Posted in two hippos make an island, tagged Asia, China, Hong Kong, travel on September 29, 2007| 3 Comments »
The first time you tell your traveling companion that you’ll be staying ‘at the Y in Hong Kong’, you’ll have to defend yourself against the assumption that you’ll be sleeping under a bench in a locker room that smells like someone’s sweat.
Believe me, this is not your father’s YMCA. (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged Asia, reseña, Thailand on August 30, 2007| Leave a Comment »
The authors of this compact Cambridge University Press history of Thailand deliver on their promise. This is a vintage CUP product: balanced, full of measured opinion, error-free in typography and layout, sweeping without shallowness.
There is not a better one-volume entrance to this fascinating but lesser-known South East Asian Country. (more…)
Posted in two hippos make an island, tagged Asia, China, travel on August 30, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Shanghai is not what one expects.
Miles upon miles of gleaming office towers and hotels overwhelm the visitor who has not been paying adequate attention. In fact, they serve as a metaphor for a China that is hurtling itself into the modern world at something like the 440 kilometer-per-hour pace of its famous magnetic levitation train (Maglev). (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged Asia, Korea, reseña on August 29, 2007| Leave a Comment »
W.E.B. Griffin’s novelistic account of the Korean Conflict in 1950 teaches even as it entertains. Douglas Macarthur—who is still revered as the hero his president wouldn’t listen to by many South Koreans—is primed for glory, but has to deny the massive Chinese presence that awaits his troops if he’s going to get there. (more…)
Canter Bridge 