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The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed
A fascinating, intimate portrait of Beijing through the lens of its oldest neighborhood, facing destruction as the city, and China, relentlessly modernizes. Soon we will be able to say about old Beijing that what emperors, warlords, Japanese invaders, and Communist planners couldn’t eradicate, the market economy has. Nobody has been more aware of this than Michael Meyer. A long-time resident, Meyer has, for the past two years, lived as no other Westerner—in a shared courtyard home in Beijing’s oldest neighborhood, Dazhalan, on one of its famed hutong (lanes). There he volunteers to teach English at the local grade school and immerses himself in the community, recording with affection the life stories of the Widow, who shares his courtyard; coteacher Miss Zhu and student Little Liu; and the migrants Recycler Wang and Soldier Liu; among the many others who, despite great differences in age and profession, make up the fabric of this unique neighborhood. Their bond is rapidly being torn, however, by forced evictions as century-old houses and ways of life are increasingly destroyed to make way for shopping malls, the capital’s first Wal-Mart, high-rise buildings, and widened streets for cars replacing bicycles. Beijing has gone through this cycle many times, as Meyer reveals, but never with the kind of dislocation and overturning of its storied culture now occurring as the city prepares to host the 2008 Summer Olympics. Weaving historical vignettes of Beijing and China over a thousand years through his narrative, Meyer captures the city’s deep past as he illuminates its present. With the kind of insight only someone on the inside can provide, The Last Days of Old Beijing brings this moment and the ebb and flow of daily lives on the other side of the planet into shining focus. .
Price: $14.48
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Beijing and Shanghai (Eyewitness Travel Guides)
These two fascinating cities reflect different aspects of China - Beijing is the traditional capital, the seat of political power and home to the ancient monuments of Imperial China; Shanghai is both a financial powerhouse and a city at the cutting edge of fashion with an interesting modern history. This DK Eyewitness Travel Guide provides in-depth coverage of these cities, including Beijing's Great Wall and Forbidden City, Shanghai's Bund and the French Concession, as well as the water towns of Suzhou and Hangzhou, graced with serene and timeless gardens and lakes. Explore China's cultural heritage through richly illustrated features - on everything from Beijing Opera to Confucianism, Chinese Gardens and the Cultural Revolution. Illustrated food features highlight the differing regional cuisines, and resident China experts have provided detailed listings of the best places to stay and eat. Specially devised walking tours take you easily to the heart of these bustling, enigmatic and ultimately bewitching cities..
Price: $9.99
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The Interior: A Red Princess Mystery (Red Princess Mysteries)
“See paints a fascinating portrait of a complex and enigmatic society, in which nothing is ever quite as it appears, and of the people, peasant and aristocrat alike, who are bound by its subtle strictures.” –San Diego Union-TribuneWhile David Stark is asked to open a law office in Beijing, his lover, detective Liu Hulan, receives an urgent message from an old friend imploring her to investigate the suspicious death of her daughter, who worked for a toy company about to be sold to David’s new client, Tartan Enterprises. Despite David’s protests, Hulan goes undercover at the toy factory in the rural village of Da Shui, deep in the heart of China. It is a place that forces Hulan to face a past she has long been running from. Once there, rather than finding answers to the girl’s death, Hulan unearths more questions, all of which point to possible crimes committed by David’s client. Suddenly Hulan and David find themselves on opposing sides: One of them is trying to expose a company and unearth a killer, while the other is ethically bound to protect his client. As pressures mount and danger increases, Hulan and David uncover universal truths about good and evil, right and wrong–and the sometimes subtle lines that distinguish them. “[See] illuminates tradition and change, Western and Eastern cultural differences. . . . All this in the middle of her thriller which is also about greed, corruption, abuse of the disadvantaged, the desperation of those on the bottom of the food chain, and love.” –The Tennessean
“Sophisticated . . . graceful . . . See’s picture of contemporary China’s relationship with the United States is aptly played out through her characters.” – Los Angeles Times“Immediate, haunting and exquisitely rendered.” –San Francisco Chronicle.
Price: $7.98
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Flower Net: A Red Princess Mystery (Red Princess Mysteries)
“Lisa See begins to do for Beijing what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did for turn-of-the-century London or Dashiell Hammett did for 1920s San Francisco: She discerns the hidden city lurking beneath the public facade.” –The Washington Post Book WorldIn the depths of a Beijing winter, during the waning days of Deng Xiaoping’s reign, the U.S. ambassador’s son is found dead–his body entombed in a frozen lake. Around the same time, aboard a ship adrift off the coast of Southern California, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Stark makes a startling discovery: the corpse of a Red Prince, a scion of China’s political elite. The Chinese and American governments suspect that the deaths are connected and, in an unprecedented move, they join forces to see justice done. In Beijing, David teams up with the unorthodox police detective Liu Hulan. In an investigation that brings them to every corner of China and sparks an intense attraction between the two, David and Hulan discover a web linking human trafficking to the drug trade to governmental treachery–a web reaching from the Forbidden City to the heart of Los Angeles and, like the wide flower net used by Chinese fishermen, threatening to ensnare all within its reach. “A graceful rendering of two different and complex cultures, within a highly intricate plot . . . The starkly beautiful landscapes of Beijing and its surrounding countryside are depicted with a lyrical precision.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review“Murder and intrigue splash across the canvas of modern Chinese life. . . . A vivid portrait of a vast Communist nation in the painful throes of a sea change.” –People“Fascinating . . . that rare thriller that enlightens as well as it entertains.” –San Diego Union-TribuneA Finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK.
Price: $8.35
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Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing, and the New Geopolitics
Few relationships have been as misunderstood as the "strategic partnership" between Russia and China. Official rhetoric portrays it as the very model of international cooperation: Moscow and Beijing claim that ties are closer and warmer than at any time in history. In reality, however, the picture is highly ambiguous. While both sides are committed to multifaceted engagement, cooperation is complicated by historical suspicions, cultural prejudices, geopolitical rivalries, and competing priorities. For Russia, China is at once the focus of a genuine convergence of interests and the greatest long-term threat to its national security. For China, Russia is a key supplier of energy and weapons, but is frequently dismissed as a self-important power whose rhetoric far outstrips its real influence."Axis of Convenience" cuts through the mythmaking and examines the Sino-Russian partnership on its own merits. It steers between the overblown interpretation of an anti-Western (particularly, anti American) alliance and the complacent assumption that past animosities and competing agendas must always divide the two nations. Their relationship reflects a new geopolitics, one that eschews formal alliances in favour of more flexible and opportunistic arrangements. Ultimately, it is an axis of convenience driven by cold-eyed perceptions of the national interest. In evaluating the current state and future prospects of the relationship, Bobo Lo assesses its impact on the evolving strategic environments in Central and East Asia. He also analyzes the global implications of rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing, focusing in particular on the geopolitics of energy and Russia-China-U.S. triangularism..
Price: $20.66
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Beijing Coma: A Novel
Dai Wei has been unconscious for almost a decade. A medical student and a pro-democracy protestor in Tiananmen Square in June 1989, he was struck by a soldier’s bullet and fell into a deep coma. As soon as the hospital authorities discovered that he had been an activist, his mother was forced to take him home. She allowed pharmacists access to his body and sold his urine and his left kidney to fund special treatment from Master Yao, a member of the outlawed Falun Gong sect. But during a government crackdown, the Master was arrested, and Dai Wai’s mother—who had fallen in love with him—lost her mind. As the millennium draws near, a sparrow flies through the window and lands on Dai Wei’s naked chest, a sign that he must emerge from his coma. But China has also undergone a massive transformation while Dai Wei lay unconscious. As he prepares to take leave of his old metal bed, Dai Wei realizes that the rich, imaginative world afforded to him as a coma patient is a startling contrast with the death-in-life of the world outside. At once a powerful allegory of a rising China, racked by contradictions, and a seminal examination of the Tiananmen Square protests, Beijing Coma is Ma Jian’s masterpiece. Spiked with dark wit, poetic beauty, and deep rage, this extraordinary novel confirms his place as one of the world’s most significant living writers. .
Price: $13.74
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Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century
An authoritative exploration of China's emergence as the most dynamic center of economic and commercial expansion in the world today.In the late eighteenth century, the political economist Adam Smith predicted an eventual equalization of power between the conquering West and the conquered non-West. In this magisterial new work, Giovanni Arrighi shows how China's extraordinary rise invites us to read The Wealth of Nations in a radically different way than is usually done. He examines how the recent US attempt to bring into existence the first truly global empire in world history was conceived in order to counter China's spectacular economic success of the 1990s, and how the US's disastrous failure in Iraq has made the People's Republic of China the true winner of the US War on Terror. In the 21st century, China may well become again the kind of non-capitalist market economy that Smith described, under totally different domestic and world-historical conditions..
Price: $21.94
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Beijing (City Guide)
Ever wonder what Peking duck tastes like on its home turf? Always wanted to climb the Great Wall? Or perhaps you'd like something a little more obscure A ride around town in Madame Mao's old Red Flag stretch limousine, perhaps? Whatever tickles you, one thing's for sure: Beijing is one impressive city. This up-to-the-minute guidebook uncovers all the marvellous secrets - and makes sure you have a great time. Pull-Out Sheet Map in Chinese and English Beijing Resident Author - over 500 places visited and reviewed; dozens of new bars and restaurants added Language Help - all places listed in Chinese and English for easy navigation Ancient Beijing Explored in walking and cycling tours through the hutongOlympics Coverage shows off the city's remarkable transformation .
Price: $7.74
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Insider's Guide to Beijing 2008
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..
Price: $15.00
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The Eye of Jade: A Mei Wang Mystery (Mei Wang Mysteries)
"Having her own detective agency would give her
the independence she had always longed for. It
would also give her the chance to show those people
who shunned her that she could be successful. People
were getting rich. They owned property, money,
business, and cars. With new freedom and opportunities
came new crimes. There would be much that
she could do."
Present day, Beijing. Mei Wang is a modern, independent woman. She has her own apartment. She owns a car. She has her own business with that most modern of commodities -- a male secretary. Her short career with China's prestigious Ministry for Public Security has given her intimate insight into the complicated and arbitrary world of Beijing's law enforcement. But it is her intuition, curiosity, and her uncanny knack for listening to things said -- and unsaid -- that make Mei Beijing's first successful female private investigator. Mei is no stranger to the dark side of China. She was six years old when she last saw her father behind the wire fence of one of Mao's remote labor camps. Perhaps as a result, Mei eschews the power plays and cultural mores -- guanxi -- her sister and mother live by...for better and for worse. Mei's family friend "Uncle" Chen hires her to find a Han dynasty jade of great value: he believes the piece was looted from the Luoyang Museum during the Cultural Revolution -- when the Red Guards swarmed the streets, destroying so many traces of the past -- and that it's currently for sale on the black market. The hunt for the eye of jade leads Mei through banquet halls and back alleys, seedy gambling dens and cheap noodle bars near the Forbidden City. Given the jade's provenance and its journey, Mei knows to treat the investigation as a most delicate matter; she cannot know, however, that this case will force her to delve not only into China's brutal history, but also into her family's dark secrets and into her own tragic separation from the man she loved in equal parts. The first novel in an exhilarating new detective series, The Eye of Jade is both a thrilling mystery and a sensual and fascinating journey through modern China..
Price: $3.95
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