1 comments about Succeed in Business: Taiwan (Culture Shock! Success Secrets to Maximize Business).

1. This is an excellent summary of the basics of building business relations in Taiwan. It can be read on the airplane on the way to Taiwan, or at home while you are planning the trip. Foreigners would be greatly benefited by taking the helpful hints that Kevin Chambers provides in this fact filled little book.

No comments about Culture Shock! Laos: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Culture Shock! Guides).

5 comments about China (Culture Shock!).

1. The idea of this book is excellent; however, because it's 5 years old it is not as up-to-date as it could be. China is changing rapidly and some of the customs and other information presented is already out-dated. It should be up-dated more freaquently.



2. 
   First off, there is a big difference between the Chinese in Hong Kong (were much of this author's experience comes from) and the Chinese from Beijing. It's like the difference between Italy and Sweden. Grouping all Chinese cultures together is just plain ignorant and down right misleading and it hurts your understanding of that region of the world. It also makes the outside traveler appear a little stupid when they arrive in China. This book seems to group all Chinese as one culture.
   
   Culture Shock! China: is just bad book on so many levels that I have a headache reliving them all! I'd find better material to read about China; books that were written within the past 2 years are best! China has changed so much and so fast that it's hard to keep up with all the changes. Even the Chinese themselves are stunned at the rapid pace of change.
   
   (Additional observation) It's very odd how this book received so many of its highest star ratings right after its re-release years ago. This makes me suspect that maybe some employees from the publisher, (and/or friends of the author) might have been used to falsely rate this book with those great reviews and high stars, especially when it was more beneficial to sales back then. (look at the dates of the earlier high reviews with today's low star reviews. ...hmmmm).



3. Home made and thoughtless. Interesting only for its defense of the slaughter in Tiananmen square.



4. I bought this book to help prepare for our move to China in June. I have read and enjoyed other Culture Shock books before (Culture Shock Malaysia is wonderful and very helpful) but I was blown away by this book's awfulness. It should have been called, "Out-dated Personal Ramblings of a Typo-prone Journalist in China." Sarcasm is rampant, the author refers to the reader as "pal" and frequently admonishes him (as in, "too bad, pal. China isn't going to change for you.") and the vast majority of the so-called advice is terribly outdated.
   
   The Culture Shock people should take this book off the market before it seriously damages their name.



5. Well, I was only in China for 18 days, but I found this book unusually informative, really interesting to read, and very helpful on a number of occasions where I would have totally misunderstood a given situation.

No comments about China: Renaissance of The Middle Kingdom, Ninth Edition (Odyssey Illustrated Guides).

1 comments about From Peking to Mandalay.

1. In 1906 Reginald Johnston (who became the tutor to the last emperor) travelled from Beijing to India through parts of China and Tibet.. in describing his journey he brings us through a part of the world that was probably the inspiration for Hilton's Lost Horizon. Johnston also documented the languages of the area and made a record in his book of these languages. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the temples, the culture of the time! A beautiful travel journey! A great read for any linguistic student or asian studies student as well as anyone who has been to China or plans to go there!

5 comments about Through the Dragon's Mouth: Journeys into the Yangzi's Three Gorges (Missionary Enterprise in Asia).

1. Anyone who has gone to China, or who plans to go should make this book a must. Dr. Ben Cowles is an expert of the first order on China in general and the Gorges in specific.

   As one who has been to China 67 times since President Nixon was there, few I have met have the knowledge, love, passion and experience for such a book as Dr. Cowles. When you put it down and that is hard to do once you pick it up, you will feel, "I have been there." Dr. Joseph B. Kennedy, Chairman, U.S.China Education Foundation




2. While I do not question Dr. Cowles' love of China, I think his book is poorly written. It feels like it was quickly thrown together in an effort to profit from all the attention surrounding the controversial Three Gorges Dam. This book has too much contrived dialogue and seems to borrow too much from greater books about the Gorges, principally A Single Pebble and Cornell Plant's Glimpses of the Yangtze Gorges. Unfortunately, Dr. Cowles tries to pass off material written by others as his own. He lifts a paragraph from Cornell Plant's book, written over seventy years ago, about a junk owner's wife and reproduces it verbatim. Then to show his complete lack of interest in his own book, he repeats the same paragraph, only slightly altered, two pages later! The book does have good points, but only when Cowles writes about the missionaries does he seem to care. The rest - about the gorges, about the boatmen, about the romance of the river - should be written by someone else.



3. This is an honest work, constructed in a thoughtful manner. This book really gave me a feeling for a gritty two-way passage through the Dragon's Mouth in 1946. Cowles, living in China, is a wide eyed missionary in the most turbulent of times, and his perspective is very interesting. This work is highly historic, and has some beautiful pictures and illustrations which bring the work to life.



4. I must agree that the book uses very contrived dialogue which clearly reduces the interest level. With the subject topic, this should have been a dynamic powerful book but winds up forcing the reader to continue in search of something to grab onto. it was dry, very dry, and found lacking - I picked it up because I am interested in anything relating to the Three Gorges area but I was terribly disappointed.



5. I like this book more than some of the previous reviewers but I can only offer medium praise. Dr. Cowles is truly an "old China hand" of the first order. His experiences and trials in China, especially his voyages through the Yangtze Gorges before they were "made safe" by demolishing hazardous rocks in the 1950s, the constuction of the Gezhouba dam in the early 80s, and the on-going constucton of the Three Gorges Dam, can be considered an adventure of a lifetime. Having said this, as someone who has travelled through the Gorges over 170 times by ship and by foot (and read nearly everything written about the Gorges), his book is a big disappointment. Before you purchase this book, I would recommend Hersey's A Single Pebble or Winchester's River at the Center of the World if you truly wish to learn about the Gorges. The dialogue in Cowles' book is very contrived and dry. Cowles' recollection of past adventures are stikingly similar to other books written about pre-1950 voyages which leaves doubt in this reader's mind if these are Cowles' experiences at all, or if he is just borrowing from others, given that his voyage was over 50 years ago. The illustrations and some accounts are outstanding, but Cowles' attempt to mold his characters around discussions of the I Ching, each discussion conveniently broken off by some new trial that the crew faces as they negotaite the treachorous rapids of the Gorges, comes up lacking and is not very believable. Unfortunately, the dryness of the dialogue (which I don't believe) and the similarity to other books about the Gorges forces me to give this book a poor rating. Buy the other books first and make your own informed opinion. I would recommend this book third behind other books about the Gorges. With Kemp Tolley's Yangtze Patrol and Diedre Chatham's new book due in March, I would bump this book to fifth.

3 comments about Over Hong Kong (Pacific Century) (v. 5).

1. This book is made following the same style of Cameron's "Above" Series. Lots of old pictures compared to new ones, where you can see how much has HK changed in a short time. Amazing pictures of the skyscraper architecture of this outstanding city, aerial views of Central HK, Kowloon, the new airport, New Territories. This is a MUST HAVE book. One of the BEST aerial pictures book I have ever bought.



2. This is THE book on Hong Kong. The pictures are amazing and show how enormus the city actually. The style is very much like the "Above" books by Robert Cameron, though this one has a map to show where the pictures were taken as well.



3. Excellent book. Has exceedingly great pictures of modern HK, invaluable, really invaluable. That's about all I can say.

No comments about The Man Awakened from Dreams: One Man's Life in a North China Village, 1857-1942.

No comments about Ai ya! China.

No comments about India 2009 Calendar: A Photographic Journey Through the Land of Enchantment.