1 comments about Forest Recollections: Wandering Monks in Twentieth-Century Thailand.

1. As a Westerner who has done a lot of meditation in Thailand over the last 18 years, I've been curious to know the history of meditation in Thailand. I've also wondered about the Tudong or wondering monks whom I've occasionally seen here. This book explains it all. It is also very inspirational for serious meditators and might even inspire people who are curious about meditation.

   As far as I can tell (having spent about a year in Thai monasteries), Kamala is right on the button in everything she writes. My only complaint about the book is that the footnotes are in the back instead of at the bottom of the page.

   This book should deserves a wide audience.

No comments about Sui Sin Far / Edith Maude Eaton: A LITERARY BIOGRAPHY (Asian American Experience).

No comments about Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter.

2 comments about The Great Voyages of Zheng He.

1. Over priced. Contains a few nice pictures, but very little information of any use. Don't buy.



2. This is an excellent children's book with wonderfully illustrated pictures. It is basic without much detailed information, but makes a great introduction to Admiral Zheng He. I am an Elementary school teacher and would use this book with grades 6 and up. It does have some difficult vocabulary, but the pictures more than make up for it!

No comments about All Under Heaven: The Story of a Chinese Family in South Africa.

5 comments about YAK BUTTER BLUES: A Tibetan Trek of Faith.

1. The world moves too fast these days to allow most travelogue books any success. A magazine article or a travel agent's poster is all it takes to send the travel-eager reader off to Luxor or Fez. The brilliant achievements of travel writers like Sir Richard Burton have no place in the twenty-first century. That's obvious, but fortunately it is also incorrect.
   Brandon Wilson's Yak Butter Blues was probably never intended to reach the upper strata of armchair adventuring, but it does. The book is a soaring travel diary. It places the reader in the thick of the action every bit as well as Marco Polo transported Italians to China and, as it seems to me, better than Lowell Thomas led readers in the dust of Lawrence of Arabia.
   I've seen a good part of the world, but when I was young enough to tolerate the grueling realities of Tibet, it seemed impossible--pretty much the way most of the Middle East is out of reach today. Choosing his moment with abandon, but lucking out all the way, Wilson and his wife trekked from Lhasa, Tibet, to Katmandu, Nepal. It's the great pilgrimage of Mahayana Buddhism, walked backward, but it is a remarkable journey. Not one reader in a million will ever make the trek, but I don't think any reader--regardless of age or physical ability--will ever read this book without dreaming of the whole trip.
   Gripping Yak Butter in one hand, hopefully holding a better map than Wilson could find in the other, I want to risk it all by walking the road Wilson walked. I absolutely can't do it. Arthritis... age... cowardice... whatever, I won't do it. But, thanks to Wilson, I will not have missed the trek completely.
   Naturally, a book about Tibet can't get from page one to the end without some mention of Shangri-La. Wilson knew that, so he tossed in the Shangri-La thing early and got it over with. Then he deals with the hard, cold reality for over 200 more pages. This is a trek tale, not a getting-there tale. They were trekking, not hitching. So, with bleeding blisters on his feet and a wife he'd have liked to save from walking in the cold while coughing and aching, Wilson turns down rides.
   They get lost. They get very cold. They are abused at times and treated with remarkable kindness at other times. Till, almost amazingly and yet somehow inevitably, the trek really becomes the spiritual journey it was barely meant to replicate.
   Don't be frightened away. The spiritual side of the trip is just a magical color flashing in the sun on the snow or whisper heard in the Himalayan wind. It never takes over the story, even if it may have been the wind beneath the trekkers wings by the end.
   Hawai`i people may find a very special pathos in Yak butter Blues. The Tibetan people Wilson meets are losing their language and culture, and the author doesn't fail to make the mental and emotional connection to the plight of Hawaiians. He lives here. How could the parallel have been lost on him. You'll see it before he mentions it. You'll feel it before he points to it. (Very akamai writer, yeah?)



2. Very disappointing... The author and his wife travel through an extremely poor country, Tibet & Nepal. Instead of being self suffient, they rely on the kindness of villagers to supply them with lodging and food for themselves and their horse. They offer to pay very meager sums of money(and often haggle)for the villagers hospitality. It is a shame the author does not show more respect and generosity for these villagers. Instead of haggling with the locals over insignificant amounts of money, the author should of been a generous friendly American offering to help. It only takes small amount of money to help the people in this part of the world. If the author could not of spared the extra couple of hundred dollars to be a responsible traveler, he should not of embarked on this journey.



3. In our over developed world full of luxury and faceless friends - Yak Butter Blues brought me back to a true adventure. Where the human soul and friendship with strangers is at the center of the adventure. Where we are reminded that true adventure means taking risk and facing hardship.
   
   Brandon Wilson and his wife set off an a trek that took them 650 miles over some down right inhospitable landscape all in an attempt to find a piece of their soul not yet found. Following a traditional pilgrims route they attempt what no other western had before them.
   
   The writing was excellent - capturing to the point where I could not put the book down. I loved the mix of insightful writing pared with just the right amount of adventure story, geography lesson, and spiritual commentary. As I love anything and everything from Tibet I found this book to be a real winner. Highly recommend !!



4. This book was not about a spiritual journey as it states. Rather it is a whiney tale of rich people using poor people for their own betterment. Their reason for the trip? No other westerners had done it, and they'd do it illegally if they had to. Then they complain when someone chooses NOT to allow them to spend the night in their one room house, or don't want to share their already sparce meal with others. When asked for compensation, they haggle over what they should have to spend. This is truly an UNenlightening story.



5. This is a fascinating and entertaining story. Brandon Wilson's writing style is engaging and full of candor, and I'm quite impressed by what he and his wife accomplished. This was a most arduous trek, and the book made me feel that I shared something of it, that I trudged every step of the journey with them.
   
   Reading "Yak Butter Blues" held my interest to the end. I often found myself reading it late into the night; I had to know if they made it over the pass, if they found a place to sleep, if they managed to find water and stay warm. And I learned something of Tibetan spirit, their history, and of the current plight of the Tibetan people who are in imminent peril of losing their culture altogether to the Chinese occupation.
   
   This is one of the best book journeys I've ever had the pleasure to read. I highly recommend this true-life adventure.

No comments about Spymaster: Dai Li and the Chinese Secret Service (A Philip E. Lilienthal Book in Asian Studies).

No comments about Chen Duxiu's Last Articles and Letters, 1937-1942 (Chinese Worlds (University of Hawaii)).

3 comments about Chasing Hepburn: A Memoir of Shanghai, Hollywood, and a Chinese Family's Fight for Freedom.

1. Get ready to give up your weekend because once you pick up this book you won't be able to put it down. Lee's dramatic descriptions cover the conflicts between historical Eastern and Western traditions woven into poignant family events. While his relatives and their antics seem quirky and particular, in fact they resonate with all families facing abrupt changes and adaptation --be they generational or cultural. For those who have read and loved China Boy and Honor and Duty, Chasing Hepburn gives us the pre-story we've all been wondering about.



2. Get ready to give up your weekend because once you pick up this book you won't be able to put it down. Lee's dramatic descriptions cover the conflicts between historical Eastern and Western traditions woven into poignant family events. While his relatives and their antics seem quirky and particular, in fact they resonate with all families facing abrupt changes and adaptation --be they generational or cultural. For those who have read and loved China Boy and Honor and Duty, Chasing Hepburn gives us the pre-story we've all been wondering about.



3. In this remarkable memoir, Gus Lee presents a clear and compassionate picture of his parents, grandparents and their 'clans' set in turbulent times. He brings alive the social, historical, religious and cultural context which informs their actions and reactions making them comprehensible to a reader with a totally different cultural viewpoint. It reads like a multi-generational adventure novel where the characters play parts in or are impacted by major events, from the Taiping rebellion through the British opium trade to the civil wars that raged from the early twentieth century through the brutal Japanese occupation in WWII. It is a wild ride and a great read. Gus presents his forbears and related characters warts and all, but always with great compassion and subtlety. There are no cardboard characters. Readers of his novels, which have a strong autobiographical base, particularly 'China Boy', will know what a hard childhood he endured with a stern and distant father, a mother prone to 'magical' beliefs who died when he was five, and a rigid, vindictive step mother. In this memoir, Gus reveals to us what he subsequently discovered about his parents and he honors them both. Gus's own life has been a testament to using adversity to build strength. He has wasted no time blaming, or scoring points off his parents or using his experiences to excuse failings in his own life. There is no 'poor me' here. His story helped me understand a completely different belief system and cultural perspective. And it was at times moving, at other times funny, but always interesting.

No comments about From the bottom of Gold Mountain: A biography of Soleng Tom.