No comments about A Chicano in China.

1 comments about Himalayas: An Aesthetic Adventure.

1. Compiled and organized by Pratapaditya Pal, Himalayas: An Aesthetic Adventure is a stunning artbook quality collection of sculptures, illuminated pages, pigment on cotton artworks, and more -- all skillfully crafted across centuries of Himalayan history. Full-color photography and an extensive, scholarly text filled the pages of Himalayas: An Aesthetic Adventure with history, anecdotes, and insights to create a seminal and impressive work which is very highly recommended for Art History collections and enthusiasts.

No comments about Among The Tribes In South-West China.

4 comments about The Big Open: On Foot Across Tibet's Chang Tang.

1. This is another strong Ridgeway book. Although he doesn't have the wide range of material to draw from as in the Shadow of Kilimanjaro, this book is still fascinating. Anyone who reads this will be intrigued by the fate of the chiru, appalled that so many people could be convinced that their fur could be collected off bushes and rocks (including major magazine publications), and interested in the dynamics of four determined personalities working together to cross the Chang Tang. Highly recommended.



2. Ridgeway does it again with a thoughtful, engaging story of a trek across the high tundra of Tibet looking for the calving grounds of the Chiru, an antelope which is in danger of extinction from killing it for it's wool. With Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and the late Galen Rowell; one gets to know these characters as friends and I'm envious of the time they were able to spend crossing an amazing landscape seen by few westerners since 1903. The Chiru were the reason for the trek and hopefully this book will help in their protection.



3. The book is a terrific account of a very challenging trek across Tibet's Chang Tang, in search of the elusive Chiru's calving grounds. Ridgeway's writing is outstanding in the manner in which he gets the reader to feel an integral part of the expedition, and to experience the risks and the challenges involved in such an impossible trek.
   
   In terms of raising awareness about the chiru's unfortunate plight, this book, and the story on NG are hugely effective (I have not seen the TV documentary on the same, so I cannot comment on that.
   
   Photography - one of the main reasons I bought the book is because the photography is by the legendary Galen Rowell, who was part of the trek. Galen's photography in the book is good, but well below his high standards in his own books. Surprisingly, I didn't see a single photograph that really made me go "WOW!" like a lot of Galen's photographs.
   
   All in all, an excellent book that is difficult to put down.



4. I'd give the text a 4, but my real motivation for the book was because of Galen Rowell's involvement. Unfortunately there's only several photos in the book and seemed like his name was tacked on the cover merely to sell the book. Obviously he had passed by the time the book was written and was a major character in the story but I think if it was illustrated in the manner like Barbara Rowell's Flying South book then the book would have been a 4-5 star book. The photos were a bit lackluster as well, I'm sure with better editing this book could have been something special. I know Rowell probably had better photos from the trip than was presented here.
   
   The idea behind the book was great as the motivation was to create a reserve to protect the Tibetan Chiru from hunters. I'd recommend the book.

No comments about Underworld of the East.

2 comments about China: A Traveler's Literary Companion (Traveler's Literary Companions).

1. This is a wonderful collection of stories. The wise selections cover a lot of ground, both stylistically and geographically. "The Floating City" is a sharply written and translated allegory of the recent history of Hong Kong. Mo Yan's "The Old Gun" is a beautifully and sensuously rendered tale that takes place during the floods of the early sixties when many children in Shandong were starving. The boy protagonist's surprising and violent past leads to his violent end. There's so much inevitability in the dramatic events of this story that it's poignant. A classic.



2. This book was published in 2008 and contained 12 modern works by as many writers. There were 10 short stories and two excerpts from novels. Ten of the writers were from mainland China, and there was one each from Hong Kong and Taiwan.
   
   The oldest writers were Lu Xun (1881-1936), Mao Dun (1896-1981), Shen Congwen (1902-88) and Xiao Hong (1911-42). The youngest were Wang Shuo (1958-), Yan Lianke (1958-), Taiwan's Chu T'ien-hsin (1958-), and Alai (1959-). Other writers included Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang) (1920-85), Wang Anyi (1954-) and Mo Yan (1955-). Five of the writers were women. Virtually all of the writers were Han Chinese, except for Alai, an ethnic Tibetan/Hui Muslim from central China. The tale by Shen Congwen, a Han Chinese writer with some ethnic Miao ancestry, retold a folktale from a minority ethnic group.
   
   The settings of the stories ranged from Beijing in the north and Heilongjiang Province in Manchuria in the northeast, to Hong Kong in the south. And from Sichuan Province in the center to Shanghai and Zhejiang Province in the east. Practically speaking, this reader was able to distinguish mainly between those with urban settings in mainland China and overseas, those in the countryside, and one set in the wilds of central China.
   
   The early stories ranged from the 1920s to the 40s, from sensitive psychological realism (Lu Xun, Zhang Ailing) and naturalism (Xiao Hong) to a folktale (Shen Congwen) and plodding social realism (Mao Dun).
   
   For the period between the mid-1940s and mid-1980s, nothing was included. The later stories ranged from the 1980s to 2003. Here there was realism (Wang Shuo) -- sometimes with symbolic overtones (Mo Yan, Yan Lianke) -- descriptions of nature approaching surrealism (Alai), and fragmented and confusing postmodern narratives from writers outside the mainland (Xi Xi, Chu T'ien-hsin).
   
   Among the themes in the older stories were the gap in values and behavior between the peasants and intelligentsia, the dislocation and suffering caused by economic exploitation and war, and disaffected individuals' haphazard search for happiness. And in the later stories, the distortions of people's behavior caused by political power, urban life in the modern world, the loss of old values amid rapid change, and problems of cultural identity.
   
   For me, the most distinctive writing was found in the cinematic, perceptive story-telling of Zhang Ailing, the cynical behavior and dialogue of urban lowlifes described by Wang Shou, the stark symbolism and dark behavior in the work of Mo Yan and Yan Lianke, and the borderline surrealism of Alai.
   
   In my opinion, the book might be best if you're looking for a light, varied introduction to writers from China. Longer, more in-depth anthologies of modern Chinese lit include Twentieth-Century Chinese Stories (1971), Modern Chinese Stories and Novellas, 1919-1949 (1981), Worlds of Modern Chinese Fiction: Short Stories and Novellas from the People's Republic, Taiwan and Hong Kong (1991), New Ghosts, Old Dreams: Chinese Rebel Voices (1992), Running Wild: New Chinese Writers (1994), Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused: Fiction from Today's China (1995), China's Avant-Garde Fiction: An Anthology (1998), and the massive Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature (1995; 2nd edition 2007), all published in the United States. An English-language anthology published in China is The Time Is Not Yet Ripe: Contemporary China's Best Writers and Their Stories (1991).

5 comments about River of Time: A Memoir of Vietnam.

1. I groped my way through this "memoir" as if reading a never-ending newspaper article--Swain is indeed a journalist by trade. If anything, the book gives a decent summary of the horrors in Southeast Asia (especially the Khmer Rouge) in the mid to late 1970s, complete with gory details but with no new insight. It's as if he dug up all the articles he wrote while covering the war at the time, strung them together, threw in some insincere personal musings and presto! Another product for the latest fad in book publishing: the memoir.

   Swain is shamelessly nostalgic for Cambodia as he first encountered it--as a very young Briton just out of the French Foreign Legion. It was a place where he could frequent prostitutes, wilt away the afternoons in opium dens, and belong to an elite group of white foreign men living in Phonm Penh's best hotel.

   He pays scant attention to the fact that the French Colonial legacy in Southeast Asia is what made it possible for him to frolick with abandon in another people's land and call it "paradise." It's this reputation that still drives countless western male tourists to this poverty-stricken, post-colonial, war-torn country in search of "affordable" pleasures. Swain romanticizes those issues by saying the scene was less "brash" (i.e. tourist-oriented) in the early 70s. His utter lack of CAMBODIAN perspective on the legacies of French Colonialism is disturbing.

   But Swain is a journalist, not a scholar. As is typical with journalists who write historical accounts, such important historical background and perspective is missing and any insight the reader gets is personal. At one point in the book, Swain gives us an insincere justification for why he went back to Cambodia for its darkest hour, and tells us no, it was not for adventure thrill-seeking nor visions of journalistic heroism, but "I don't know." Somehow I don't believe that.




2. I bought this book recently in my hotel's bookstore in Siem Reap, Cambodia during a short holiday there to see Angkor Wat. It is truly a great read ! River of Time has given me a new insight on the appeal of Indo-China and its tragic history. And Jon Swain's writing is powerful and moving.



3. What makes this book worth reading is Swain's account of the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975 to the Khmer Rouge and his confinement in the French Embassy. It's a story that is told in chilling detail in the Oscar-winning movie, "The Killing Fields," in which an actor plays Swain. Swain's true account, especially of the bravery of Cambodian assistant Dith Pran, is possibly the best written account available.
   
   This is a book about the horror and the romance of war and Vietnam was the most horrible and the most romantic of wars. Amidst all the blood, Swain and others had a hell of a good time and only latterly did the tragedy of it all hit home to them. Swain doesn't put on any airs. He was a young and adventurous journalist who enjoyed the atmosphere -- sex, drugs, and rock and roll -- that went along with the war. Swain writes effortlessly and most people will enjoy "River of Time" for its portrayal of a young man and a war.
   
   Smallchief



4. A humorous account of another young 60s counter-culturist who was enlightened as a young man by hookers, opiates and SE Asian narcotics that "opened his eyes" to the "goodness and purity" of the Khmer Rouge, Viet Cong, Ho Chi Minh, Pathet Lao, "French enlightenment" of the Souteast Asian barbarians of the 19th century, and of course last but not least~ the absolute horrendous barbarity of the hegemonic & demonic US regimes that failed to truly understand these great organizations of the 50s thru 70s (yawn...). He waxes on and on about his great acquaintences of Phnom Penh's and Hue's opiate dens as this "illustrious journalist" of the vaulted 4th Estate. Pretty pathetic writing overall as I waded through all the despot worshipping until it just got way to sycophantical. Saloth Sar, Ta Mok, Ieng Sary and General Giap would have loved to have Mr Swain nearby at nap time ........ :) If you loved John Kerry's tired anti-Vietnam War fantasies, you will love Mr Swain's opiate dreams book immensely!!



5. Jon's autobiographical account of his five years in Indo-China covers the critical climax of the Cold War in SE Asia, the fall of Phnom Penh. Recounting the horrors of the Khmer Rouge forced evacuation of Phnom Penh amd the desperate struggle of refuges who sought sanctuary in the French Embassy. The book is well paced and straight forward. A rewarding book on a subject that has all but been forgotten by all except the victims of the wars in IndoChina.

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 The Woman Who Ate Chinatown: A San Francisco Odyssey.

No comments about Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Coins, Vol. 1: Gold, Silver, Nickel and Aluminum (Illustrated Catalog of Chinese Coins).