A short review for my shamelessly indulgent armchair travelguide. I'm a devout sinophile, since my late teens, and this glossy book was gorgeous dessert reading.
The text details the journeys of 10 or so National Geographic writers across China - each through vastly different terrain, cultural settings and experiences. The writing was done in the mid '80's, as near as I can tell, and I know that a lot has changed in the intervening 25 years. "A lot" may be an understatement. Even the land has changed since then - especially on the Yangtze, where the Three Gorges dam was still a pipe dream. Photography styles have changed too: we exepect bright, colorful panoramas - "splendor" - in our current glossies. The photographic style of the day was more restrained, more attuned to the monochromatic. Maybe that's just a by-product of everyone wearing those navy-blue state-issue jerseys in the photos.
Nevertheless, it was a lovely trip. I'm not off to China anytime soon, but I can't wait... The writing is a healthy mix of history, geography and travel anecdote. Attention is paid to the political climate, despite protestations to the contrary in the introduction - I suspect this was required, as in the mid 1980's foreign journalists were apparently accompanied everywhere by state escorts. Ahh, China... A journey along the great wall... Voyaging up the grand canal... The train to Yunnan... Far Kashgar! I'll see it with my own eyes sometime. For now, we have National Geographic.
Grade: A-
Re-read? Yup.
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