Asia Books

This book is amazing. The writer takes a complex subject and makes it understandable and enjoyable. I found the links between cultures and tradtions to be fascinating--especially the geographic and plant connections between China and Appalachia. I can't wait for David's next book.

Great book, full of colorful characters and interesting stories and facts. The author obviously enjoyed talking with all these people (diggers and traders, herbalists and doctors, smugglers and park rangers and many more) and I really enjoyed reading about them and about ginseng. Fascinating book and plant. I need to go plant me some!

Let's see, what do I know about ginseng? It's a supposed herbal panacea, from China (or was that Korea?). It began invading New Age consciousness and health food stores around the time of Woodstock. It has quite a nasty, bitter taste. Oh, and didn't some clever American farmers recently start growing ginseng and selling it back to the Chinese? Clearly what I knew was not a lot, and after reading Ginseng, the Divine Root, I realized half of that was completely wrong. Two facts underpin David A. Taylor's fascinating book: ginseng has been growing in North America for 70 million years; and North Americans have been selling ginseng to the Chinese for almost 300 years.

Treasured by Chinese as a tonic for thousands of years, ginseng had been pushed towards extinction in China when half way around the globe a Jesuit missionary made a fortuitous discovery. In Quebec Joseph-François Lafitau was ministering to Mohawk converts, but in that great theology/science duality so characteristic of his order, he was also intently studying the Iroquois. While there he happened on an article by a fellow French missionary who had travelled extensively in China. Lafitau was intrigued. The article described ginseng, its use and value in Chinese medicine. He then, rather remarkably, set out to see if he could find the plant locally. In 1716 after only three months of searching, Lafitau with the help of the Mohawk, had identified Panax quinquefolium, American ginseng, virtually identical to Asian ginseng. The root had long been used medicinally by the Mohawk and other Native Americans but never with the same passion as the Chinese.

So began a rush for 'forest gold' as thousands in Canada combed the woodlands for wild roots, all destined for a lucrative market on the far edges of the Pacific Ocean. As ginseng fever spread, even Daniel Boone was later involved in the trade down in West Virginia. Ginseng, writes the author, became the United States' first major export to China.

Taylor weaves together the many threads of the ginseng story, a tale that straddles two continents with vastly contrasting cultures. This is reflected, in the differing ways ginseng is valued and used in each. "In Chinese medicine," writes the author, "it's an all-purpose tonic, often blended with more toxic herbs to mellow their effects. In Western medicine it's gaining converts for relieving severe fatigue."

The book reads like an adventure as Taylor follows the American ginseng trail throughout one season, meeting farmers, traders, and various experts, even joining a ranger on a night stakeout in a national park trying to nab poachers of wild ginseng. The story is perhaps most interesting when Taylor joins diggers in the 'hunt' for the root in Appalachia. Wild ginseng is such an idiosyncratic plant that the search for it is considered more akin to hunting - it can, for instance remain dormant underground for several years, waiting for the right conditions before sending up a new shoot. Some diggers claim the plant can camouflage itself or even move! What is more certain is that its relative scarcity these days only adds to the challenge of finding it, and no doubt, to its market value.

It was not until the Seventies, more than 250 years after Lafitau identified the plant that ginseng started to become widely known in the United States. Now Americans spend more than $100 million annually on products listing it as an ingredient.

There are three types of ginseng (in descending order of value): wild, wild simulated, and cultivated. Such is the value of ginseng that 'ginsengers' protect their plants like gold prospectors defend a claim. Even cultivated ginseng, the most common form, is difficult to work with and requires six to eight years to reach the size desired by Asian markets. Wisconsin-grown ginseng is now considered the world's best, and fetches a correspondingly high price. Wisconsin is also the leading exporter.

As quickly as the newer markets for ginseng are growing, China will likely remain the primary market, and not just because of China's huge population and expanding economy. In the West, for every ginseng buff there is a cynic, and five others who couldn't care less. In China by contrast, so strong is the underlying traditional belief in the restorative powers of ginseng. that just about everyone is at least an occasional user.

The book is aimed at the general reader, but industry types might also learn a thing or two given the secretive nature of the business Taylor describes. Readers who are not utter ginseng devotees might find the middle section of Ginseng a little slow, but most of us will be swept through anyway by Taylor's enthusiasm. One chapter though, Served by the Finest Chefs, focusing on ginseng and food, somewhat misses its mark because the central figure, celebrity chef Ming Tsai unlike the other major characters in the book, is not strongly connected to ginseng, at least professionally. He does not cook with the root in his own restaurant, and is surprisingly, unaware of American ginseng.

Taylor winds up this highly engrossing trawl through the history and business of ginseng in Hong Kong and China, meeting with ginseng merchants and visiting specialist markets. We learn, somewhat fittingly for the times, that in China both Asian and American ginseng is now cultivated using modern American methods. That is good news for consumers, but the lasting allure of 'forest gold' has placed the wild root under threat in America, as well as China.

This is a great book for children, with a wealth of information about ancient Chinese culture and history. It is probably most appropriate for children between 8 and 13. Younger children would need to be strong readers or could enjoy this book by reading and doing the activites together with a parent - a great way to absorb the contents of this book for parent and child alike! Weinberg's illustrations are essential to the playful nature of each chapter. Each chapter focuses on an aspect, invention, tradition, or object from Chinese history, and each includes side bars and boxes of "words to know" and an explanation of relevant Chinese characters. The book has a lot of text but is also very visual - making for a deceptively rich presentation. I believe a strength of this book is that it does not simplify things to the point of talking down to the child reader. The activities provide just enough information to spark a child's imagination and don't squeeze out all the fun by providing step-by-step "must be done this way," cookbook directions (except for the recipes, of course). That said, there are a couple of activities where an additional illustration or two would have helped, but this is a minor criticism. I imagine that most children will finish this book having gained a useful body of knowledge about Chinese culture and a heightened curiosity for more.

I had a lot of fun playing around with these projects and I'm way too old to be a kid. They're clearly described, simple to do, historically interesting, and they're just plain fun. A great way to get kids interested in the history of one of the world's most important countries, while still letting them make a mess and have fun. It's just the kind of book to pull out on a rainy Saturday.

An engrossing read for children and young people. The integrated hands-on projects offer the young reader the chance to experience the excitement of technical and scientific discovery.

David Ehrlich, Professor of Film and Media Studies, Dartmouth College

This is the best one-volume book on the market at this time. It has very good illustrations and good species accounts that include excellent range maps. It is the only book of one volume that covers all the birds of the Indian subcontinent with this quality of illustration. The range maps are very good and there is an adequate amount of information about each bird. It's too heavy to take into the field on your trip to India, but it is an excellent reference.

Simply the best available guide to the birds of the Indian Subcontinent. Subcontinental birders have long awaited a comphrehensive guide to the birds of this region.

No other guide comes close in quality of drawings, text and range maps. Though too large and heavy to be called a field guide. It is still brought on trips to be reviewed after a day in the field.

We eagerly await the publication of this book as a true 'field guide'- that will be useable in the field.

Ali and Ripley's masterwork cannot be touched in terms of the completeness of individual descriptions, but this volume is amazing in that it draws together all the subcontinent's spp. into one book. Even so, the tome is too heavy to carry to the field. The taxonomy is updated, as is the species list. The colour illustrations are of a very high quality; my quibble is that the individual species are too small to be very useful. The maps are miniscule and that limits their utility; the use of two colours would have helped under the circumstances. Otherwise, this book is a long-awaited treasure.

This may be the best guide book I have ever used. I think I should write Kerry Moran a fan letter for helping me to have an amazing and wonderful time on my six-week trip to Nepal without always feeling like a clueless tourist. This guide is so well written and interesting that I read it cover to cover during the trip-- even the sections about places we weren't planning to go. The cultural descriptions are informative and sensitively written, but not unrealistically rose-colored. The guides to towns and trekking routes give you an accurate and practical idea of what to expect when you get there without being overdetailed or bossy about telling you what do. The Nepali vocabulary and grammar in the appendix really came in handy and Nepalis, even when they could speak English, seemed genuinely pleased that I was trying to speak Nepali. The maps are not especially good, but then even with maps you would still have to ask directions. This is a great guide for anyone whose itenerary is not set in stone and who wants to get some genuine insight into Nepali culture.

This may be the best guidebook I've ever used-- I read it cover to cover during my trip, and feel like I ought to write Kerry Moran a fan letter. The advice and information in this book helped me to have an amazing and wonderful experience Nepal without always feeling like a clueless tourist. The descriptions of Nepali culture and customs are sensitively written and indespensible for a mystified first time visitor. The guides for trekking routes and towns are right on the mark but not overdetailed, so you get an accurate idea what to expect without being told exactly what to do. The Nepali vocabulary and grammar in the appendix were very handy and I really had fun trying to speak the language. This book does not have good maps, but I was able to get pretty good maps in Nepal.

Being a traveller who usually swears by Lonely Planet guides, I have to admit that when it came down to taking one or the other, the Lonely Planet book stayed at home and this one made it into my backpack. It's just plain good. I will be sure to check out other Moon Guides in the future. Their series might soon be alongside my LP and Footprint Guide collections.

This book can provide plenty of help and guide for anyone traveling to Pakistan, foreigners in particular (she mentioned a few things in Lahore, my hometown, which even I did not know). I picked the book from my father's bookshelf to kill my time and ended up reading all of it. She explains most things about the local culture extremely well, without the usual negative tone that most other authors unconsciously get into (no offence for anyone please).

For me if a book gives you the information that you need and makes you read more than what you initially planned, is a five star, so is this one!

We visited North Pakistan, looking at the archaeology, and this guidebook was excellent- it covered virtually everything.
We ordered it from London, and it arrived very promptly - and cheaper than the price quoted by amazon.co.uk!

My journey home to Pakistan started a little over five years ago when I married a Pakistani national who had immigrated to the United States in the early nineties. The decision to visit my family back home in Lahore City was one that took nearly five years to make. After securing my flight at the height of the summer travel season and I might add the hottest time of year in that part of the Indian subcontinent I desparately sought out the most comprehensive travel guide I could find. Isobel Shaw's book is informative and a godsend to a novice traveller to the Indian subcontinent such as my self. From her descriptions of famous landmarks to the locations of hotels and hospices she gives an accurate account of what to expect. The index of Urdu phrases came in handy on several occasions as I do not speak or read the language and was often dependent on my husband's translating capability. The maps and descriptions of the different regions allowed us to the luxury of travelling to areas of Pakistan I might never have seen otherwise. My only regret is that we were unable to see more of Kashmir than the border checkpoint. Due to my blonde hair and western features the border guards were relunctant to let us in. Perhaps next time I shall be allowed to travel in that region. I would not hesitate to recommend Ms. Shaw's guidebook to anyone travelling in Pakistan. It is an informative and enjoyable book on the people and the country of Pakistan.

I found this book a few years ago during a port call in Singapore. I have never laughed out loud so many times while reading. Having spent many years in Asia while in the military, I find the stories to be relevent and (probably) truthful (I guess). Even if they're all pure BS, they never fail to amuse!

Having spent 35 years living abroad, and 17 of them in SE Asia, I sincerely appreciate the views and opinions expressed by the author. I recognize many of his anecdotes as being truthful, but think they were toned down too much. Asia is more alive than anyone would expect.

Gut-busting laughter of expats writing of their "hardships" in Asia. Stories so crazy they have to be true. Or at least should be true.

Colonel Ken takes you on a humorous joyride through the unberbelly of globalization. This is the book I wish I had written.

Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn met in Spain as they were covering the Spanish Civil War. They were married in 1940. In 1941 they accepted a mission at the request of the US Government to make a trip to China. They also agreed to write articles for various magazines on their trip.

The Government official largely responsible for getting them to make this trip was Harry Dexter White, later identified as a Soviet agent. It is interesting in that Hemingway was visiting an area where the Chinese Communists were trying to take over the country.

It was a rough trip. This was the time of the Japanese invasion of China, it was the time of Mao Tse-Tung and Chiang Kai-Shek. It was not the time or place to take a pleasure trip. This was also well past Hemingway's prime writing period as he was declining into depression and alcoholism.

It was a hard trip on their marriage, and by the end of the trip the marriage was basically over althouch Martha Gellhorn held on for another few years before divorcing him (the only one of his wives to leave him).

This is a well written, well researched book that covers a little known incident in World War II history.

This is a surprisingly good book. Peter Moriera apparently has no other books to his credit, nor is a literary scholar, yet nevertheless delivers a smooth brisk text that is fact-filled. It is carefully documented with honest, substantive footnotes that demonstrate original research. It is also just a good straight piece of storytelling about a fascinating adventure at an important juncture of modern history: while Hitler was attacking Britain, Japan was conquering the East, but before America was involved in either front.

This would be a great reading experience whoever was at the center of it, but the writing team of Hemingway and Gellhorn offers the opportunity for drama and shrewd but carefully fair character study. Indeed all the principals including their Chinese interpreters, state department figures, Hemingway's drinking pals, Generalissimo and Mrs. Chiang Kai-Shek, Chou En-lai, are presented in fair, balanced, and fully rounded portaiture. The depiction of Hemingway and Gellhorn is a miracle of balance and fairness. The book does not take sides or have any agenda. It presents the strengths of each from an informed and sympathetic perspective, their respective flaws with realism and wry detatchment. Truth be told, by focusing on a fixed episode of Hemingway's life late 1940 through 41, Moreira is able to deliver one of the best portraits in life of Hemingway to date, superior indeed to many first person accounts. To those who may not have known Gellhorn's work as well, a reading of this book will only leave you wanting to see more.

Finally, the subject matter is not just a lark like an Indiana Jones adventure. Moreira illustrates how the two writers were subtly enlisted on behalf of the Roosevelt administration both to get over and "spy" undercover as reporters, but also to deliver something of its message afterwards. How both Hemingway and Gellhorn managed to do that as each, in their own way, preserved a degree of integrity and truth-telling is the real underside of the iceberg here awainting discovery.

In a short book about a few months in the lives of Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn, Canadian journalist Peter Moreira has managed to give us a portrait of the two writers as they really were. Hemingway on the China Front shows us the pair at their journalistic peaks and valleys, their relationship at its most romantic and as it starts to disintegrate, and two individuals coping gracefully and not so gracefully under trying circumstances.

Let's get this "spy" business out of the way. It's a good title and it may capture a few readers who'll think "I didn't know Hemingway was a spy!" Hemingway and Gellhorn were going to Asia (China, Burma, Hong Kong, the Dutch East Indies) as journalists. It was no secret that they would be digging for information. They were both well-known war reporters, and would therefore be looking for war-related intelligence. Even if they hadn't already been famous, they would have stuck out in Asia like sore thumbs, Hemingway for his height and Gellhorn for being blond. Any undercover work was out of the question. Hemingway was asked by the U.S. Treasury Department to check of the transportation situation in China, to gauge how the money the U.S. was sending China was being spent. Gellhorn was a friend of the Roosevelts and was a regular White House visitor. While there's no evidence that she too was asked to check up on the Chinese, she could be expected to be debriefed when she returned to the States.

Moreira tells a quick-paced story of two young and glamorous war reporters on a trip to exotic lands while the war is getting underway. They were newlyweds as well, although they'd been together for several years. While they jokingly referred to the trip as their honeymoon, the only parts of the trip that might have qualifed were the initial stop in Hawaii and their stay in Hong Kong. The rest of the trip reads like an endurance test. The conditions in China were filthy and crowded. It was a huge dose of culture shock for the pair, and they handled it in different ways. Hemingway stayed drunk as much as possible. Gellhorn was learning that living with an alcoholic could be exhilarating at its best and unbearable at its worst. Even after they broke up and she refused for the most part to talk or write of him, she admitted that the best times of her life were with Hemingway. And the worst.

Moreira explains clearly the political situation in China and we're able to appreciate the dilemma that the writers faced in trying to support the U.S. allies represented by Chiang Kai-Shek and Chou En-Lai, while not ignoring the repressive regimes they controlled. They weren't entirely successful.

Hemingway on the China Front, for all its attention to journalistic detail and scholarship, also has a large helping of entertaining stories. The two met some fascinating characters in Asia including Emily Hahn, several dashing American pilots, Chou En-Lai and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek. And Moreira re-tells some of the best stories from Gellhorn's Travels With Myself and Another. It's great to find a new take on the lives of two people who've been written about so thoroughly.

While this book is supposedly for children, it's a quick read that still has meaning for the inner child of we adults, as well. I love uncle Thich!

In The Hermit And The Well, Vietnamese Buddhist monk, poet, scholar, and human rights activist Thich Nhat Hanh has written a story of a young Vietnamese boy who climbs a mountain in the hope of meeting a famed hermit that lives there. What the boy finds is the secret of his own happiness. The ethnic artwork of Vo-Dinh Mai is a perfect complement to Hanh's marvelous tale showcasing the importance of slowing down and appreciating the beauty that is always around us -- if we would only see it.

This is a very lovely, charming book. Deceptively simple, yet ultimately quite deep. In that sense, it reminds me a bit of the famous serious of drawings of an ox and his master; this is the series that serve to remind us of the search for, and discovery of, ourselves -- wisdom -- whatever.

In this short book, a young boy and his school class learn that they are to visit a hermit -- the boy wanders away from the group, looking for the hermit. Whre he finally discovers the wise man is the point of the book. This is a very sweet book with excellent drawings. I highly recommend it.

As a history buff, I read a great deal about wars. I had read articles on the bombing but this book is full of actual victim's stories. Whether you agree with the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not really relavent. What is the important message here? Simply, man's inhumanity to man. It happens in all wars by all nations. Will we ever learn?

I bought this book while visiting Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima, in November 1998. Even if I had not been to this incredible place, this book alone would have affected me greatly. The accounts are brief and striking. My heart ached for the children, whether they were the Hibakusha (Bomb Survivors)telling the story as an adult, or whether they were describing a horrific scene involving these innocents. This isn't a dry historical account with scientific information and political overview. It is a recollection of activities, emotions, and devastation experienced by real people on and since August 6, 1945. I wish there were more books along this line, written as well as this one.

Hibakusha's age(the survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where is only city fell atomic bombs in the world) is getting to be older recently. Their age will be over 70 years old in many cases. At the same time, the young people in Japan who don't know about Genbaku in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at that time well is increasing. That will be uneasy truth for the mean that the fear of atomic bombs disappear. But when August comes in Japan, many Japanese remember about atomic bombs in H and N (Hiroshima and Nagasaki), why? Because the atomic bombs fell down in August 1945.

Even now, in Japan at August many TV programs are broadcasted. The deads were over 100000 in Hiroshima, 70000 in Nagasaki. People over 95% that lived inner 1km from the center where the bomb fell were killed immediately and some people that lived inner 2km had heavy skim burn in their all body. The fear of atomic bomb is not always only the number of the victim. The burn is never the same of the bomb victim in ordinary mean, that is, because when the atomic bombs exploded the temperature was over 3000, they had heavy skin burn over our imagination. In addition to that, their scars never disappeared till their death, called Keroido, for the heat ray made when the bomb exploded included radiation. Their radiation destroyed their skin cells. The burn never disappeared till their death. Off course, that meant that the burn was fatal mental point for young girls who spent fresh daily life in those days. Can you imagine about the girl's despair and agony that dared to choose the suicide killing for the cruel daily lifes after they injured heavy burn on all the body? I never have the thinking that I want to blame for American by explaining and expressing such cruel things. Certainly, the atomic bombs might be good choice for finishing WW2, however the weapon has dreadful factors over our imagination like I have written already.

If you have the chance that you go to Japan, I recommend going to Hiroshima at any cost, going to many Genbaku bomb memorial place, especially to Genbaku Peace Memorial Museum. Apart from the factor whether county have the responsibility of the war, by watching the cruel photograph or the clothes that they put on those days, you must feel a kind of shock absolutely, may feel a kind of the sympathy for them at that time, or may feel the anger for the war. And in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there is the event of Hibakutaiken Dan, the act that Hibakusya (the survivors of H and N) tell about the peace by talking the dreadful scenes to travelers. I recommend that you listen to their talk when you go to Hiroshima or Nagasaki. There are the talkers who can tell with easy English for them, too.

I pray that all the atomic weapons on earth disappeared as Japanese, the first and last atomic victim county.

Thank you for reading poor English till last sentence.

When John Knight's father accepts a magistrate's job in British-controlled India, John is sure that India is the most exciting place he has ever been! John and his mother meet Amy Carmichael, a missionary who works to save Indian girls from child marriage, or worse fates. When a young girl named Jewel comes to Miss Carmichael pleading for refuge, John and his mother become deeply involved in her life. As magistrate, John's father is forced to uphold the Indian law requiring Jewel to marry her greedy uncle. John is torn between obedience to his father and compassion for Jewel. What he decides to do affects many people. Don't miss out on this book!

We are two girls from fith grade.
When Johns father accepts to go to India for junior magistrate John and his mother know that their is a lot to explore.When they meet Miss.Carmichel she invites Johns mother to Dohnavur fellowship. Then they meet an Indian girl who her uncle is trying to arrange a child marriage for her. A few months later Miss Carmichel went to court to try to get custody of Jewel. Miss Carmichel was forced to let Jewel to go back to her uncle so she could get married. So John took Jewel to safety so she didn't have to get married. From then a man took her to China so she could be safe.
This book was awesome! We think it needs five stars for having excitement and action.

When John Knight's father accepts a magistrate's job in British-controlled India, John is sure that India is the most exciting place he has ever been! John and his mother meet Amy Carmichael, a missionary who works to save Indian girls from child marriage, or worse fates. When a young girl named Jewel comes to Miss Carmichael pleading for refuge, John and his mother become deeply involved in her life. As magistrate, John's father is forced to uphold the Indian law requiring Jewel to marry her greedy uncle. John is torn between obedience to his father and compassion for Jewel. What he decides to do affects many people. Don't miss out on this book!