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The Last Days Of Old Beijing: Life In The Vanishing Backstreets Of A City Transformed (2008)

by Michael Meyer(Favorite Author)

3.87 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0802716520 (ISBN13: 9780802716521)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Walker & Company

review 1: I was planning to read Rob Gifford's 'China Road' and this book in May, before leaving for my month-long trip to China. Realizing I just didn't have the time to read both, I stopped reading 'China Road' and switched to reading this since Beijing was one of the places I planned to visit. I'm glad I made that decision, and the decision to buy the Kindle book to continue reading on my phone into the trip.I was about 60% of the way through the book when I arrived in Beijing. It's a surreal experience to come across places that you've just been reading about, especially when you're not expecting it. My brother had booked our Beijing accommodation for us after I had already started my trip, so I hadn't researched the area we'd be staying in beforehand. Our hostel was on 大�... more��栏 (Dazhalan West Street). While walking to the hostel that first day, it crossed my mind that the name Dazhalan sounded like the area Meyer lived in and described in the book. But what I saw was not what I had imagined from his descriptions. It was the 'New Beijing' -- old buildings razed, streets widened, new buildings constructed in the old style.I finally finished the book on the train from Beijing to Shanghai and that's when I was able to make more connections. Meyer has translated the Chinese names into English, using those English names throughout the book. He has an English name to original Chinese mapping in the book's appendix, but the downside to reading an e-book is the difficulty of just flipping and browsing the book while you're reading, so I didn't actually get to that appendix until after I finished the book.Under that personal experience of reading the book, visiting Beijing, staying in and exploring Dazhalan without having finished the book, this book gets 5 stars. Everything Meyer writes about is all the more relevant when you actually visit and see it with your own eyes. I liked his writing style, the flow of the book, and his approach in writing about the quickly-disappearing hutongs of Beijing. My only regret is not finishing the book before actually leaving Beijing.
review 2: This was an interesting contrast to "Beijing Welcomes You," which focused on changes in the city more specifically through the lens of the Olympics. Meyer writes more broadly about living in Beijing and working as a teacher. His experiences at his school, and in the hutong, traditional courtyard housing in which he found community, are appealing. His preservationist bent is a blessing and a curse. For me, the book started to slump under the weight of its details, and as a more casual reader about Chinese culture, I had trouble finishing it. less

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