China Books - Page 6

The Silk Road Journey With Xuanzang

Sally Wriggins

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Religious
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Walk the Silk Road with the Buddhist monk who crisscrossed the Asian continent and prompted a great cultural exchange between India and China.

The Silk Road Journey with Xuanzang tells the saga of the seventh-century Chinese monk Xuanzang, one of China's great heroes, who completed an epic sixteen-year-long journey to discover the heart of Buddhism at its source in India. Eight centuries before Columbus, this intrepid pilgrim traveled 10,000 miles on the Silk Road, meeting most of Asia's important leaders at that time. In this revised and updated edition, Sally Hovey Wriggins, the first Westerner to walk in Xuanzang's footsteps, brings to life a courageous explorer and devoutly religious man. Through Wriggins's telling of Xuanzang's fascinating and extensive journey, the reader comes to know the contours of the Silk Road, Buddhist art and archaeology, the principles of Buddhism, as well as the geography and history of China, Central Asia, and India. The Silk Road Journey with Xuanzang is an inspiring story of human struggle and triumph, and a touchstone for understanding the religions, art, and culture of Asia. Praise for the previous edition:

Walking the Gobi: 1,600 Mile-trek Across a Desert of Hope and Despair

Helen Thayer

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Subjects -> Travel -> Asia -> Mongolia

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

By the bestselling author of Polar Dream (more than 40,000 copies sold) At the age of 63, Helen Thayer fulfilled her lifelong dream of crossing Mongolia's Gobi Desert. Accompanied by her 74-year-old husband Bill and two camels, Tom and Jerry, Thayer walked 1600 miles in 126-degree temperatures, battling fierce sandstorms, dehydration, dangerous drug smugglers, and ubiquitous scorpions. For more than 60 days Helen struggled to keep moving through this inhospitable terrain despite a severe leg injury. Without sponsors, a support team, or radio contact, hers is a journey of pure discovery and adventure.

Walking the Gobi takes readers on a trip through a little-known landscape and introduces them to the culture of the nomadic people whose ancestors have eked out an existence in the Gobi for thousands of years. Thayer's respect and admiration for the culture of Gobi and her gentle weaving of natural history shine throughout this remarkable story. The author proves that Baby Boomers don't have to take life lying down-their adventures have just begun.

Top 10 Bangkok (Eyewitness Top 10 Travel Guides)

DK Publishing

Amazon Price: $9.60 List Price: $12.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: DK Travel Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $6.62

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Subjects -> Travel -> Asia -> Thailand -> Bangkok

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Very handy for short trips 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

If you are on a few days city trip this is a very good little book to carry a long. Handy, easy to find tips for your trips and fast to read. Comes with a separate map!

Editorial Review:

Drawing on the same standards of accuracy as the acclaimed DK Eyewitness Travel Guides, The DK Top 10 Guides use exciting colorful photography and excellent cartography to provide a reliable and useful pocket-sized travel. Dozens of Top 10 lists provide vital information on each destination, as well as insider tips, from avoiding the crowds to finding out the freebies, The DK Top 10 Guides take the work out of planning any trip.

Insider's Guide to Beijing 2008

Immersion Guides

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Subjects -> Travel -> Asia -> China -> Beijing

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This is the Beijing guidebook other Beijing guidebooks wish they could be. We tell you what's happening right here, right now, all over Beijing, because ... we live here. So do our 40 specialist contributors. With this book, you'll learn which songs will melt hearts in a Beijing karaoke bar, who has the best deal on antique furniture, how to take your landlord to court, and what Mandarin language program is for you. Along with all this wisdom goes the wit that has become the trademark of the Insider's Guide to Beijing over the years. Fully updated for the countdown to the 2008 Olympics, crammed with listings of hundreds of shops, bars and restaurants, lavishly illustrated with more than 750 full color photos by the capital city's best photographers, the Insider's Guide to Beijing is indispensable for residents and tourists alike. This edition also comes packaged with an up-to-date, fully bilingual pullout map of Beijing and its Olympic venues, printed on waterproof, tear-resistant paper stock. Stop looking for the key to the city. You are holding it in your hand.

China A to Z: Everything You Need to Know to Understand Chinese Customs and Culture

May-lee Chai, Winberg Chai

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> China -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A practical and accessible guide to an ancient but rapidly changing culture

Perfect for business and armchair travelers alike, China A to Z explains the customs, culture, and etiquette essential for any trip or for anyone wanting to understand this complex country. In one hundred brief, reader-friendly chapters, alphabetized by subject, China A to Z introduces a general audience to contemporary Chinese society, as well as its venerable history. Discover:
• Why Chinese names are written in reverse order
• What to bring when visiting a Chinese household
• What the current relationship is between Japan and China
• Why you should wrap gifts in red or pink paper, and never send white flowers

With the 2008 Summer Olympics being held in Beijing, thousands of Chinese adoptions occurring each year, and China becoming the fourth most popular international destination, the need for information about this complex country is greater than ever.

Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits

Bill Porter

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Ethnic & National -> Chinese
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General AAS
Subjects -> Reference -> Catalogs & Directories -> Directories

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A glimpse of immortals 4 out of 5 stars.
9 of 10 people found this review helpful.

"You can't be in a hurry. You have to be prepared to devote your whole life to your practice," says Master Hsueh T'ai-li after forty-five years on the slopes and summits of Huashan. "This is what's meant by religion. It's not a matter of spending money. You have to spend your life."
"Road to Heaven, Encounters with Chinese Hermits" by Bill Porter provides a fleeting image of the cloud people, the Chinese hermits who have turned their backs on this world of red dust - and survived.
There is a stark, and sad, contrast between the monks and hermits, and the busy American writer who is rushing about asking homely questions like: "Were you upset when the Red Guards burned your library?" or "Do you get any mail?"
"Taoism is very deep. There's a great del to learn, and you can't do it quickly. The Tao isn't something that can be put into words. You have to practice before you can understand," reiterates Master Hsueh.
And yet I find myself returning to this "Road to Heaven" because it captures a few anecdotes, gems and asides about famous and unknown hermits that makes it worthwhile reading. Searching for a lost quote, I return to the hasty interviews with abbots and nuns standing guard at old temples and crumbling shrines. And I find more layers to their brief stories than first meets the eye.
There is stillness and tranquility in the frugal lives of these Chinese hermits, and a firm and unwavering grip on the essentials of a religion. They represent the last living flicker of the spiritual wisdom originating with Lao-tzu thousands of years ago. And now their world is vanishing into the darkness, like the last sparks from a windswept fire.

Editorial Review:

Drawing on knowledge based on 20 years as a resident of China, Porter examines the ancient Chinese hermit tradition. Part travelogue, part history, part sociology, and part religious study, this record of extraordinary journeys to an unknown China sheds light on a phenomemon unparalleled in the West, and the philosophies that underlie it. Photographs.

Top 10 Beijing (Eyewitness Top 10 Travel Guides)

DK Publishing

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Top 10 Items 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 10 people found this review helpful.

This is a must have book while visiting Beijing. We would have been lost if we had not purchased this book. A real life saver.

A must have! 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book came in quite handy on my recent trip to China. I plan to use it again in July 2008. The maps are updated and information all seems to be correct.

The Forbidden City (Wonders of the World)

Geremie R. Barmé

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Subjects -> History -> World -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Read supplementary material prepared by Geremie Barmé

Read the Bldg Blog interview with Mary Beard about the Wonders of the World series (Part I and Part II)

The Forbidden City (Zijin Cheng) lying at the heart of Beijing formed the hub of the Celestial Empire for five centuries. Over the past century it has led a reduced life as the refuge for a deposed emperor, as well as a heritage museum for monarchist, republican, and socialist citizens, and it has been celebrated and excoriated as a symbol of all that was magnificent and terrible in dynastic China’s legacy.

The Forbidden City’s vermilion walls have fueled literary fantasies that have become an intrinsic part of its disputed and documented history. Mao Zedong even considered razing the entire structure to make way for the buildings of a new socialist China. The fictions surrounding the Forbidden City have also had an international reach, and writers like Franz Kafka, Elias Canetti, Jorge Luis Borges, and Mervyn Peake have all succumbed to its myths. The politics it enshrined have provided the vocabulary of power that is used in China to the present day, though it is now better known as a film set or the background of displays of opera, rock, and fashion.

Geremie Barmé peels away the veneer of power, secrecy, inscrutability, and passions of imperial China, to provide a new and original history of the culture, politics, and architecture of the Forbidden City. Designed to overawe the visitor with the power of imperial China, the Forbidden City remains one of the true wonders of the world.

(20080203)

Time Out Shanghai (Time Out Guides)

Editors of Time Out

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Editorial Review:

Shanghai is in the throes of a rapid metamorphosis as it constructs and remodels for the Expo 2010. Written by journalists who live in Shanghai, this guide takes visitors past the tourist traps to the best, most stylish buys in bijou boutiques, big-name designer outposts, and teeming street markets. The Times (London) picked the previous edition as the best guidebook to Shanghai, and this edition improves it with expanded information on where to stay and eat — a must with scores of new hotels and restaurants opening.

Chinese in 10 Minutes a Day® (10 Minutes a Day Series) (Chinese Edition)

Kristine K. Kershul

List Price: $19.95 By: Bilingual Books (WA) Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $4.35

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Subjects -> Reference -> Dictionaries & Thesauruses -> Foreign Language -> Chinese
Subjects -> Reference -> Foreign Languages -> Instruction -> Chinese
Subjects -> Reference -> Foreign Languages -> Instruction -> Southeast Asian

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Children's picture book for the deluded 2 out of 5 stars.
5 of 19 people found this review helpful.

The title really speaks for itself. I was desperate to learn Chinese quickly for travel, was up late, read the reviews, flipped out and bought it. Another romance language if you know one in 10 minutes a day maybe, Chinese if you speak English from a book without audio-not so much....

Let's review the logistics. They don't read English so you can't point to it. You don't read Chinese so you're looking at pictures (not when driving to work). So after dinner you paste romanized Chinese words around the house. Time's up. The next day you memorize a few words that may have a different meaning from the one you intend because you don't have audio phonetics and its a tonal language. Gotta go. The next day, you forget evrything because you only spent 10 minutes and you can't relate it to English. You do the math.

The approach reminds me of the Monty Python skit, where Hungarian tries to buy cigarettes using a phrasebook that inspires him to say "my hovercraft is full of eels" .

And as to the reviews, we don't laugh at Clark Griswold for saying "look at how greatful the French are when we make the slightest effort to speak the language...." because other countries are more grateful when we try to butcher their language. We laugh because he buys "French on the airplane" and believes it works. On the way to China, you're tired, you drink, its crowded, you don't read Chinese, unlike French, they can't read this book, you take out "Chinese in 10 minutes a day" on a 17 hour flight, oops that's my day. Exaggeration, but not by much.
You would either have to grow old or land in Hong Kong!

Editorial Review:

The book walks you through your language in 23 easy steps. Almost automatically you will acquire a large working vocabulary that will suit your needs. As you work through the steps, use the sticky labels (included). At the back of the book, you will also find cut-out flash cards to make learning fun. When you have completed the book, cut out the menu at the back and take it along on your trip. Available in 11 languages.