is one big map with half of China on one side the other half on back. I finally had to refer to other maps to find the cities on this big one. Biggest problem was the spelling of the cities are not as shown in our tour guide. Maybe the Chinese way of spelling! It did not have a published date on map, think it was made before the Dam was put in place. Sorry I ordered it.

No comments about Displacing Desire: Travel and Poplar Culture in China.

5 comments about Culture Shock! Taiwan (Culture Shock! Guides).

1. I just want to throw my vote in with several others who have commented on how this book gives an impression that is more harsh than the reality. It tends to give the worst case scenarios regarding how Taiwanese treat foreigners, which I think gives people the wrong impression. In my experience the Taiwanese are mostly curious but friendly, except in Taipei where foreigners aren't a novelty and are pretty much treated like anyone else. Yes, a white person will be stared at quite a bit, and may get some blunt questions that would be considered rude elsewhere, but the types of really blatant disrespect this book describes is pretty unlikely.
   
   Other than that, it is useful and informative as to customs, etc, though I don't think one has to be quite as picky about issues of "face" as the book suggests, especially with the younger generation.



2. This book provides an excellent introduction to the different culture in Taiwan. Since our son will soon be marrying a lady from Taiwan, we thought we should learn a little more about her cultural background.



3. Compared to the cultural sections in the Lonely Planet for Taiwan, this book was much more up to date (having been revised in 2005 verses LP being revised in 2000). The only drawbacks were the book's heavy focus on Taipei (I moved to southern Taiwan) and the books focuse on MEN in the business world and men's night ctivities like ladies' clubs etc. These sections weren't applicable to women at all. Not being any sort of feminist, I was still rather disappointed that there was not any similar commentary provided specifically for women in business and women's nightime activities!



4. This book was... fair. It might be a great for, say, an American businessman planning on a one or two month stay in Taiwan, although it is doubtful whether what it has to teach will really apply. It barely scratches the surface, but I suppose it was never meant to. In short, it's a good start for those who don't know anything about Taiwan and/or Taiwanese culture and want to lessen the impact, as it were. As a basic guide it works, but don't expect the sun and the moon. Enjoy your travels in Taiwan.
   
   Troy Parfitt, author



5. I've been reading a handful of books around Taiwan and China; relating to their history, business, traveling there, etc.
   
   This was a nice, concise, easy to read (especially skim) account of things. While it's not always on the mark 100%, I think it errs on the side of caution which I appreciate. A nice read.