With the vast majority of academic theory on tourism based onWestern tourists, Asia on Tour illustrates why the rapid growth of travel for leisure and recreation in Asia demands a reappraisal of how tourism is analyzed and understood. Examining domestic and intra-regional tourism, the book reveals how improvements in infrastructures, ever increa

Examining domestic and intra-regional tourism, the book reveals how improvements in infrastructures, ever increasing disposable incomes, liberalized economies, the inter-connectivities of globalization and the lowering of borders, both physical and political, are now enabling millions of Asians to travel as tourists.

A GRAND TOUR OF ASIA recreates a time and a place that no longer exists except in the lyrical images so lovingly preserved by the lens of a wandering American, and so wryly captured in the prose of his mysterious companions nearly a century ago. Christian Rub, a character actor in Hollywood films, presented the intriguing album to its current owner, Hania Tallmadge, in 1949, when she was a child.A historically unique collection of photographs taken in the spring of 1910 on a four-month tour of the Far East, presented in an exquisite facsimile edition of the album in which they were originally discovered.Includes more than 150 images reproduced in their actual size, their hand-tinted colors authentic and un-retouched. Even the handwritten script has been carefully replicated.Who was the amateur shutterbug with the refined sense of composition? Who were his three stalwart companions? In particular, who was the album's unnamed commentator?A GRAND TOUR OF ASIA is a unique gift for lovers of photography, travel, history, and mystery, and for collectors of antiques and Asian art.Reviews"It'¬?s a charming and revealing document of West meeting East." -San Francisco Chronicle

This resource includes full details of Hong Kong harbour, its shopping and nightlife districts, traditional sites and off-the-beaten track areas of the New Territories and outlying islands. A history and a cultural guide is included, as well as places to eat, drink and sleep on every budget. Background information on post-handover politics and features on festivals, feng shui and Chinese astrology are also included.

Showing how entrepreneurs and investors can start up in Asia and go global, the book provides a first-hand, on-the-ground tour of the new technology centers that are gaining momentum all over Asia. Interviews with the most successful venture capitalists and entrepreneurs reveal their winning strategies and show how a new generation of entrepreneurs in China and India are no longer looking to the West for their cues - but are instead crafting their own local business models and success strategies.

A boldly rendered—and deeply intimate—account of Hong Kong today, from a resilient young woman whose stories explore what it means to survive in a city teeming with broken promises. “[A] pulsing debut . . . about what it means to find your place in a city as it vanishes before your eyes.”—The New York Times Book Review ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post Hong Kong is known as a place of extremes: a former colony of the United Kingdom that now exists at the margins of an ascendant China; a city rocked by mass protests, where residents rally—often in vain—against threats to their fundamental freedoms. But it is also misunderstood, and often romanticized. Drawing from her own experience reporting on the politics and culture of her hometown, as well as interviews with musicians, protesters, and writers who have watched their home transform, Karen Cheung gives us a rare insider’s view of this remarkable city at a pivotal moment—for Hong Kong and, ultimately, for herself. Born just before the handover to China in 1997, Cheung grew up questioning what version of Hong Kong she belonged to. Not quite at ease within the middle-class, cosmopolitan identity available to her at her English-speaking international school, she also resisted the conservative values of her deeply traditional, often dysfunctional family. Through vivid and character-rich stories, Cheung braids a dual narrative of her own coming of age alongside that of her generation. With heartbreaking candor, she recounts her yearslong struggle to find reliable mental health care in a city reeling from the traumatic aftermath of recent protests. Cheung also captures moments of miraculous triumph, documenting Hong Kong’s vibrant counterculture and taking us deep into its indie music and creative scenes. Inevitably, she brings us to the protests, where her understanding of what it means to belong to Hong Kong finally crystallized. An exhilarating blend of memoir and reportage, The Impossible City charts the parallel journeys of both a young woman and a city as they navigate the various, sometimes contradictory paths of coming into one’s own. LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL

This innovative collaborative work—the first to focus on Buddhist tourism—explores how Buddhists, government organizations, business corporations, and individuals in Asia participate in re-imaginings of Buddhism through tourism. Contributors from religious studies, anthropology, and art history examine sacred places and religious monuments as they have been shaped and reshaped by socioeconomic and cultural trends in the region. Following an introduction that offers the first theoretical understanding of tourism from a Buddhist studies’ perspective, early chapters discuss the ways Buddhists and non-Buddhists imagine concepts and places related to the religion. Case studies highlight Buddhist peace in India, Buddhist heavens and hells in Singapore, Thai temple space, and the future Buddha Maitreya in China. Buddhist tourism’s connections to the state, market, and new technologies are explored in chapters on Indian package tours for pilgrims, thematic Buddhist tourism in Cambodia, the technological innovations of Buddhist temples in China, and the promotion of pilgrimage sites in Japan. Contributors then situate the financial concerns of Chinese temples, speed dating in temples in Japan, and the diffuse and pervasive nature of Buddhism for tourism promotion in Ladakh, India. How have tourist routes, groups, sites, and practices associated with Buddhism come to be possible and what are the effects? In what ways do travelers derive meaning from Buddhist places? How do Buddhist sites fortify national, cultural, or religious identities? The comparative research in South, Southeast, and East Asia presented here draws attention to the intertwining of the sacred and the financial and how local and national sites are situated within global networks. Together these findings generate a compelling comparative investigation of Buddhist spaces, identities, and practices.