Product Description

This first-ever humorous travel guide on China both dishes the dirt on the myriad travel mishaps that may befall any unsuspecting tourist and explains how to avoid them! Possible danger zones debunked include airports, hotels, hospitals, taxis, and bathrooms. Readers will learn essential skills like how to haggle, exchange currencies, cross the street, decipher menus, say useful phrases in Chinese, and more. The guide comes complete with survival tips on etiquette, a map, and resource lists. Don't leave home for China without it!

Veteran travelers Qin and Larry Herzberg are Chinese language and culture professors at Calvin College in Michigan.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11490 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781933330518
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Larry and Qin Herzberg are a married couple, and are both professors of Chinese language and culture at Calvin College in Michigan. They travel to China every year, both with students and without.

Qin and Larry are a married couple, and are both professors of Chinese language and culture at Calvin College in Michigan. They travel to China every year, both with students and without.

Customer Reviews

Useful!
This is a very useful little book that picks up where most sight-seeing guidebooks leave off. The section on customs is invaluable. We learn how to be polite (take and offer gifts and even business cards with both hands) , where to be assertive (those people aren't cutting ahead of you in line - there is no line!), and when to bargain (not my strong suit, but now at least I know to start at 20% of the suggested price).

The section on the Chinese language is unusually comprehendible. The authors, who have taught Chinese for years, make basic communication surprisingly easy. This has become the book I send to China-bound friends who have no previous Chinese language experience.

China Survival Guide contains lots of good information on a wide range of subjects. With the authors' personal (and often self-deprecating ) travel stories woven throughout, the book is a delightful way to get inside contemporary Chinese culture and equip ourselves for the variety of situations that we may encounter in our own travels.

small and inexpensive but great!
Larry and Qin Herzberg have managed to create an inexpensive, easy-to-carry but highly informative--and very humorous--guidebook. It seems to me to stand by itself in terms of genre. Derived from many experiences of taking student groups to China, taking his own private trips including some with his wife Qin, and creating an insightful documentary video on China today (a joint project of the two), this little book is full of sound advice for novice travelers/first time tourists and seasoned businessmen alike. One of the most valuable parts is the short introduction to the Chinese language, incuding an appropriate (i.e. ralistically manageable)number of useful Chinese phrases. So before you go to China get ahold of this book; you will not be sorry--I guarantee it!

Sister Says: Buy This Book!
Go figure! How could two Jewish kids from suburban Chicago become so immersed in things Chinese?! I'm a qigong and yoga teacher in Florence, Oregon. My brother, an astoundingly talented professor of Chinese and Japanese languages, as well as a violinist with the Grand Rapids (MI) Symphony, found time in his busy schedule to knock off a book on China! His collaborator is his wife Qin, a Beijing native. Larry has taken many, many trips to China, some with Qin, most with student groups. From all the experience Larry and Qin have had comes this book, so that travelers can benefit from their guidance, much obtained through the school-of-hard-knocks ... in fact, the trip I went on with Larry is referenced three times, as we had so many misadventures from which a lot was learned! In fact, even if you never go to China, you'll have affirmed that whatever travails you're currently encountering, you're learning from them ... and you (or someone you know) may write about them in the future.
How timely that this book has been published in time for the Olympics. Because China is such a popular tourist destination, many travel there all year 'round. A number of my students have purchased copies to give to friends traveling there. Its convenient size makes it easy to pack along. Even if you never go to China, the book will give you insight about this fascinating country, and it's fun to read, as my brother has a marvelous sense of humor (I even experienced his translated-into-Chinese Woody Allen stand-up routine for a bunch of Mongolians on Mt. Emei ... read more about THAT misadventure in the book!)
While other books can give you information on regions and destinations, Larry and Qin's book tells you how to deal with everyday survival skills, such as finding clean drinking water, using toilets, purchasing goods, crossing the street (the last time Larry was in Shanghai, his foot was run over by a bicyclist trying to weave her way through automobile traffic ... learn from his misery and avoid it!)
As a former MBA, I can tell you that, at $9.95, this book delivers a laudable Return on Investment!