No comments about Marco Polo: A Journey Through China (Expedition).

2 comments about China's First Hundred: Educational Mission Students in the United States, 1872-1881 (Washington State University Press Reprint).

1. As it is popular to study science and technology in the west, it is not uncommon to hear that So and So is the first in China these days. While many are highly exaggerated claims. This is an authorative book on the detailed study of first 123 Chinese boys sent by the Chinese imperial court under Yung Wing to go to Hartford, Conn. learning about the language, cultural and
   science. Most became well established as adults in foreign service, engineering, as well as outstanding military officers.
   
   This is a facinating biography on these young teen boys. When they returned to China they actually faced prejedice and skeptism. As we look back they actually contributied much to the transformation of modern China. I was fortunate to have been brought up in a family with much foreign educated engineers and have a deep appreciation of
   how modern education can change our society.



2. It's an opportunity to read this book, it gave me the chance to review and understand the background of these students' encounters in lives, although their stories were not such a fantastic & successful one, but they became a group of rather outstanding and brilliant figures in China. Their stories should inspire the younger generations.
   
   In this modern world, lots and lots of Chinese students who came over to foreign lands, not only U.S.A. but some other countries such as New Zealand, tended to complain about the treatment received from their host countries, but should they read through this book and they would accept that these were the facts of lives.
   
   Being a foreinger in this foreign land myself, I would recommend the Chinese students to understand the hard fact of lives. How this group of Overseas Students from China encountered. And hopefully that would be an inspiration to their own encounter.

2 comments about China to Me (Virgo/Beacon Traveler Series).

1. Well the title says it all so don't miss it: even though the author was a journalist who lived in China between 1935 and 1943, the reader will not find any sweeping historical analysis of the political or military situation there during these agitated years. Even though she met many prominent figures during the course of her stay, the book reads more like the chronicle of the daily life of Emily Hahn, an original and a socialite. The first half of her story is set in Shanghai, the second in Hong Kong, with a few months in Chongqing in between. I found the Shanghai part a bit dull. Her Hong Kong years make for more interesting reading, especially her account of the Japanese occupation - and how she dealt with it by cleverly extracting favors from the occupants without compromising herself.
   I was expecting to find something about Mao's communists. After all, the book covers a key period of the CCP's history and was written in 1944 by a reporter who went as far as writing a biography of the Soong sisters in 1939. Well, Emily Hahn mentions them briefly, but it's simply to insist on the fact that she knows nothing about them, hinting that there is not much to know anyway. Which is probably why Edgar Snow is remembered today much better than Emily Hahn on the subject of China.
   Sixty years after, only one aspect of the book still stands out as remarkable to me: how this fiercely independent woman eventually became a mother at 36 and managed to bring up her baby girl alone despite the difficulties of occupation. So much for Chinese history...
   The publisher's backpage note about the author presents Emily Hahn as a writer who revolutionized the Victorian era, which sounds a bit funny given that she was born in 1905, a few years after Queen Victoria's death.



2. China to Me opens a fascinating window into China during the most turbulent era in its modern history. Emily Hahn, a correspondent for the New Yorker, arrived in Shanghai in 1935, looking for fun, adventure, and the subject of her next book. She wound up staying in China until 1943. This autobiographical narrative of her Chinese sojourn falls into three parts: her five years in Shanghai from 1935 to 1939; a year of writing in Chungking (Chongqing) in 1940; and three years in Hong Kong from 1940 to 1943.
   
   Hahn's stayed in Shanghai the longest, although her narration of her time there constitutes the shortest portion of the book. She reveled in the comparatively free and open social atmosphere of the European concessions. She conducted a celebrated affair with a Chinese poet, Sinmay Zau (Shao Xunmei), with whom she also ran a left-wing English-language newspaper; she even became his official concubine. She also purchased a Gibbon ape whom she named "Mr. Mills" and who accompanied her to society parties.
   
   Hahn was not a political writer. Or, perhaps better, her politics were refracted through her personal relations. She visited Nanking (Nanjing) a year prior to the Nanking Massacre. She remarks in passing on the Marco Polo Bridge incident, but assumes that her readers will already know all about it. (This may not be true of contemporary readers, for whom these events have become distant history.) Hahn excelled at describing her conversations with Japanese spies, British officers' wives, and Chinese volunteers. At a time when classes, genders, and races were still socially stratified, Hahn delighted in breaking with convention.
   
   She traveled to Hong Kong and then to Chungking after receiving permission to write an authorized biography of the famous Soong sisters. Chungking had become the capital of Free China after the fall of Nanking and was under nearly constant Japanese bombardment. She spent lots of time underground in crowded cave shelters and was rendered homeless after her hotel was destroyed. Hahn still managed to meet regularly with the sisters and to finish her biography, published in 1942.
   
   The greatest part of her narrative is given over to describing her experiences before and after the fall of Hong Kong. Hahn was basically just casting about for her next assignment in Hong Kong when events overtook her. She entered into a romance with Charles Boxer, the (married) head of British intelligence, and had a daughter by him just prior to Hong Kong's fall. The Japanese invasion forced her to live hand-to-mouth under increasingly difficult and perilous circumstances. Hahn provides valuable historical insight into everyday life in Hong Kong under Japanese occupation. She avoided being sent to Stanley Internment Camp by claiming Chinese citizenship as a consequence of her concubine marriage to Zau. Hahn nursed a wounded Boxer back to health and later provided food for him and other interned soldiers at Stanley Camp. She finally left Hong Kong with her daughter, Carola, in 1943 with other repatriated Americans.
   
   China to Me was published in 1944 before the Second World War had come to an end. Hahn's recollections, particularly of Chungking and Hong Kong, are strikingly fresh. She has not had time to process her experiences and sometimes her anger boils over on the pages. But this is autobiography, not history. China to Me deserves--as many others have said--to be rediscovered as a classic first-hand account of life in wartime China.

No comments about To Grandmother's House: A Visit to Old-Town Beijing.

5 comments about Last Climb: The Legendary Everest Expeditions of George Mallory.

1. I have read pieces of information about the legendary early expeditions of Mt. Everest and therefor really wanted to read this book. From the start to finish I found this book to be well researched and written. I very much enjoyed the photographs. Now I am curious about the other books written about George Mallory. This book made the men of the expedition come alive.



2. I bought this book thinking that it was written to accompany the wonderful television programme I saw about a 1999 expedition to Everest to discover what became of Mallory and Irvine. It is not.

   The book is well presented book and nicely bound. The most attractive aspect of the book is the 1920's photographs; they are very evocative of a lost era when parts of the earth were distant and unexplored. However it is not particularly well written and the discussion of the mystery of Mallory and Irvine's fate is unclear and ineffective. It does not shed light on its subject, and I have had to look elsewhere for that. Poorly served by maps and diagrams it leaves the reader struggling to appreciate the terrain, routes and location of camps. It's weakest point is where the authors try to recreate the last climb by describing what was going through the head of Mallory; this is very unconvincing, not least because no attempt is made to take into account the character of men with English public school backgrounds (to my mind, a key factor). Thus the book fails at the point which is of most interest.

   In conclusion, a nice book to browse through thanks to the photographs (hence the 3 stars) but otherwise unsatisfactory.




3. It states in the prologue that this book was started prior to the discovery of Mallory's body on Mt. Everest. With that said, after reading it; I'm of the impression that it was completed quickly and rushed into print after finding the body so it could sell the maximum number of copies.

   I've now read what I think are all the post discovery expedition books. This is an excellent book. There are wonderful pictures of the early British expeditions which are not found in other books and the writing was concise and tried to cover all areas. After reading it, the historical aspects seems to be a greatly pared down version from Audrey Salkeld's previous book with Tom Holzel "The Mystery of Mallory & Irvine".

   Overall this is a wonderful coffee table book. It covers Mallory's history with Everest; has plenty of 1920's photographs; a section on how he went into legend like he did: pictures of what was removed from the body and a section which reviews the clues based on where the body was found and what he had on his person. If you have a casual interest in the topic, this is a great book to choose. If you are looking for something a bit more involved, try the aforementioned "The Mystery of Mallory & Irvine" by Tom Holzel and Audrey Salkeld. Looking for a book on the history of the expedition to find clues on the disappearance? The exclusive team story is in "Ghosts of Everest". Conrad Anker's version is in "The Lost Explorer" (he's the one who actually found Mallory's body). My favorite of the expedition books however, was "Lost on Everest" by Peter Firstbrook. It covers historical background on Mallory and the early Everest expeditions in more of a conversational yet detailed manner, and this I found overall the most intriguing.




4. There are many books on the market dealing with the summit attempts of George Leigh Mallory. No one tome has yet encapsulated the adventures to stand out as the consummate work. It will be necessary to read several books to lay claim to being fully informed. The great strength of LAST CLIMB is in its wonderful collection of vintage photographs from the 1920's British Everest Expedition and its members. Its one thing to read of gentlemen climbers in tweed and quite another to see it, a picture being worth a thousand words and all that. The many dozens of photographs, some taken by Mallory himself, breath life into a much exhausted realm of discussion. Mallory was an aesthete and I believe he would not want his story to be told in the mere blandness of words but exhorted on the artistic level provided by the beautiful photography collected here. Hats off to MR. Breashears and Ms. Salkeld for presenting these heroes in all their glory.



5. For those of you who read "Into Thin Air" and were somewhat fascinated by the story of George Mallory's attempts to climb Everest in the 1920's and the later rumor of the discovery of his body by a Chinese climber in 1975, then this book will only heighten your interest.

   I had thought about buying this book, but I came across it at the public library and checked it out. I'm kinda glad I didn't buy it, because the text isn't that well written--people are referred to by their last name and then formally introduced several pages later, some details are left out, other details are repeated, etc.--but the photographs from the 1920's expeditions and of the items recovered from Mallory's body are absolutely captivating. It just fascinates me to no end to think about these guys making the first attempts to climb Everest, experimenting with oxygen tanks, and reaching a height on Everest not surpassed until the 1950's.

   I think the main problem with the book is this: the authors had made two expeditions to find Mallory's body in 1986 and 1995. They were unsuccessful. Another team was successful in 1999; this was documented in a PBS/NOVA documentary and they have their own book, which deals more with the discovery of the body. It seems like the authors of this book pulled out the material they had been working on and wrapped it up somewhat hurriedly to capitalize on the publicity (as another reviewer has also noted). So they don't talk much about their own attempts to find Mallory, and they don't talk enough about the successful team's discovery of his body (because they weren't there).

No comments about Hidden China (Photography).

1 comments about Cool Shops Hong Kong (Cool Shops).

1. bought it before going to hong kong but none of the stores looked cool.
   bad pictures, bad book

2 comments about Alone on the Great Wall.

1. "If at first you don't succeed , try, try again" is an old adage we frequently laugh at, but in Will's case, it lead to success. Will, a long-distance runner from Britain, wanted to be the first person to run the length of the Great Wall of China. It took him several years, but he finally accomplished this, but not without encountering serious illness, traveling through areas closed to foreigners and winding up in jail (which he subsequently broke out of) and eventual deportation from China. This is a good read about a heartwarming experiernce, espescially about hardships some people must go through to reach their dreams. The hardbound copy, which I don't think is available in the United States, contains some photos (Chinese authorities confiscated most of his film); the paperback book does not. Will has a strong interest in the Great Wall, and since he moved to Beijing permanently, spends many weekends camping out on the Wall. This has lead to another book on the Great Wall, this one on camping out on it. That book should be out in the fall of 1998. I first met Will in the fall of 1994 when I moved to Beijing to work as a copy editor for China Daily; Will already was working there. But even if Will weren't a friend, I would still recommend this book for anyone with a spirit of adventure or who just wants to share in this marvelous, inspirational adventure.



2. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. He has a great writing style and his accomplishment was remarkable. His courage and persistance is amazing.

   As an aside, I met William in China and spent a few days walking with him on the "wild wall". It is just as amazing as he details in his book. He is a very nice chap and is now quite an authority on the Great Wall of China. I hope he continues to write!

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.

5 comments about 19 Girls and Me.

1. 19 Girls and Me is a story for both girls and boys. Kids will enjoy reading about the wonderful adventures John Hercules Po and his new friends have at recess each day. In addition to a great story, there are glimpses into places around the world that may teach kids a thing or two. This is a book that kids will enjoy again and again.



2. I love this book for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that my daughter, in first grade, totally digs the story of John Hercules Po and his adventures with his 19 friends in Mrs. Ray's Kindergarten--19 friends who just happen to be GIRLS! The repetition is fun, and the imaginative adventures that the kids think up delight both of us! I've already taken the book to school twice and read it in a few different classes, and the kids eyes are big--and their smiles are bigger--as I regale them with the developing friendship between John Hercules Po and his 19 new friends! The book imparts an excellent message without clobbering the reader over the head with it--nicely done! Salerno's illustrations add to the fun!



3. 19 Girls and Me is a story of a kindergartener named John Hercules Po who finds himself in a class of nineteen girls. He is the only boy. His brother worries that he will become "sissified" from playing with all of those girls. In the end, everybody realizes that playing together can be a lot of fun.
   
   19 Girls and Me is a delightful story that shows kids that it is okay for girls and boys to play together. Girls won't become tomboys just because they are playing with boys, and boys won't become sissies just because they are playing with girls. Everyone can get along and have a good time.
   
   My five-year-old daughter likes this story. She also enjoys looking at all of the details in Steven Salerno's playful illustrations.



4. This book was read to elementary students grades k-6, every one of the students loved this book and requested it be read again the very next week. We discussed the pictures (first gray and then color when playing and at the end), the connections with siblings and finally friendships. I highly recommend this book.



5. Good lesson for children with vibrant, moving illustrations. It's nice to show that boys can have girl-friends at a young age.