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Invisible China
In this eloquent and eye-opening adventure narrative, Colin Legerton and Jacob Rawson, two Americans fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Korean, and Uyghur, throw away the guidebook and bring a hitherto unexplored side of China to light. They journey over 14,000 miles by bus and train to the farthest reaches of the country to meet the minority peoples who dwell there, talking to farmers in their fields, monks in their monasteries, fishermen on their skiffs, and herders on the steppe. In Invisible China, they engage in a heated discussion of human rights with Daur and Ewenki village cadres; celebrate Muhammad's birthday with aging Dongxiang hajjis who recount the government's razing of their mosque; attend mass with old Catholic Kinh fishermen at a church that has been forty years without a priest; hike around high-altitude Lugu Lake to farm with the matrilineal Mosuo women; and descend into a dry riverbed to hunt for jade with Muslim Uyghur merchants. As they uncover surprising facts about China's hidden minorities and their complex position in Chinese society, they discover the social ramifications of inconsistent government policies--and some deep human truths as well.
Journey to the Sacred
A restless graduate student of Chinese language discovers a rare old book about sacred mountains and embarks on an adventure that sees him scaling cliffs and tramping across alpine tundra to find and speak with monks, nuns, hermits, priests, and pilgrims across China. He discovers a ninety-year-old nun who has lived hidden among cliffs for half a century, meets one of the world’s last cave dwellers, and details a chance encounter with a dead body. Along the way, he deciphers cliff inscriptions and translates classical Chinese poems that help uncover the secrets of these ancient pilgrim trails. The journey continues to the author’s home in the Pacific Northwest, where he climbs a set of renowned American peaks where Beat-generation poets such as Jack Kerouac practiced Buddhism and studied Chinese poetry. Journey to the Sacred presents a lively adventure and a deeply personal exploration. Through his encounters with pilgrims and hermits on both continents, the author examines universal themes of isolation, vulnerability, loss, and triumph in the context of the long intimate relationship between people and mountains.
Beyond the Genre
What is the cultural value of travel writing today? How is the genre affected by instant communication and digital technologies? This volume provides answers to these questions through adopting a transmedial perspective by comparing printed travel books and travel blogs. Notably, it explores how different editorial and medial choices impact on the cultural practices of travelling and writing. Methodologically, an ethnography is proposed via the discussion of a number of original interviews (collected over three years) with contemporary travel authors and bloggers, who journeyed around (and wrote about) China. These writers are from both the West (the UK, the USA, Italy, France, New Zealand) ...
