Available:*
Library | Shelf Location | Call Number | Item Barcode | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Timaru Library | Non-fiction | 951.06 EIM | TI6514942 | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
In 1949, Mao Zedong announced the birth of the People's Republic of China, a proclamation to the world that, after centuries of war and social conflict, China had emerged as one nation. Since then, this idea has been constantly propagated for the benefit of the international community. For many living in the vast country, however, the old Chinese adage holds true: "the mountains are high and the emperor is far away."
Few Westerners make it far beyond the major cities-the Chinese government has made it difficult to do so. David Eimer undertook a dangerous journey to China's unexplored frontiers (it borders on fourteen other countries), to the outer reaches where Beijing's power has little influence. His chronicle shines new light on the world's most populous nation, showing clearly that China remains in many ways a divided state. Traveling through the Islamic areas of Xinjiang province, into the forbidden zone of Tibet, and across Route 219, which runs the rough boundary shared with India and is the only disputed frontier in China, Eimer exposes the country's inner conflict. All the tensions in China today-from its war against drugs and terrorism and the unstable relationships it maintains with Russia and Korea to its internal social issues-take on new meaning when seen from China's most remote corners. A brilliant melding of journalism and history, The Emperor Far Away is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary China.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
An ancient saying, "The mountains are high and the emperor is far away," lends this engaging travelogue its title as Eimer, Beijing correspondent for the U.K.'s Sunday Telegraph, takes readers to China's border regions. He begins in the far western Xinjiang province, home to the bulk of China's restive Uighur population, with whom he mingles and commiserates amid waves of Han migration and state repression. Next, Eimer explores Tibet, demystifying standard Western images of its people, while contextualizing their struggles with Chinese domination and encroachment. Part three moves into Yunnan, as Eimer mingles with the Dai and other "model minorities" along China's massive, porous, and fairly lawless border with the regions of Southeast Asia. Finally, Eimer scouts the three provinces of Dongbei, along China's northeast border with North Korea and Russia's Far East-an area China is poised to exploit, if not in a territorial grab then via economic colonization. Narrated by this curious Englishman and peopled by a cast of natives, settlers, tourists, and ex-pats, this absorbing book is a tantalizing introduction to China's diversity and the ethnic and political dynamics at the extremes of its empire. Channeling wanderlust while limning the challenges for both pan-border minorities and global powers in these historic, strategic, and resource-rich lands, Eimer's detailed survey of minority China should interest travel junkies and students of ethnography and geopolitics. Agent: Ben Mason, Fox Mason Ltd. (U.K.). (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Guardian Review
Whether braving the freezing north-east or smoking speed with drug traffickers, Eimer ventures into parts of China most writers never each "The mountains are high and the emperor far away," is an old Chinese proverb meaning that Beijing's authority is not always respected in the outer reaches of its empire. Today the emperor has changed but the adage still holds true, as David Eimer's original and insightful travelogue shows. There are 55 officially recognised minorities scattered across China's borderlands. Many of these minorities are a mystery even to the Han Chinese who make up 92% of the population. They include "reluctant citizens" such as the Tibetans and the Muslim Uighurs, as well as the Tatars and the Wa, who were headhunters just 50 years ago and live in Yunnan province, China's most ethnically diverse region. There Eimer travels through the Golden Triangle, "one of the world's most lawless zones", and smokes yaba, a highly addictive form of speed, with Wa drug traffickers. Whether braving the horrors of Tibetan pit lavatories or the Arctic temperatures of the north-east, Eimer is an entertaining guide to those parts of China that most travel writers never reach. * To order The Emperor Far Away for [pound]7.19 (RRP [pound]8.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over [pound]10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of [pound]1.99. - PD Smith.
Kirkus Review
A history/travelogue of the far-reaching Chinese frontiers that share more with the cultures of central Asia than with the Han majority.Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunnan, Dongbei: These are the border regions of China that contain its 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities (about 100 million people) yet are increasingly being populated and overruled by the Han. Sunday Telegraph Beijing correspondent Eimer synthesizes his trips into these nether regions since the 1980s, when he first ventured to Xinjiang, the region of the Muslim Uighurs in the far west, bordering Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia, among other countries. The journey west across the ancient Silk Road still takes days on a train, but there are many more Han moving westward in what the author sees as a new "colonizing" fever. They have not been particularly welcome among the natives, who often don't even speak Chinese and "regard the Han as interlopers." Indeed, there continue to be spontaneous uprisings against them, and the Uighurs and other minorities largely keep a wary distance from the Han, and vice versaunlike the more harmonious mixing of ethnic groups in nearby Kazakhstan. From Kashgar, Eimer moved south through the Silk Road stops of Yarkant and Hotan, where he sensed strongly the Chinese Communist Party's strenuous efforts to suppress the Uighurs' religious expression. Then he traveled into mountainous, exotic Tibet, where simply possessing a picture of the Dalai Lama can lead to arrest and Buddhists pilgrims continue to flock despite severe CCP repression. In the deep south of Yunnan Province, heart of the Golden Triangle, the author traveled along the porous, jungle borders of Myanmar and Laos. Eimer also explored Dongbei, which makes up the northeast border near Mongolia, Russia and North Korea and contains many Koreans and Manchus of all stripes (even Christian).A swift-moving, colorful account of the bewildering array of fiercely independent ethnic groups within an uneasy Chinese "home." Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Exploring China's far-flung borderlands, Eimer reveals aspects of a changing Chinese society that often escape the attention of international media. His itinerary includes places like Xinjiang, the giant and desolate but resource-rich western province that is home to the Muslim Uighur ethnic minority, who have long chafed under Han Chinese control; remote reaches of Yunnan, where a porous jungle border with Myanmar facilitates gambling, drug production, and human trafficking; and the frosty Amur River Valley, where Russians are increasingly outnumbered by Han migrants. In each location, Eimer focuses on ethnic identity (China's border states include 56 officially recognized minorities) and new challenges brought about by China's recent explosive growth. And while Eimer's apparent ambition to cover as much of China's 14,000-mile land border as he can is indeed impressive, his most fascinating discoveries seem to occur when he takes risks that other journalists might not with illegal border crossings, questionable traveling companions, and even a harrowing drug binge. The result is a satisfying travel narrative and a fresh perspective on China's ongoing transformation.--Driscoll, Brendan Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
China is the world's most populated country and has vast unexplored regions. Eimer probes the outer reaches of the country, places where the government does not grant access and about which the Chinese have a saying, "The mountains are high and the emperor is far away." A fascinating look at an important country. (LJ 5/1/14) (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Map | p. xii |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| Part I Xinjiang-The New Frontier | |
| 1 'Uighurs Are Like Pandas' | p. 13 |
| 2 The New Silk Road | p. 25 |
| 3 Exiles | p. 36 |
| 4 The Great Game Again | p. 50 |
| 5 Return to Kashgar | p. 58 |
| 6 Three Borders | p. 65 |
| 7 Uighurstan | p. 73 |
| Part II Tibet-The Wild West | |
| 8 The Tibetan Borderlands | p. 91 |
| 9 Lhasa | p. 101 |
| 10 A Night at the Nangma | p. 113 |
| 11 U-Tsang | p. 122 |
| 12 High Plateau Drifter | p. 131 |
| 13 The Precious Jewel of the Snows | p. 141 |
| 14 Going Down | p. 151 |
| Part III Yunnan-Trouble in Paradise | |
| 15 Shiny Happy Minorities | p. 161 |
| 16 Dailand | p. 171 |
| 17 Down the Mekong | p. 183 |
| 18 The Dai Diaspora | p. 193 |
| 19 With the Wa | p. 208 |
| 20 Women for Sale | p. 226 |
| Part Iv Dongbei-Pushing the Boundaries | |
| 21 The Pyongyang Express | p. 241 |
| 22 The Third Korea | p. 253 |
| 23 Spreading the Word | p. 265 |
| 24 The Arctic Borderlands | p. 278 |
| 25 Along the Amur | p. 289 |
| 26 An Empire Expanding | p. 301 |
| Further Reading | p. 309 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 311 |
| Index | p. 313 |