No comments about And Guide Shanghai: Architecture And Design (And Guides).

1 comments about Li Chi: Book of Rites, Part 2.

1. This book was written before the advent of modern diction. It reads like a legal document, since it is, but the translation is good. I was actually quite pleased that the author did a thorough job. Some of the fonts used are not common and it was difficult to decipher words with, what I understand to be, Greek letters. This was particularly true for the spelling of Chinese nouns. They are phonetically written in Greek. This is only where the book lost points, but this is how English was written at the time this book was published. This book is part of, what is referred to in Japanese and Chinese literature as, "The Five Classics," and if you are interested in educating yourself with the same material that was taught to the great poets, sages, nobles, and samurai I recommend you get this and the other classics.
   China is in the process of reissuing/retranslating this book and many others in English in order to share its historical culture to the world, but for all of us who have read translations of classical texts know: no two translations are the same; so, I still recommend you pick this book up even If you get another copy by another author. Reason is, this book was written before Mao and the cultural revolution had a chance to put their two cents in.

1 comments about Living in China: A Guide to Teaching and Studying in China Including Taiwan.

1. Reliable and well researched

No comments about Himalayan Pilgrimage.

No comments about Insight Illustrated China.

No comments about Why China?: Recollections of China, 1923-1950.

1 comments about China (Countries of the World (Capstone)).

1. This is a great research book for kids. I'm in middle school and had to do a really important project on China recently. This book has information on pretty much any area you can think of, and I used it for a lot of my research. Also, there is a whole series of Countries of the World, so you can find a good book on almost any country you have to do a project or report on.

2 comments about Yunnan: Southwest China's Little-Known Land of Eternal Spring (Passport Books) (Odyssey Passport).

1. This book has a lot of information on this less-popular but nonetheless worth-visiting region. The author's voice is quite objective, unlike Lonely Planet's, which can sometimes be sarcastic. The photographs are pretty captivating. There were lots of good facts. There aren't very many books on just this region, so if you're planning to go, I'd definitely recommend getting this one. One drawback: no Chinese characters for the names of cities, sights, and other Chinese terms.



2. This book is very useful for planning the trip. For example, the author suggests that the "bamboo temple" outside of Kunming is of most interest. It is a bit off the path, and would have been missed if not for this recommendation. The brass drums in the Yunnan Museum are very interesting.

   I found that almost everything mentioned in the detailed advice about less permanent sites had changed, but then noticed my bookstore had sold me the 1987 edition! There were some amusing discoveries: the restaurant for workers, peasants, and soldiers had been changed to an expensive linen tablecloth place called "Ambrosia."

No comments about Picturing the Chinese: Early Western Photographs and Postcards of China.

3 comments about I Have Seen the World Begin: Travels through China, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

1. The title of this book, I Have Seen the World Begin, got my curiosity. The Danish journalist Carsten Jensen travelled from Russia south in Asia, through China, Cambodia, Vietnam and Hong Kong, and memories from these travels are collected in this huge book. And there are not only memories. Jensen has an open eye and tries to explain what he sees, and make it part of a bigger context, our world.

   Jensen travels alone, but he meets local people on his way. And he is not afraid of making contact. Many of these people are there for us to meet through the book. I Have Seen the World Begin is not a romantic story. Here we meet all the dirt of poverty, all the dust of the landscape, all the evilness in people, though we also meet the beauty of the women in Vietnam, the charm of a poor guide in a small village in China, the greatness of a landscape. Travelling might be boring and depressing, or it might give new dimensions to your life. Jensen has experienced both.

   And where does the world begin according to Carsten Jensen? It began for him in the birth of his child. The world is alive, the world is a place which will go on living inspite all odds

   Britt Arnhild Lindland




2. "The lone traveller is the most dependent of all, because he has need of everybody and no one has need of him."

   So notes Carsten Jensen in I HAVE SEEN THE WORLD BEGIN, his narrative account of his journey of discovery through China, Cambodia and Vietnam during the early 90s.

   Jensen begins his travelogue in Beijing, but quickly moves on to Shanghai, from which he travels by boat up the Yangtse River, then by rail and bus, into southeastern China near the border of Myanmar (Burma). A constant thread is the state of the country and its inhabitants, individually and collectively, post-Tiananmen Square.

   Then it's on to Cambodia, a country yet to recover from the cruel self-immolation imposed by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge minions. As Jensen writes about this "biblical Judgement Day":

   "... when the gates of Paradise were opened, it was only to reveal yet another graveyard. ... It was the humbled, the abased and the desperate who were raised on high, not to put an end to despair, but to extend it to everyone."

   And lastly, Vietnam, with which the author is obviously entranced, and the reader with him. Much of Carsten's enthrallment is with the country's women - Tam, Kim and Scent of Spring in particular. It's with the first that he has a physical relationship. And it's Tam who states in the most eloquent manner I've ever encountered the worst thing about not being able to conceive a child:

   "You can't pass on the eyes of the one you love to posterity. Like the stars they will be put out, instead of living on in a new face."

   Whether Jensen is describing China's Tiger Leap Gorge, Shanghai's New Year fireworks celebration, Cambodia's Angkor Wat, Phnom Penh's horrific Security Prison 21, Vietnam's Hanoi ("like a wood with streets"), the royal tombs at Hue, or Dien Bien Phu, the graveyard of French colonialism in Southeast Asia, his magnificent prose transports you there.

   I was tempted to award I HAVE SEEN THE WORLD BEGIN five stars, but am prevented from doing so by what I consider to be a significant omission. There's no photo section. What were the publisher and the author thinking?

   Having finished the book, I now want to visit Vietnam, a country I really had no desire to visit before. If a travel essay can accomplish this for any destination, it's very good indeed.




3. This is much more than a travel book. It's a book that has a deep respect for the "natives" it describes, and I really like that.
   
   Like all good books about travel, this book is about Jensen's inner journey as well. This work is sensous and it makes me want to travel. We need travellers instead of frigtened people who stay at home watching tv, disliking foreigners, Muslims, and the "darkness" they perceive is out there.'