China
December 10, 2009 by
Filed under China Travel Guide
- ISBN13: 9781741048667
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Nobody knows China like Lonely Planet. Whether you want to sip cocktails in Shanghai, trek Tibet’s holy Mt Kailash or contemplate history at Xu’an’s Army of Terracotta Warriors, our 11th edition will guide you through the best of this jaw-dropping destination – and reveal more of it than any other guide.
In This Guide:
All-new color chapters feature treks, iconic sights and culinary delights
Comprehensive activities coverage, including new cy… More >>
Appears to be chuck full of info. However, won’t know the accuracy until I use it next month.
Rating: 4 / 5
Unless you buy tourist guidebooks to read about gratuitious violence, find another book. My husband bought me this book for Christmas 2 yrs ago to help celebrate our decision to adopt a baby girl from China. Reading Christmas morning, expecting an exciting prelude to our next adventure, we got instead a horrific recount via a sidebar about an unspeakable act of violence to a dog somewhere in China. We have shelves in our library filled with travel books and there will never be a lonely planet guide guide among them.
Rating: 1 / 5
I write from the perspective of someone in China who wants to explore the Chinese language itself – undoubtedly a large cross-section of travellers to China share this because they disproportionately have fallen in the deep end of language study prior to departure (especially if it’s at tertiary level).
So, you want to get down & dirty in mainland China – not in the sense of visiting “Gay & Lesbian Venues” (p297), but are looking to buy a good Chinese text? Or want a good overview of the various dialects of China? You’d need to look further than this book. Mind you, the best texts for learning Chinese are, in my experience, most often written or cowritten by Westerners. This could be a natural outcome of a Westerner experiencing the frustrations of learning Chinese as an adult, as distinct from a child – something most Chinese people have never done. For further comments on some of these texts, see my other reviews, as well as the Routledge Chinese series of grammars.
A comment on page 329 on the languages of Fujian province: “Locals speak variations of the Min dialect, which includes Taiwanese”. I don’t know whether this is an entirely accurate description. “Taiwanese” isn’t spoken on the mainland as such. Taiwan is simply not *on* the mainland. It would be better to say that the Min dialect (or language), often known as Hoklo or Hokkien, is spoken in both Fujian province and Taiwan.
Despite my admittedly idiosyncratic and skewed comments, I think this is a great book to have with you in China. Especially if you are planning on travelling around.
The approach to the politics of Tibet and Taiwan are refreshing (especially for someone who’s been in China a little while). Just be careful you don’t take this book as a “show & tell” item to an English class like some friends of ours did – only to be questioned about the absence of Taiwan on some of the maps (or different colouring thereof)!
Now. To the warnings. This is getting away from the things I have said about the language and so forth above. I have been staying in China for a number of months now, with wife and son. Our son is mixed race – half white half asian.
The Chinese love babies, almost cultishly so, possibly as a result of the one child policy. So naturally when they see a child that is – to them – unusual, they can’t resist but take a look.
But nobody (including Lonely Planet) ever warned us that from the moment we leave our apartment there would be people pointing at our child, trying to touch him, speaking about him within our full earshot. Hardly anyone ever speaks to me or about me without referring to the child. We approach a service counter and struggle to get the staff’s attention away from the baby’s (who is sitting very quietly in his pram). At some of the larger supermarkets there are many female staff simply standing around with nothing to do. When they see our child they collect each other so that they can all stare at us together and so their friends don’t miss out.
You may insist that I’m being petty and I should just rejoice that the Chinese love children so. Go ahead, bring your 1.5 year old child to Wuhan, China and go on a shopping trip and see for yourself. You will be thoroughly exhausted. You will not walk 50 metres without a point, stare or comment. But usually (especially when you go to a place for the first time) EVERYONE will be staring at you. They will come out of the shop to stare.
Nobody ever warned me as an individual (babies aside) how many Chinese people would ride past on their bicycles or yell from within their group “hello!” and say to each other laowai (old foreigner) or waiguoren (foreigner). To yell “hello!” as they go past is particularly a welcome to China.
I know it’s expecting a lot but If they really wanted to welcome me to China they’d get off their bikes, begin by speaking Chinese (it is after all, the national language) but be accomodating if I can’t speak it, speak in a quiet voice so that the masses can’t listen in, and ask whether there’s anything they can assist with. If they can’t do that, they simply shouldn’t bother. They are treating westerners like museum exhibits.
Consider how this behaviour would be frowned upon in the west.
Rating: 4 / 5
Overall, “Lonely Planet” remains the best travel guide for the backpacker.
Rating: 5 / 5
Comprehensive edition actually, but not so easy to read for the foreigners.
As it is a guide I preffer more “easy english”.
Rating: 5 / 5