Destination: China
Hope and Squalor at Chungking Mansion
by Karl Taro Greenfeld | 08.13.07 | 11:24 AM ET
Photos via Wikipedia. Karl Taro Greenfeld explores Hong Kong's notorious black-market bazaar and budget accommodations, and one possible over-populated, multi-ethnic future for us all
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Yahoo! BuzzColby Buzzell in Shenzhen: ‘The Id of the Chinese Economy’
by Michael Yessis | 08.07.07 | 11:09 AM ET
Skate punk turned U.S. Army infantryman turned war-zone blogger turned best-selling author Colby Buzzell recently traveled to Shenzhen, the center of China’s economic boom. It’s “a city of eleven million that did not exist twenty years ago,” Buzzell writes in the August issue of Esquire. Now it’s home to 11 million people with “hundreds of construction cranes stalking the landscape like dinosaurs.” Buzzell spends his time in Shenzhen wandering around, meeting random people and walking into situations that reveal a bit of the darker side of the new China.
The Critics: ‘China Road’
by Michael Yessis | 08.01.07 | 7:23 AM ET
A new book by NPR's Rob Gifford chronicles a trip along the "Route 66 of China." Michael Yessis distills what reviewers -- and Jon Stewart -- are saying about it.
R.I.P. Clem Lindenmayer, Travel Writer
by Jim Benning | 07.30.07 | 1:34 PM ET
We’d been following the search for Clem Lindenmayer since early June, when news spread that the Australian travel writer disappeared while hiking near Minya Konka in western China. Now, news media are reporting that the 47-year-old died on the mountain. His body was discovered by villagers July 19, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Few other details are available.
The World Hum Travel Zeitgeist: From the Fringe of Edinburgh
by Michael Yessis | 07.27.07 | 2:58 PM ET
The Scottish capital made a move toward the top of travelers’ minds this week—the famed Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival begin soon—along with China, the Sierra Nevada and some purveyors of hotel porn. Here’s the Zeitgeist.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Telegraph UK (current)
Edinburgh Travel Guide
Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Not the Hamptons. Yet.
* 36 Hours in Edinburgh also makes the most e-mailed list, currently at No. 3.
Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Got a Free Weekend? Escape to the Sierra Nevada
Most Read Feature
World Hum (posted this week)
Ask Rolf: I’m in my Mid-40s. Am I Too Old to Stay in Hostels?
* It’s all about spirit, says Rolf.
Most Read Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Marriott Blasted for Hotel Porn
* Morality in Media is making a stir, and Kitty Bean Yancey’s Hotel Hotsheet blog has a raucous discussion going on.
Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (posted this week)
‘Into the Wild’: Sean Penn Adapts Jon Krakauer’s Book for the Big Screen
Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (this week)
Beautiful Chinese Travel and Vacation
Confucius: More Popular Than Harry Potter?
by Michael Yessis | 07.24.07 | 12:55 PM ET
Looks like he is in China, and it’s not because the country somehow missed the boy wizard’s bandwagon. We posted recently that a self-help book based on the teachings of Confucius, “Notes on Reading the Analects” by Yu Dan, topped the nation’s best-seller list. Today the Washington Post weighs in with a wider-ranging story about the popularity of Confucianism in China, which notes that “Analects” sold more than double the copies of the country’s next best-selling book, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”
China’s Air Pollution Goes Global
by Jim Benning | 07.23.07 | 2:50 PM ET
Talk about a shrinking planet. “On some days,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “almost a third of the air over Los Angeles and San Francisco can be traced directly to Asia.”
The Man Who Cast Starbucks from the Forbidden City
by Jim Benning | 07.19.07 | 10:06 AM ET
Why did Starbucks close its outlet in Beijing’s Forbidden City? In part, because of the campaign launched by a popular Chinese TV news anchor on his blog. His name is Rui Chenggang. He travels the globe and speaks near perfect English, according a terrific profile in the Los Angeles Times. Seven months ago, Rui wrote that the Starbucks outlet “undermined the Forbidden City’s solemnity and trampled over Chinese culture.” His post prompted a widespread response. Interestingly, he said he still drinks Starbucks coffee—there are well over 200 outlets in China—he just doesn’t think the chain should be hawking lattes in such a sacred Chinese site.
China’s Wulingyuan National Park: A Gasp at Every Twist and Turn
by Michael Yessis | 07.16.07 | 5:02 PM ET
Add Simon Winchester to the list of heavyweight writers recently filing stories from China. The New York Times has Winchester’s dispatch from Wulingyuan National Park. “This is central China,” he writes, “and a remote part of the mountains of northwestern Hunan province, until lately seldom visited and indeed until 50 years ago barely even settled.” The two main draws now: a two-mile, $200 million tunnel to ease access, and “one of the most remarkable geomorphological spectacles existing on our planet,” the sandstone pillars of Wulingyuan.
So Long, Forbidden City Starbucks. Help Us Pick a New Wonder.
by Jim Benning | 07.16.07 | 11:33 AM ET
Earlier this month, we named the Starbucks outlet in China’s Forbidden City one of the seven wonders of the shrinking planet. It was, we wrote, symbolic of both globalization and, because of the ongoing protests surrounding its near-sacred location, any nation’s struggle to maintain its cultural identity amid rapid change. But now, like the ancient wonder the statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Forbidden City’s Starbucks outlet has bitten the dust. According to Reuters, it closed on Friday as a result of protests. The closure has left World Hum with only six viable wonders of the shrinking planet, and that’s just wrong. Now we need your help.
Paris Mayor to Parisians: Be Nice to Tourists, S’il Vous Plait
by Michael Yessis | 07.11.07 | 8:38 AM ET
Is their reputation for rudeness catching up to Parisians? Oui, mayor Bertrand Delanoe apparently believes. Earlier this week, Paris launched a campaign to make the City of Light more tourist friendly with initiatives that include “Paris Tourist Day” and the “Charter for the Parisian and Visitor.” The AP and the Agence France-Presse, among others, have the story of the Paris “charm offensive” and the charter, which asks Parisians to “take the time to give information to visitors” and “make use of foreign language skills to reply to them in their language.” It’s probably a good thing for a country that’s seeing its most-favored nation status among tourists rapidly eroded by China.
New Seven Wonders of the World Named
by Michael Yessis | 07.09.07 | 7:51 AM ET
Seven Wonders of the Shrinking Planet
by Jim Benning, Michael Yessis | 07.06.07 | 12:04 PM ET
Jim Benning and Michael Yessis unveil World Hum's seven wonders: places, things and people that embody ways the planet is shrinking and cultures are colliding
China to Become World’s Top Tourism Destination by 2014
by Michael Yessis | 07.06.07 | 9:15 AM ET
So says the World Tourism Organization, according to an Agence France-Presse story. That’s six years earlier than the organization predicted earlier this year. At this point, I’m not most interested in when China will gain the top spot. I’m intrigued by the country’s amazing growth.
Taiwan Enlists ‘Goth-Style Rock Band,’ Ozzy Osbourne in U.N. Quest
by Michael Yessis | 07.05.07 | 10:52 AM ET
Ozzy Osbourne, diplomat? The music icon/ drug-addled punchline, or, as Reuters calls him, “satanic- theme rocker,” will sponsor the Taiwainese band ChthoniC and its government-supported efforts to stir up support for Taiwan’s U.N. membership quest. ChthoniC will join this summer’s Ozzfest tour, and, according to Reuters, Ozzy will help out with transportation costs and let the band promote Taiwan’s U.N. membership. That will no doubt include performances of “UNlimited Taiwan,” ChthoniC’s song that “seeks to express Taiwan’s boundless vitality and its efforts to overcome international restrictions, isolation and prejudice,” says Minister Shieh Jhy-wey of the Taiwanese Government Information Office. Great. But if the band is going to take the message to the Ozzfest masses, one question remains: Does it rock?