No comments about Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan, including a summer in the Upper Karun region and a visit to the Nestorian rayahs: Volume 2.

5 comments about Wild East: Travels in the New Mongolia.

1. This was a disappointing book due to the poor quality of the writing and the lack of deep analysis. However, there is not much available on Mongolia. This does provide some history and glimpses of life in the remote country and is worth a read until better books are published.



2. I found Wild East to be an eye-opener. I had a naive impression that everyone in Mongolia lived in tents on the steppe. I was surprised to find out that it is a country with a vibrant city life. I also didn't realise there is a lively free press, pop bands, and even night clubs. I get the sense that many westerners view a place like Mongolia through rose coloured glasses (the noble herdsman under the blue sky). That life seems very hard and it is no surprise that many people aspire to move to the city and get their hands on modern consumer goods.
   
   I really enjoyed this book and it has given me the desire to go visit Mongolia and see for myself this fascinating country. I highly recommend Wild East.



3. I prefer to read a travel book that provides helpful information on destinations without too much personal bias. To my disappointment, I find plenty in this book that shows the author's close-mindedness and the lack of respect for local hospitality and culture. One example, when the author describes the Mongolian hospitality and the cheese that they offered him, his comments in the book were "...Who first discovered that you could make from milk a dried curd with the consistency of rock and the smell of vomit - and then eat it?". I wouldn't mind realistic descriptions of the places and things, but I find the author's attitude less appealing.



4. What makes this book so interesting is that it doesn't fall into the cliched sterotypes of Mongolia most loved by foreignors. Mongolia in the 1990s underwent dramatic and painful social, political and economic changes. Those changes have ebbed from the collapse of the country's economy in the early 1990s (and the initial abandonment of the cities for the nomadic way of life), to the later collapse of the rural economy and the drift back towards the capital city, Ulaanbaatar. To make the claim that the capital doesn't reflect the 'real Mongolia' is not only arrogant, it is wrong. It is like saying Beijing doesn't relfect the 'real China'.
   
   The fact remains that the majority of the country's population lives in the capital. People have moved to the capital for the same reasons people gravitate to cities around the world: they seek opportunity and a chance to improve their lives. Wildeast engages with the ups and downs of this world; the shattered dreams and the wild fantasies: and it does use humour to do this. The country sits at the centre of the debates around globalisation and modernisation. It asks us to question what is development and who does it benefit.
   
   Its author edited the country's only independent English language newspaper - a newspaper whose majority staff are Mongolian. Few foreignors have seen Mongolia up close like this, or shared the confidences of its people.
   
   Ulaanbaatar has much to offer the visitor who opens their eyes. They will see a vibrant democratic political scene, nightlife teeming with young people and pop bands, an expanding restaurant scene, and a burgeoning business community. It is also a capital with shocking poverty surrounded by slums, and a nomadic way of life in crisis.
   
   It is the work of a journalist, but it is also the work of a writer who as a result of her role as a journalist, had unusual access to all aspects of Mongolian society, not just hanging out with herders on the steppe.
   
   I found the book to be a great read and it stands out in the crowded world of travel writing. It does not purport to be a guidebook (for that I would recommend Lonely Planet), but it does shine a light on all the facets of Mongolian life that most visitors to the country would otherwise find hard to penetrate in their short visit.



5. This book loosely opens a debate about globalisation and uses some of the information gathered from Jills time in Mongolia to back this up, with historical references and general information about the country.
   
   The implied suggestion is that nothing much happens in Mongolia outside UB with the book focussing mainly on things going on in and around UB, which I think distorts the picture of Mongolia as UB is actually pretty much like any other city. I believe that this book could have been written about a lot of places in the world from the viewpoint of a city dweller.
   
   The thing that I believe makes Mongolia so interesting (and probably unique) is why the population movement is actually away from the city and back to the land. It's this fact that gets most people travelling there - to see and experience how Mongolians live and how they follow their traditions out in the steppes - can the nomadic lifestyle really be better than the western way of life?
   
   It is understandable that the bias is towards UB as Jill spent most of her time there, but yes for the people who want to know about what happens outside UB it's a shame that more time was not spent gaining or relating some real insights into Mongolian lives outside the city.
   
   On the plus side, I'd say the book is a good read and quite entertaining and to be fair to the author that's probably all she had in mind when writing it - however the book does offer a narrow picture of one aspect of Mongolian life (living in UB) that is experienced by a minority of the country's population, as the majority (over 70% of the population) live outside UB (factual sources: CIA factbook & world gazetteer [both 2006]).
   
   Consequently that means this book is hardly a definitive or accurate guide to Mongolia, so I'd suggest you read around the subject if you ever plan to go there.
   
   Thats just my opinion though - I'd happily recommend that you get a copy of the book and make your own mind up.

4 comments about Insight Guide Shanghai (Insight Guides).

1. This guidebook is impractical to use. It is thick and bulky so makes it impractical to carry around in a purse. Bring a backpack to carry this mini telephone book around.

   The writing is somewhat dry and out of date as well.

   I found the Lonely Planet guide much better for getting around. It can fit in a handbag or pocket




2. If you are looking for a cheap, pocket-size guidebook full of hackneyed cliches about Shanghai, and have the attention span of an MTV- and video game-addled ten-year-old, then by all means, don't buy this book. But if you are looking for something more substantial, the kind of guide that you can sink your teeth into and absorb valuable information about the city's history, society, culture, cuisine, arts and entertainment, then this is the book for you. Having lived in Shanghai for several years, and having spent the past ten years studying the history and culture of the city, I can state definitively that this is by far the most substantial guidebook to Shanghai on the market today. Kudos to editor Francis Dorai for gathering together so many experts to reveal the city's mystique and explain its mysteries.



3. I got the new 2003 Edition, and it is much more compact and light than the previous one. Amazing colorful pictures on every page and impressive narrative. Compared to Frommer's that I also bought for my trip, this one wins hands down. It's a very interesting reading, superbly informative and perfectly up-to-date. I also added Insight Shanghai Fleximap to my order and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of design. So if you are heading to Sanghai or just want to explore the city without leaving your bed, this book is made for you.



4. This book gives ou a nice overview of the region, and incredible specific tips for visiting Shanghai.

No comments about Inside China Today: A Western View.

No comments about UNESCO World Heritage Atlas: China.

5 comments about Mongolia (Country Guide).

1. This guide is pretty much your only choice when it comes to travel guides of Mongolia. Nevertheless, I found it helpful and up to date everytime I came to rely it during my time in Mongolia.
   
   Mongloia is indeed a huge country and this guide is small, but seemed complete and well researched and presented. Mongolia is indeed a remote place with little in the way of modern conveniences. This book is a good place to start when planning your trip or to find what you are looking for when you are on the road.



2. Mongolia is a difficult country to travel. No infrastructure, roads, cities, familiar modes of transportation, hotels or food.
   This guide is practical and detailed to help plan and execute a safe, memorable, fun trip with out having to spend thousands of $'s on tour groups.
   The best guide out there!
   Janice Jaffe



3. In the past year I have spent six months in rural Mongolia. There is not much choice of guidebooks in English and we are fortunate that Lonely Planet has put out a small book that nevertheless conveys an awful lot of really good information. My copy was in constant use. On my visits to Ulaan Baatar I found the guide to be indispensable. Practically everything worth visiting was listed and described.
   
   For a lot of western travellers, Mongolia will be a fairly daunting experience. The book identifies potential difficulties and suggests how to minimise problems. That being said, Mongolia is a great place to visit - fascinating coutry and wonderful people.
   
   If you are going to Mongolia, "Don't leave home without it!"



4. This is a great book offering really useful info such as phone numbers, maps, addresses, etc. It even featured a picture of my guide for my horse-trip when he was a wrestler. Amazing.
   
   Sure, the info is getting out of date but anyone who has been to Mongolia will know how impossible it is to keep up with the changes. And keeping in mind that Mongolians don't tend to adhere to strict schedules, you can't expect it to be perfect.
   
   My friend and I went, each carrying this book, and my only regret is that he gave one away.
   
   PS: When desperate for good food, you can always count on the Great Mongolian.



5. I ordered this 2008 edition of Lonely Planet to get some info about Mongolia and there are not many guides for a solo traveller in this region.
   It seems most people visit Mongolia in groups which can really be off turning for those who want to see the richness of the culture instead of a staged production.
   
   I haven't decided whether this has become like the productions in Bhutan for only the wealthy tourists who travel in groups.

3 comments about Shanghai Express: A Thirties Novel (Fiction from Modern China).

1. Don't buy this book expecting a fine and fancy piece of literature: that it ain't. Zhang Henshui was the Danielle Steel of early 20th century China, and this, one of his best known novels, has it all. Sex, suspense, intreague, betrayal...a page turner indeed.

   Shanghai Express is an enjoyable if not very edifying read. Like all trashy novels, its hard not to feel guilty for the expenditure of time and money, but its foreign-ness and time frame should assauge some misgivings.

   As 1930s pop literature, though, it does paint an interesting portrait of the manners and mores of its time. Ways of dressing, talking, eating, etc, present an unintentioned history.

   Be advised, though, the book has absolutely nothing to do with Shanghai. It is also unrelated to the American movie of the same title.




2. I would disagree strongly with the notion that this is a "trashy" novel. As William Lyell says in his afterward, just because this was a "popular" novel i.e. one intended for a mass audience, does not automatically mean it is trash.
   
   The story is told in simple and vivid prose, aided by the masterful translation of Dr. Lyell. The author obviously was a gifted story teller. He shows in this novel an ability for evoking the reality of his characters as he simply describes their actions. The story does not exactly evoke the profoundest human emotions but it does do so with considerable skill nonetheless, particularly at the end. In addition, the author's eye for details is quite profound; life on the trains are described with great precision, particularly life in and the denizens of, the train's third class car.
   
   About eighty five or ninety percent of the story takes place on the "Shanghai Express", a train going from Beijing to Shanghai. The novel takes place in the mid 30's, when it was first published. The story takes place over the several days of the trip and involves the eventually successful intrigue by passenger Hu Ziyun to get into bed, a young female fellow passanger, Liu Xichun. Ziyun is a very successful banker and Xichun claims to have married into the family of one of his friends.
   
   The novel is quite drawn out and, perhaps consciously intended for its popular audience, well into the book springs upon the reader, a major twist, relating to the character of Liu Xichun. After this twist is fully exposed, we jump forward about ten years and look at the very profound tragedy of what has become of Hu Ziyun. That evocation of that tragedy by the author is probably the most impressive part of the book.
   
   I was most bothered in the novel by some of the lengthy dialogues about their relationship between Xichun and Ziyun which sometimes seem a little unnatural and slightly abstrusely over-intellectualized. Overall, however, the novel is pretty impressive.



3. During the 1930s, Zhang Henshui (pen name of Zhang Xinyuan --ÕÅÐÄÔ¶) enjoyed the status of China¡¯s most popular author. Born in 1895, Henshui departed for Beijing in 1919 to work as a newspaper editor. His first major long work, Chunming Waishi (An Unofficial Tale of Peking), was serialized between 1924 and 1929. The smashing success of this series established him as the preeminent popular novelist of his generation. His masterpieces include Jinfen Shijia (A Family of Distinction--1927-32) and Tixiao Yinyuan (The Fates of a Marriage of Tears and Laughter--1930). In 1935, Shanghai Express was China¡¯s most read novel by her most popular author. Although Zhang Henshui is associated with the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School, his later writing took a more serious and political tone. During the anti- Japanese war, he took a patriotic stand and published satirical novels such as Eighty-One Dreams. Always prolific, Henshui had penned over one hundred novels by the time he died in 1967.
   In Shanghai Express, a socially prominent and well-to-do banker¡ªHu Ziyun--falls for an alluring young woman¡ªLiu XiChun--while traveling from Beijing to Shanghai. Henshui keeps the reader constantly moving among the sights, sounds, and smells in all three classes of passenger cars, while allowing the tale to unfold. As the two protagonists move among the three classes of train cars, the author offers insights into the characters who populate the various cars. Through the story of Ziyun and XiChun, Henshui explores the boundaries between past and present, public and private, and self and community. Although Ziyun believes that he got lucky when he met XiChun, by the story¡¯s end he realizes the luck was all hers. Hu Ziyun has paid a heavy price for indulging his vanity, proving how fine the lines between the classes can be and how easily people can move or be moved among them.
   
   Shanghai Express provides an example of the ¡°Mandarin Duck and Butterly¡± style of sentimental social romance novel that was enormously popular during the 1920s¡ª1940s in China and for which Zhang Henshui is notable. Though this style of writing was widely enjoyed, some tried to discredit it as mere entertainment for relaxation on a Saturday afternoon¡ªthe equivalent of today¡¯s movies. The Mandarin Duck & Butterfly School of literature was frequently derided by ¡°May Fourth¡± intellectuals as excessively sentimental and trivial. They were the ones who coined the term and used it in a derogatory way. They found this literary style too commercial and ideologically backward during an age when literature in China was dominated by the leftist politics and Europeanising aesthetics of the May Fourth Movement. Arguably, however, Zhang Henshui tried to dignify the genre by retaining the form and language of the old-style Chinese novel, but assimilating techniques and content from May Fourth writing in an effort to modernize traditional fiction and make it more attractive to the masses. The arguments over maintaining scholarly tradition or making literature more approachable to the masses is ages old, and the same disagreements were happening during the Modern era among scholars and writers in the West.
   
   Though this novel may have been written for the general reading public with a slant toward the literary tradition, it may not suit the tastes of contemporary Western readers. The minutiae and drawn out suspense, which create the book¡¯s merit for many, are the very same factors that will make it move much too slowly for other readers. History buffs, Chinese literature fans, and Chinese culture seekers will find the story compelling and will appreciate its exhaustive, Jane Austen-style level of detail. If you¡¯re building a library of Chinese classics, you¡¯re keen to learn something about one of China¡¯s most popular authors, or a fan of 1930s Chinese culture, grab a copy of this translation off amazon.com.

5 comments about Lhasa: Streets with Memories (Asia Perspectives: History, Society, and Culture).

1. I am struck by the originality of Robert Barnett's approach, as well as the clarity and utter honesty of his voice. LHASA: STREETS WITH MEMORIES is a much needed tool in grappling with the way in which China has absorbed and digested old Tibet and, sadly, the way in which Beijing has re-interpreted Lhasan culture with often appalling results. It's an old tale but told from an utterly fresh viewpoint--a must-read for those who are troubled by China's ongoing stranglehold of Tibetan society.



2. A very confused attempt to be meaningful by a British professor who should have written a magazine article(s) with this material and not a book. Both the writing style and substantive thoughts presented are choppy and obscure.
   
   Not recommended except for those already deeply engrossed with all things touching upon this ancient city of Tibet and who are willing to put up with an opaque and disjointed presentation. (A universe of readers that, I wager, is lightly populated.)
   
   I often disagree with the national editorial reviews that are posted by Amazon, but here the March review by Publishers Weekly has this book dead right.



3. I had no more than a passing interest in Tibet when I was given this book, and I found it absolutely riveting. It gave me a clearer, more immediate sense of the cultural crisis in Tibet than any straightforward, linear history could have done. Robert Barnett begins with the premise that one has to learn how to read any foreign city, and points out that Lhasa, where so much of the text is hidden below the surface, has suffered more than most from foreign misreadings. The book sets out to make Lhasa more legible to foreigners, but what it achieves is deeper and far more important.
   
   Barnett approaches his subject from two perspectives, one intellectual, the other experiential. The main narrative traces the history, mythos and cultural development of the city, and is written from Barnett's current vantage point as a Tibet scholar. This on its own would be an interesting and informative read. But it is the secondary narrative that makes the book so compelling: In hushed italics, Barnett gives us glimpses of his own experiences in Lhasa, first as a hapless tourist who wanders into the middle of the 1987 uprising, and later as a part-time resident teaching at the university. He is careful not to impose his own interpretation on the events, but simply, and generously, shares his observations. The most harrowing of the episodes he recounts come early on, and have to do with his own inability to read Lhasa during a period when a foreigner's misreading could hold serious consequences for the Tibetans involved.
   
   Barnett has an artist's eye for detail, and his writing is lush and vivid. The dual narratives struck me at first as an interesting literary device: the scholar describes the city's development from the ground up, while the foreigner sees the superficial and gradually learns to read what's below the surface. But toward the end of the book, when the two narratives catch up with each other, something extraordinary happens: the scholar succeeds in making Lhasa more legible just as the foreigner observes that the city he has learned to read has in effect already been erased by the Chinese. This realization had a visceral impact on me; the tragic urgency of the situation in Tibet hit me like a blow. "Lhasa: Streets With Memories" is an important book and deserves a wide audience.



4. Tibet and its capital, Lhasa, are among the many places I hardly know. This book is a brief introduction to their history, and the competing narratives non-Tibetans have adopted for interpreting Tibet. It is also a work for those enthralled by the question of what was- staring at a modern city block, you wonder: what was here before? The office building that used to be a park where families would picnic on weekends, the suburb that used to be a swamp.
   
   The book is incomplete- it doesn't try to present modern Tibetans and their narratives. Perhaps because that identity has become confused by assimilation or maybe the author just didn't understand them and knew it.
   
   That said, it's still worth reading as an ode to an ancient city.



5. An unusual book that offers a layered and multi-faceted vision of Lhasa, with great historical depth and an uncommon awareness of the many factors at work. This is not a feel-good narrative, it does not take sides, nor does it presume to tell you what to think. Instead, it combines deep scholarship and detailed knowledge of the political, cultural, social and economic forces behind the tremendous changes in Lhasa since the Chinese arrived - the author is a world-renowned expert on Tibet - with an artist or a poet's sensitivity to what lies beneath appearances. In addition, the writer's perspective is infused with a rare and touching humility, a welcome relief from the rather authoritative or even didactive tone of much travel writing. There is a great deal to be learned from this subtle book and I enjoyed the juxtaposition of personal experience and learned content.

No comments about The Great Wall of China: Beijing & Northern China (Bradt Travel Guide).

5 comments about National Geographic Traveler China (National Geographic Traveler).

1. The photos and color are beautiful, as you would expect from National Geographic, but the actual guides to major sightseeing areas are fairly poor. They are somewhat "snobby" with too much criticism of places "for tourists." The book is actually hard to handle since, I assume for the sake of the photos, the paper is very heavy and glassy, certainly nothing you could actually bring with you on your trip to China.



2. Excellent book for general knowedge on planning a trip. worththe $.



3. I found this book invaluable on my recent trip to China. It is not a typical tourist book, however, it provides a treasure of genuinely valuable background information for the serious traveler.



4. Very good book for someone planning to make a trip to China.



5. This volume is a mine of fascinating and important information, with comprehensive yet succinct narration and explanation about Chinese history, customs and culture, along with a great array of pictures and maps as well as practical guidance for preparing for and making a trip to mainland China.