Our Favorite Books: China

This book presents a fascinating, eye-opening account of how modern China is being transformed by the flood of young women who have left the rural areas to find work in the thousands of factories that have sprung up along the southern coast.

Written in 1990, this autobiography tell the story of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet who fled into exile in 1959 when the Chinese invaded Tibet. Despite the many problems faced by Tibetans, the Dalai Lama projects hope and optimism for the future.

Thanks to this book, we arrived in China being able to read quite a few Chinese characters and words. It was very empowering! And we could also distinguish between the characters for the men’s and women’s restrooms (very important!).

This useful book has over 500 Chinese phrases that relate to a variety of circumstances, such as greeting someone, changing money at a bank, and asking for cough syrup at the pharmacy. Each phrase is accompanied by Chinese characters, as well as a Pinyin spelling and vowel symbols to help with pronunciation.

Traveling away from the beaten path, Stanley Steward makes his way across China, from Shanghai all the way to Pakistan. A true adventure story, full of insight, historical detail, and some wry humor.

In 1996, the author moved to a remote town in China as a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching English for two years at a small college. In this beautifully written account, he shares his experiences and insightful observations in a voice that is at times funny, but always unpretentious and thoroughly engaging. This was one of the first books that we read about modern China, and it fanned the flames for our ultimate journey there.

By telling the stories of a handful of modern-day Chinese citizens from very different backgrounds, Peter Hessler reveals how the massive transformations in China are affecting its people.

In this book, we follow the author around on various driving adventures in China, seeing through his eyes how the building of paved roads and big factories is changing the Chinese landscape and culture. While a bit disjointed in comparison with his earlier books (especially “River Town,” which we made us avid Peter Hessler fans), this book still delivers a keen perspective on modern life in China.

Traveling up the Yangtze River, the author addresses the importance of the river throughout China’s history, as well as how modern China is changing the river and the people who depend upon it.

We relied heavily on this book to plan our trip to China. The country is huge, and this book helped us plot a realistic route through six different regions. The book is organized by region, and the highlights section at the start of each chapter was invaluable in helping us identify, and then narrow down, our “must see” list of places.

Sometimes a picture is indeed worth a thousand words. We love the Eyewitness Travel Guides because they contain color photographs, maps, temple layouts and other images that are usually not found in other guidebooks. If you want inspiration about where to go in China, look through this book!

This is a wonderful guide, with many photos and maps of Beijing and Shanghai. We loved the “Two Guided Walks” sections for each city, with maps and detailed descriptions.

We bought this book because we initially planned on going to both Beijing and Shanghai, and it offers a great “10-day, 2 cities” plan of possible sights to see. We ended up substituting Hong Kong for Shanghai, but we still found a wealth of information in the Beijing section of the book.

With color photos galore, maps, instructions, and detailed descriptions and historical accounts, this book presents six different walking tours within Beijing: the Forbidden City, the Tiananmen Square area, Beihai Park, the Temple of Heaven, the Confucian Temple area, and the Summer Palace. This is the perfect book for the independent traveler.

This children’s book is a true treasure. It tells of one small boy who was brave enough to tell the truth, even though it was painful, and was rewarded beyond his dreams.

Rich in historical detail and beautiful photographs, we read this book to get a better understanding of the Terracotta Warriors before we traveled to China. The book is intended for older kids, but it’s good for adults too—and our young son enjoyed the photos.

Little Leap Forward is an 8-year old boy who lives in Beijing when the Cultural Revolution begins. We read this kid’s chapter book with our 7-year old son before we visited China, as a gentle introduction to the hardships and upheavals that the people suffered through during those tumultuous years.

Confucius was a revolutionary thinker who traveled through China about 500 B.C., spreading words of wisdom, such as, “Don’t worry when people fail to recognize your merits. Worry when you fail to recognize theirs.” This wonderful book provides details about the life and teachings of Confucius. Although intended for older children, it has enough substance to also appeal to adults.

This book provided our kids with a wonderful introduction to the Forbidden City. It presents a brief history of the palace city, with short chapters about some of the colorful residents, accompanied by many photographs. The contents and stories will capture the attention of adults, as well as older children.