Is this book more than just a treasure chest for those who are enthusiastic about China?

Matteo Ricci is a Jesuit priest from Italy. He arrives at the Portuguese outpost of Macao in the second half of the 16th century, determined to carry Christianity into China. The Jesuits would very much like to get..

Is this book still banned in China, and if so, can this decision be at all justified?

Liao Yiwu is a Chinese writer and political activist who takes interest in the lives of the less fortunate around him. He meets up with different kinds of people all over the country and interviews them. He talks to those who..

Is this book just about a physical feat, or is there something more meaningful to it?

In the mid-80s, Englishman William Lindesay is primarily a jogger who has a thing for maps. He sets his eye on the Great Wall of China and comes up with a plan to span the entire thing on foot. He would be the first foreigner to ever..

An instant classic about China?

US-citizen Peter Hessler works as a correspondent for The New Yorker in Beijing. He gets a driver’s license and drives a rental car along some parts of the Great Wall, he rents a house in a small village in the mountains East of Beijing, and he chronicles..

Why should young people from China read this today, more than one generation later?

In 1973, the People’s Republic of China is slowly starting to open up to „imperialists“ from the West. US-President Nixon and his aide Henry Kissinger have been warmly received, and now a select..

Are all defectors automatically liars, and which version of the truth do we choose to believe?

Some time in the 1950s, Li Zhisui gets a job in Beijing as Mao Zedong’s personal physician. Actually, it’s not so much about „getting“ a job, but more like he’s being assigned a position whether he wants it or..

Was this dude the most educated of all 19th-century explorers?

Albert von Le Coq is a German archaeologist and explorer who ventures into Central Asia, much like Sven Hedin or Nikolai Mikhaylovich Przhevalsky before him, in order to..

Is this an effort in soul searching or rather a classic work about China?

At the turn of the 20th century, Richard Wilhelm moves to China in order to take up a job as a missionary. During the next two and a half decades, he spends most of his time in Qingdao, a harbor city that was at that time..

If Fleming is a more gifted writer, then why is this Maillart’s book better than his?

I am going to rate this one slightly higher than Fleming’s account, even though he is clearly the superior..

Is this one of the great adventure stories of our time or rather just a huge editing fail?

Yu Chunshun is a regular dude from Shanghai. In 1988 he says goodbye to his family and starts walking all over China. The reason for this endeavor: it has come to his knowledge that an Englishman has announced the same plan. And Yu Chunshun, being a good patriot, wants..

Why is this book not just a perfect adventure story?

Régis Evariste Huc is a French missionary in China during the first half of the 19th century, during a time when many parts of the country are off-limits to foreigners and tensions between the British Empire and China are just about to..

Why is this book so tragic, and what is the author’s role in the history he helped create?

In 1936, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has just finished its Long March into northern China. Amidst increasing Japanese aggression, the Chinese civil war keeps dragging on, and the blockade policy of the Nationalist government doesn’t permit..

What does 1930s China look like through the eyes of a European socialist?

It is the year 1932, we are reaching the bitter end of the Weimar Republic, and Egon Erwin Kisch is a German-writing journalist from Prague who embarked on a fact-finding mission to China. He is widely known in Germany for being a..

What made this „Karate Kid“ type collection of stories turn into one of the 1980s classics on China?

Mark Salzman is an American university graduate who decides to move to the People’s Republic of China for two years. His plan is to teach English and pick up some Wushu skills right at the source. He ends up in Changsha, and, being one of the few..

Once we have finished this book, will we then know what being a fan-boy is all about?

Christian Y. Schmidt is a German journalist and satirist who, after having lived in China for two years, decides to embark on a journey: he starts out in Shanghai and follows highway 318 all the way to Katmandu. He is not very fluent in Chinese but..

Is this a coffeetable book or a regular travelogue, and is it worth a read?

At the beginning of the 1980s, during the early years of China’s opening and reform policy, aging English writer Stephen Spender decides to visit the Middle Kingdom. He takes two friends along, one of whom is a painter (co-author David Hockney). They start their tour from Hongkong, and they get to see Beijing, Xi’an, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Wuxi, Shanghai, Guilin and..

Is this an exciting adventure, or rather an expedition in coal?

In the mid-19th century, Ferdinand von Richthofen becomes one of the first Westerners to scientifically evaluate larger parts of China. He goes on several journeys through the country, and he seems to be always looking for..

What’s wrong with the diplomatic approach to writing about a foreign culture?

In the mid-70s, German diplomat Erwin Wickert gets transferred from Romania to China. He has been there before (as a tourist in the 1930s), and he seems excited about it. He stays in Beijing for 4 years, lives through..

Can a seasoned diplomat really be this naive, or is he just cleverly conning his readership?

Henry Kissinger, a diplomat working for the Nixon administration, gets dispatched to the People’s Republic of China in order to prepare for a rapprochement of the United States and the PRC. Over the next few decades, he..

Why is Polly Greeks‘ book so much better than that of Nathan Hoturoa Gray?

In 2001, Polly Greeks is working as a journalist in New Zealand. She does and interview with Nathan Hoturoa Gray (who at the time is trying to walk the length of the Great Wall), falls in love with him and..

Was this book meant for those interested in the history of Sino-European relations?

Today, George, Earl Of Macartney is most widely known for his role as the first official envoy of Britain to China. He arrived there in 1793, apparently refusing to kowtow before Emperor Qianlong, and when he tried to establish trade relations, he eventually failed..

Is China absurd, or does absurdity really reside in those who are always looking for the absurd?

Oliver Lutz Radtke is a German Sinologist – a scholar of Chinese culture. He has spent a considerable length of time in China, and now he’s here to tell us about it: Oliver Lutz Radtke on a plane with Chinese travelers, Oliver Lutz Radtke in language class, Oliver Lutz Radtke in a..

How could an awesome feat like this turn into such an uninspiring book?

In the early 1900s, right before the downfall of the Qing Empire, Edwin John Dingle is a British journalist who comes up with the idea to traverse China on foot. He lands in Shanghai, takes a ship to Chongqing, and starts walking..

What happens to a travel story when you get caught up in old books and theories?

Ding Haixiao is a twenty-something Chinese travel writer who embarks on a trip to the Chinese Northwest. He hitches rides most of the way, sometimes alone and sometimes together with different travel companions whom he either already knows or gets to know on the road. He seems to have a strong liking for anthropology and philosophy, and he is..

Did this guy just hate China or did he want to satirically show how much can you brown nose a dictator?

Rewi Alley has been a friend of Communist China for some decades, living comfortably (and rather overweight) in a special compound in Beijing, when in 1966 he embarks on several trips through the country. His aim: to document..