No comments about Culture Shock! Beijing (Culture Shock! Guides).

5 comments about China.

1. This is physically a huge book, very big and very heavy. It is a collection of spectacular photographs of China, plus some very interesting and informative writings. I saw it first in a friend's house, and thought it must cost a fortune. The price quoted in Amazon is amazing low.
   After lugging it around my living room, I only wish there is a DVD version so that I can look at all the photos on my big computer screen and set up a folder of my own favorites.



2. for me purchasing this book of photos was a gamble. i did not get a chance to flip through the various pages before taking it home with me. and for the first time i came out a winner. this hercules sized book holds various themes. for those who lived in china or been there, would find nostalgia as you turn the crisp pages. for those who never been to china, looking through this book would be a vacation all its own. the author not only tackles the traditional scenes but also the present. as describes above this book was a compilation of 20+ years of a journey throughout china. enjoy!

   the only frown was the order of the captions. i felt that it should of been put in the order in which the picture was taken. other than that, it's great.




3. This is clearly a labor of love. Most of the photos are printed centerfold style across both pages and bled to the edge. Each of these photos deserves to be displayed this way. The captions are in a separate section at the back of the book. This forces you study the photo without surrendering to the superficial urge to have someone explain what you're looking at. The subtle detail, the awesome colors, light and shading, the absolutely incredible eye of this photographer are truly amazing. The text is as descriptive, informative and creative as the photos. I've sat for hours at a time with this book and look forward to studying it for many hours more. This book is giving me a whole new perspective for first trip to China this summer. For anyone who wants to glimpse the heart of China this is a "must have".



4. This is a rich, glossy photobook of China. I bought the book because my family has ties to China. Wonderful pictures, a delight to the eye.



5. This book would have been more aptly call "A Day in China".Many of the photos in this book look quite random to me.There are too many portaits of gawky chinamen smoking cigarettes.This does however capture many of the goings-on in the typical day of modern China(with portraits of monks,fisherman,factory workers,etc.There isn`t many awe inspiring landscapes and cityscapes in this book(although there are some)Over all I think this books documentary qualities outway its aesthetic qualities.

No comments about Wild China.

No comments about Seeking Modernity in China's Name: Chinese Students in the United States, 1900-1927.

1 comments about Visiting Historic Beijing: A Guide to Sites and Resources.

1. Considering the historic importance of Beijing, the collection of reliable, English-language historical guides for the visitor is remarkably small. Classic English-language texts from the 20s and 30s are long out of print and in any case describe things which disappeared decades ago. Local publications in Beijing's bookshops feature glossy color shots and vapid, hyperbolic text written by tourism bureaucrats. International guidebooks can only include the most basic historical data.
   The underlying problem is that most of the work of Chinese scholars of the city's monuments and sites is accessible only to specialists. Robert L Thorp is one specialist who has shared his knowledge with the general reader. His new publication, Visiting Historic Beijing, is the book I wish I had owned when I first arrived in the city. The author, deeply versed in Chinese language and archaeology, does an expert job of making the complexities of his field understandable to the non-specialist. The first chapter deftly sketches the pre-Ming history of the capital and describes the few remaining monuments from that era.
   The next chapter turns to the walls and gates of the city, first setting the scene by describing the process of urban design at the beginning of the Ming period, then tracing the construction (and destruction) of the city's walls, before turning to a detailed description of the monuments that have survived into the present era.
   The remaining chapters follow the same pattern, creating a historical and cultural backdrop against which the chapter's descriptions, diagrams, notations and photos come to life. Information boxes throughout the book draw disparate facts together or cast sidelights on topics as diverse as the divine status of the emperor, the history of the palace museum and the best elevated views of the capital. Other bonuses include suggested walking tours and books for further reading.
   We can regret the absence of color plates, but it is actually a good compromise that keeps the book affordable. A more substantial, if still mild irritation is the author's politeness to the Chinese authorities in glossing over the wholesale destruction of historic areas in the modern era: he makes much of the city's admirable 2002 heritage conservation plan, but doesn't mention that this document was all but ignored in 2008 during the destruction of the famous Qianmen district to make way for a faux-historical retail precinct.
   But this is a quibble: Visiting Historic Beijing is invaluable to anyone who wants a reliable, readable, scholarly description of the historic treasures of the Chinese capital.

4 comments about City of Lingering Splendour: A Frank Account of Old Peking's Exotic Pleasures.

1. This is the most sensitive, respectful and intelligent book I have read on traditional Chinese culture. The writing is terrific, on a par with Peter Fleming's, though more from the heart.

   It records the author's love affair with the city before WW2 (and includes a return to Beijing after it). While meeting many of its remaining Daoist, Confucianist, Bhuddist and literary leaders and exploring its temples, nightlife and food, we get a last sympathetic, philosophical, tragic glimpse of the splendour decaying under the Republic. Before it vanished under the Maoists.

   If you thought there was little more to pre-War China than footbinding, Dowager Empresses, opium and Shanghain greed and degeneracy, this book will even the score a little.




2. I had no idea when I picked up this book that I had such a pleasant experience in store for me. Beginning in 1934, a young man in his twenties spends "three exquisitely happy years" in a China at the edge of the abyss. Japan had already invaded Manchuria and made no secrets of its intentions of further conquest. The shaky Chinese Republic was ruled out of Nanking; and Peking was still full of memories of the old Dowager Empress, the last of her line.

   The streets of Peking were full of Confucian scholars, aging palace eunuchs, adepts of Taoism and Buddhism, starving White Russian refugees, 14-year-old opium addicts, and gentle courtesans and flute girls. Blofeld threw himself headfirst into this world which was on the point of being snuffed out forever. Most memorable are the White Russian hermaphrodite Shura and the Rasputin-like Father Vassily; the decorous Buddhist scholar Dr Chang; Yang Taoshih, the Taoist sage, and his friend known only as the Peach Garden Hermit; the lovely courtesan Jade Flute; and the mysterious Pao, who elopes with a young girl intended for a Japanese colonel.

   After Blofeld leaves for a trip to England, the Japanese finally invade. There are two bittersweet chapters at the end where Blofeld revisits the scenes of his youth after 1945. His fragile Peking of the 1930s is now poised between a growingly thuggish Kuomintang secret police and the great unknown of Mao Tse-tung's Eighth Route Army.

   Blofeld's Dr Chang says it all: "Decay is inherent in all things, as Shakyamuni Buddha bade us always remember. Death swallows all that has been born; rebirth or re-creation follow in their turn, as spring follows winter. Things rise and wane in unceasing flux."

   CITY OF LINGERING SPLENDOUR is recommended to all sentient beings who were ever young once and are now faced with a confused welter of possibilities, none of which seem particularly appetizing.




3. If the name John Blofeld means anything to you, you've probably been consulting the I Ching. Blofeld wrote a popular translation to the Chinese oracle at a time when the only other version available in English was Richard Wilhelm's groundbreaking but somewhat turgid text.

   "City of Lingering Splendor" is an autobiographical travelogue, one of the best ever written. Dedicated to ' the hermits, scholars, youths and courtesans who inspired these pages ' it's a love letter to Peking and the breathtaking greatness of an ancient civilisation at its twilight, about to be extinguished.

   While remote jungles still offer anthropologists the chance to chew the fat with stone age peoples, the romantics among us are simply out of luck. Until someone invents a working time machine, Ancient Egypt is gone forever along with Homer's Greece and Imperial Rome.

   But in 1934 it was still possible to travel back in time. Back to Old China, to a culture that had remained virtually untouched for thousands of years---and chew Peking Duck with Taoist sages. . .

   Wonderful reading.




4. I have been reading John Blofeld since the 80's. His writing is honest and straight forward. What is special about this work is the time frame. It is a first hand account and we are not brought down by the dreary chronology or dry scholastic jibberish of Western history academics. His introduction warns of his awareness of the flaws of the culture, but he wishes to show the strengths and beauty of a dying civilization. Truly unique, inspiring and thought provoking

No comments about Champion Writers' Travel Guide to Shanghai 2009.

No comments about The Slaves of the Cool Mountains: Travels Among Head-Hunters and Slave-Owners in South-West China.

No comments about Guangzhou (China) Map by ITMB.

2 comments about Chomolungma Sings the Blues: Travels Round Everest.

1. Ed Douglas is superb. He really knows Everest, not just the mountain's climbing lore but the mountain's importance to the unique peoples who inhabit her flanks. A stunning literary achievement!



2. How can I give this book 10/15/20 stars?

   This is the most wonderful book I have read on Chomolungma (Everest). You will discover why he didn't call it by the other Nepalese name, Sagamartha. Douglas is a mountaineer, though he admits he does not really understand the compulsion to climb Everest, and he says towards the end of the book that he never could climb it because he does not want to enough. This book is sensitive, respectful and self-effacing. Its purpose is serious - to really discover something about the cultural impact of the trekking and mountaineering industries on the people and environment of the Everest area.

   Along the way, Douglas makes some insightful observations about the role of governments, the impact of non-government organisations and the activities of some of the successful business - people - Nepalese, sometimes Sherpa, all involved in the Everest industry. In all three instances he shows us the sometimes misguided, sometimes successful and sometimes outright fraudulent efforts.

   At all times Douglas remains thoroughly respectful of the Nepalese (and in the first chapter Tibetan) people, despite also being able to show us the cultural and political warts. Whilst having a few harsh judgements about some trekkers and some mountaineers, he also manages to treat them fairly and - no mean feat at times. Perhaps, however, he is hardest of all on climbers: "...there are so many other climbers whose photographs of locals punctuated their articles and lectures to break up all those shots showing what heroes they'd been with a little local culture. Anthropologists and environmentalists must have a strong suspicion that most climbers and trekkers see local people as a human backdrop to their adventures. I almost admired the climber who told me that if he could go to the mountain in a bubble to avoid disease and arguments with porters, he would. At least he was being honest."

   Douglas writes movingly of the unrecognised and mostly unheard about porters who have been the casualties of the industry - ill-clad and ill-equipped, some have been turned out by expeditions and left to fend for themselves when things have got sticky. There are generally no helicopter rescues for the porters. Douglas calls this "moral squalor". The myriad cut-price trekking companies pay cut-throat rates and fail to equip these workers well. On the other hand, Douglas shows how portering is integral to the local economy, and quotes statistics debunking the view that permanent physical damage is the result of portering.

   After you have read Krakauer's 'Into Thin Air', and Boukreev's 'The Climb' and the other expedition journals and diaries, and coffee table books about Everest, turn to this one to find out about the people and the impact on their lives. This book also reads as a travelogue, as it recounts, in the main, Douglas's own trekking experience in the spring of 1996. He encounters along the way many of the groups that became caught up in the storms and tragedies of May 10 1996, including Scott Fisher's group and David Breashear's IMAX film team. Some of the descriptive passages are wonderful word pictures. I had a real sense of what it is like at the top of Kala Patta and Gokyo Ri, for example.

   Some passages that particularly spoke to me (you will surely discover others):

   "Professional climbers earn their living describing their own achievements, while those with a more long-term or scientific purpose can claim some benefit to mankind other than the realisation of ambition. It was clear, however, that they were prone to the same jealousies and quarrels."

   "The truth has to be faced that guides have treated the mountain as a resource, just as the Nepalese authorities have. It's a way to cash in on the regular flow of books and films about Everest, a package deal to the roof of the world for anyone with enough money and an excess of self-confidence. As for the motivation of people who are prepared to spend a small fortune for a chance to be pulled up Everest, I can only guess. If it is to impress, then the huge resources and assistance required to get them to the top should temper their sense of achievement. If it is for a love of adventure, then they probably ger more than they bargain for. But then why climb Everest at all? That's the hardest thing to explain. That's the sixty-four thousand dollar question."