But the vacation he plans is no light-hearted student jaunt - he decides to retrace the epic journey of Marco Polo from Jerusalem to Xanadu, the ruined palace of Kubla Khan, north of Peking. For the first half of the trip he is accompanied by Laura, whom he met at a dinner party two weeks before he left; for the second half he is accompanied by Louisa, his very recently ex-girlfriend. Intelligent and funny, "In Xanadu" is travel writing at its best.

     It also explores the circumstances surrounding the true-life event of my grandmother's gift of a concubine to my grandfather on his birthday to enhance the chance of an heir to the Family.

    These infamous posters were, in turn, central fixtures in Chinese homes, railway stations, schools, journals, magazines, and just about anywhere else where people were likely to see them. Chairman Mao, portrayed as a stoic superhero (a.k.a. the Great Teacher, the Great Leader, the Great Helmsman, the Supreme Commander), appeared in all kinds of situations (inspecting factories, smoking a cigarette with peasant workers, standing by the Yangzi River in a bathrobe, presiding over the bow of a ship, or floating over a sea of red flags), flanked by strong, healthy, ageless men and "masculinized" women and children wearing baggy, sexless, drab clothing. The goal of each poster was to show the Chinese people what sort of behavior was considered morally correct and how great the future of Communist China would be if everyone followed the same path toward utopia by uniting together. Combining fact and fiction in a way typical of propaganda art, these posters exuded positive vibes and seemed to suggest that Mao was an omnipresent force that would accompany China to happiness and greatness. This book brings together a selection of colorful propaganda artworks and cultural artifacts from photographer Michael Wolf's vast collection of Chinese propaganda posters, many of which are now extremely rare.

    He returned with stories of exotic people, tremendous riches, and the most powerful ruler in the world – Kublai Khan. The explorer told of inventions ranging from gunpowder to paper money. The intellectual ferment and cultural diversity he described helped move Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance. In his lifetime, people scoffed at his stories. But as this book explains, he changed the world.

    The Mandarin Chinese-English Bilingual Visual Dictionary introduces a range of useful current vocabulary in thematic order, using full-color photographs and artworks to display and label all the elements of everyday life — from the home and office to sport, music, nature, and the countries of the world — with panel features on key nouns, verbs, and useful phrases.The Mandarin Chinese-English Bilingual Visual Dictionary features:A quick and intuitive way to learn and remember thousands of words. A complete range of illustrated objects and scenes from everyday life. Fast and effective learning for any situation, from home and office to shopping and dining out. Detailed index for instant reference. Handy size ideal for travel. The illustrations in the Mandarin Chinese-English Bilingual Visual Dictionary provide a quick and intuitive route to learning a language, defining the words visually so it is easier to remember them and creating a colorful and stimulating learning resource for the foreign-language and EFL/ESL student.

    My name is Little Green, my country Zhong Guo, the Middle Kingdom. When I was ten years old, our leader had died and the revolution ended. And this is how I remember it. When Chun Yu was born in a small city in China, she was born into a country in revolution. The streets were filled with roaming Red Guards, the walls were covered with slogans, and reeducation meetings were held in all workplaces. Every family faced danger and humiliation, even the youngest children. Shortly after Chun's birth, her beloved father was sent to a peasant village in the countryside to be reeducated in the ways of Chairman Mao. Chun and her brother stayed behind with their mother, who taught in a country middle school where Mao's Little Red Book was a part of every child's education. Chun Yu's young life was witness to a country in turmoil, struggle, and revolution -- the only life she knew. This first-person memoir of a child's view of the Chinese Cultural Revolution is a stunning account of a country in crisis and a testimony to the spirit of the individual -- no matter how young or how innocent.

    China Star begins in 1920s Paris, where Shanghai Station the 's Russian count, Alexander Karlov, and Viktor Polyak, the Soviet agent who killed Karlov's parents and abducted his twin sister Katerina, hunt each other through grand hotels, sewers, fashion houses, and embassy parties. Soon after, Katerina sets sail with Alexander for China on the China Star.

    For the U. S. Navy, that meant restricted budgets — and the Asiatic Fleet, on the far side of the world out of sight of the Navy’s commanders and the American public, was at the bottom of the list for the Navy’s limited resources. Bobby MacPherson, Seaman 2nd Class, only seventeen years old and freshly graduated from radio operator school, was naively excited by his assignment to the submarine S-37 stationed with the Asiatic Fleet. The exotic places providing bases for the American Navy — Manila, Shanghai, Tsingtao — and their strange cultures, histories and people engaged his driving curiosity and sharp mind. He was very different from most of the “China hands,” the long time sailors of the Asiatic fleet, who spent their time drinking and chasing the countless prostitutes that populated the port cities of the Philippines and China. His outstanding athletic ability and his earnest integrity made him popular with his crewmates and officers despite his differences. All of those qualities drew Bobby into a dangerous and malicious plot against the American forces in Asia; a plot involving nearly all of the competing powers in China — General Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists, Mao Tse-tung’s Communists, the Imperial Japanese military occupiers of China, warlords and ancient, powerful families who considered themselves the true rulers of China. CHINA HAND is a never before published novel by best-selling author Harry Homewood. Like his previous, hugely popular novels FINAL HARBOR and SILENT SEA, CHINA HAND is based on his real life experience — in this case his service in an S-Class submarine in the Asiatic Fleet in the years before World War II. It is intensely authentic. Harry Homewood was a qualified submariner before he was seventeen years old, having lied to the Navy about his age, and serving in a little "S"-boat in the old Asiatic Fleet. After Pearl Harbor he reenlisted and made eleven war patrols in the Southwest Pacific. He later became Chicago Bureau Chief for Newsweek, chief editorial writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, and for eleven years had his own weekly news program syndicated to thirty-two PBS television stations.

    Despite the fact that China continues to transform itself, Wong discovers that nothing really changes, and what she wrote then about love, work and living still holds, as do the conflicts over who rules, who survives, and who gets the bigger slice of Peking Duck. With wry humour and behind-the-scenes detail, Wong incorporates a selection of her articles published in The Globe and Mail into a richly narrated journalistic adventure.Jan Wong's first book, Red China Blues, was named one of Time magazine's top ten books of 1996 and remains banned in China.

    Introduced by Michael Palin, OxTravels features original stories from twenty-five top travel writers, including Michael Palin, Paul Theroux, Sara Wheeler, William Dalrymple, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Lloyd Jones, Rory Stewart, Jan Morris, Dervla Murphy, Rory MacLean, and others. Each of the stories takes as its theme a meeting - life-changing, affecting, amusing by turn - and together they transport readers into a brilliant, vivid atlas of encounters.This extraordinary collection is published in aid of Oxfam and all royalties from the book will support Oxfam's work.

    The race included only five cars and their crews who wrote their agreed code of conduct on the back of a menu the night before the start. The only navigational aids were the sun and telegraph poles. Ninety years later, the race ran again.Rosie Thomas and her companion, Phil Bowen a thirty-year old climber, pearl-diver, charter-boat skipper and photographer were two of those daring enough to go for the challenge. On 6 September 1997, an assembly 110 vintage cars gathered in Peking, with the finish line in Paris lying 45 days and 16,000 kilometres ahead halfway across the world. The excitement of the daily time challenge, the strange camaraderie, the test of sleeping outdoors, in flea-pit hotels, in foreign lands, is more than matched by Rosie's own internal journey, including a near death experience at the top of the Himalayas.

    Our beginners guide contains all the essential information you need in order to succeed. It covers the basic techniques, well illustrated with over a hundred images, and explains everything you need to know in an understandable way. Bonsai Empire is the world's most visited Bonsai website and has provided beginners with quality information for over a decade. We have developed this guide to help you get a taste of this fascinating and living art, and hope you'll enjoy it as much as we do! This book includes: - Over 100 stunning images - Over 80 pages - Explanations of the basic techniques - Care guides on the 10 most popular tree species - Background on the history, definition and styles Walter Pall: "Now here is the ultimate book to lead beginners. I am happy to have been able to contribute to this" Mauro Stemberger "Very clear" and "With great quality drawings and pics"

    In Full Circle, Palin and a film crew go on a year-long adventure visiting 18 countries along the Pacific Rim. The film was eventually made into a 10-part PBS series, to which this book serves as a companion. Not for nothing is this part of the world called the "Ring of Fire"; volcanoes punctuate the landscape, and Palin even climbs one still smoking from a recent eruption. But the difficult landscape is only one challenge in this at times hair-raising, at times hilarious, always fascinating journey around the world's largest ocean. In the Philippines, Palin witnesses "psychic surgery": on the Urubamba River, Palin simultaneously clings for his life to a dugout canoe as he shoots the rapids and keeps up with England's progress in the World Cup via shortwave radio. Whether he's visiting a Gulag camp in Siberia or chowing down on maggots in Mexico, Palin meets the challenges of rough travel with grace, courage, and more than a little humor. Full Circle is fun to read, includes many color photographs from Palin's adventures, and makes a terrific addition to the armchair traveler's bookshelf.

    TheCult of the Luxury Brand illuminates the mysterious inner workings of Asia’s love affair with luxury for business professionals and intrigued consumers alike.

    Tina yearns for this new setting to bring her the zen-like inner peace she's always heard about on infomercials. Instead, she becomes a totally exasperated fish out of water, doing wacky things like stealing the shoes of a shifty delivery man, spraying local women with a bidet hose, and contemplating the murder of her new pet cricket.It takes the friendship of an elderly tai chi instructor, a hot Mandarin tutor, and several mah-jongg-tile-slinging expats to bring Tina closer to a culture she doesn't understand, the dream job she never knew existed, and the self she has always sought. Fish Heads and Duck Skin will resonate with anyone who has ever wondered who they are, why they were put here, and how they ever lived before eating pan-fried pork buns.