Travel to China

Culture Shock! China: A Guide to Customs & Etiquette

Format: Paperback
Author: Kevin Sinclair
ReleaseDate: March, 2002
Publisher: Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company
Rating:

A worthless book
Interesting only for its defense of the slaughter in Tiananmen square. Home made and thoughtless. .

Don't waste your pre-trip time on this book! Keep looking!
It's like the difference between Italy and Sweden.
First off, there is a big difference between the Chinese in Hong Kong (were much of this author's experience comes from) and the Chinese from Beijing. Grouping all Chinese cultures together is just plain ignorant and down right misleading and it hurts your understanding of that region of the world. It also makes the outside traveler appear a little stupid when they arrive in China. This book seems to group all Chinese as one culture.

Culture Shock! China: is just bad book on so many levels that I have a headache reliving them all! I'd find better material to read about China; books that were written within the past 2 years are best! China has changed so much and so fast that it's hard to keep up with all the changes. Even the Chinese themselves are stunned at the rapid pace of change.

(Additional observation) It's very odd how this book received so many of its highest star ratings right after its re-release years ago. This makes me suspect that maybe some employees from the publisher, (and/or friends of the author) might have been used to falsely rate this book with those great reviews and high stars, especially when it was more beneficial to sales back then. (look at the dates of the earlier high reviews with today's low star reviews. . . . hmmmm).
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Changing Times
China is changing rapidly and some of the customs and other information presented is already out-dated. The idea of this book is excellent; however, because it's 5 years old it is not as up-to-date as it could be. It should be up-dated more freaquently. .

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