In Search of Old Peking (Oxford in Asia Hardback Reprints)

Rating:
Summary: Superb In-Depth Description of 1930's Peking
Review: Wonderful, evocative account of old Peking before the mass destruction by the current regime. This book reads like the wonderful Blue Guides of Europe (before Blue Guide recently changed the format and gutted so much of the information). The extent of description is amazing - the Lama Temple's rituals, for example, involving canabalism in pantomine: the monks worked themselves into a frenzy and then tore to shreds a man-like figure made of dough and filled with red liquid jam - mess everywhere!. The authors also recommended that tourists of the day go armed in the temple because of the determined attentions (ahem!) of the monks.

I used this book as a guide in the 90's while living in Hong Kong and visiting Peking - it still had great value despite all the losses (the coverage of the Forbidden City is incredible) I found many interesting out-of-the-way spots I would have missed if I'd relied on my strangely (sadly) poor Blue Guide China. In Search of Peking is one of those books (like Austin Coates' Myself a Mandarin for Hong Kong) that will really make you glad you lived (or visited) in China, despite all the modern concrete.