This is a fantastic book on Macau. I was using this book as one source for a paper I was writing on Macau for a university class. I became fascinated with Macau ever since a visit there, and this book really does justice to Macau's past. I was surprised at how interesting Macau: The Imaginary City is. The book is jam-packed with interesting historical anecdotes about the colorful people who have lived in the colony as well as the culture, historic events, and geography of the enclave. In addition, the book is always fascinating and never boring because Porter is such a good writer. This book is a must for anyone interested in the city. After reading it, I'd like to visit the city again.

"Macau:The Imaginary City" is a beautiful tapestry woven from the histories of "gray-brown fortress walls","great churches", "European and Chinese commercial buildings", "19th century European residential and commercial building", and the current modern buildings which "stand in contrast to the fortress walls; yet echo their starkness" as they seem to complete a circle "as modern fortresses of money not of artillery". Anyone considering a trip to Hong Kong must include in the itinerary a trip to the Macau of Jonathan Porter, and a copy of "Macau: The Imaginary City". This is not a history text book but rather a collection of historical and cultural fabrics with which Porter weaves his tapestry. The book prepared me for my recent visit in June 99, and my second reading, since arriving home, has added to my appreciation and understanding of a city which was a doorway for Europeans and Chinese to peer into each others' world perspectives. And in a history of more than four hundred years, elements of each synthesized which gives Macau it wonderful uniqueness today.

Macau is the portugese island off Hong Kong and in this book it is run by a Syndicate which is not so much feared anymore with the new leader.

It is based around a final run of gold to Hong Kong to pay off a debt and hard to explain. But it all comes together in the end. Though not appropiate for kids due to sexual explicit material it is a good read.

Macau was the Portuguese foothold on mainland China and reflects a merging of the two cultures. Cheng Beng focuses on the ambivalent history of Macau and reveals the historical reality of cultural vacillation between two political entities and the emergence of a creole minority -- the Macanese. With the judicious use of English, Chinese and Portuguese sources, Beng provides the reader with a multi-focal perspective of the last Portuguese outpost in Asia and challenges the easy assumptions of what to expect with the "decolonization" of Macau that took place in December 1999. Macau: A Cultural Janus is an important, timely contribution to Asian studies and highly recommended reading for anyone with a political, social, cultural, familial, or economic interest in Macau.

A great book for children and young people who are wondering what it is like being the child of a medical missionary. Strong Christian and Missionary focus.
Easy to read and a fun read. I recommend it highly.

This book has been positively reviewed by academics who wrote book reviews in academic journals, such as the China Quarterly (England), Pacific Affairs (Canada) and China Review International (United States). For those who want to understand Macau's recent political development, you will find this book useful, argumentative, comparative and thought-provoking.

Macau is such a charming and beautiful place. This book takes me back to my childhood...wandering the streets and shopping in the markets. I love and cherish this book.

This is 1 of the 2 tour guides I recommend for Hong Kong besides Fodor's. As a local who grew up and used to live in Hong Kong, I was both surprised and excited about how much foreigners can dig deep through this city. Post-colonial Hong Kong still preserves the heart-beat of Chinese heritage underneath the burgeoning veneer of high-tech development and finances.

The official airline of Hong Kong, Cathay Pacific unveiled its newest operation logo couple of years back with slogan "Heart of Asia". The Hong Kong Tourist Association (HKTA) strived to revive tourism that was correlated with the regionwide stock market plunge in 1997 by launching the campaign "Hong Kong: City of Life" in 1998 to attract visitors. Featured was a 7-day-6-night package from the US including airfare and hotel for $899 including tax.

Dubbed "Heart of Asia" and "City of Life", this volume of "Hong Kong Handbook" will surely be your pocket guide to explore this exotic capital of Asia. The book included history and remarkable events associated with this newest Chinese SAR (Special Administrative Region), along with its rich mixed cultures and lifestyles.

In addition to the usual tips on fine dining, hotels from 5-star to no-star, shopping bargains and transportation, this handbook devotes incredible amount of pages on almost all the districts within the city. It would be a tremendous loss for any Hong Kong visitor to stay in central (downtown) area and the usual tourist spot like The Peak, Ocean Park and Po Lin Monastery. This handbook guides you to local areas like Mongkok, Yaumatei, and even outlying islands Po Toi Island, Tung Ping Chau, and Cheung Chau. One of the preserved wildlife area, Sai Gung Peninsula, is illustrated with lucid photos. You might wish to allocate 3-4 days hiking through the trails that provides panoramic view of the South China Sea.

The Hong Kong Handbook offers more than just a packaged tour can satisfy. You might completely stay away from urban areas and venture through monasteries or explore one of the biggest man-made water reservoir Plover Cove. The border with mainland is just 15 miles from the main financial center. The guide would be a must-have for those who wish to see the other side of Hong Kong.

Anyone planning a trip to Hong Kong would be wise to pick up a copy of this book. I recently returned from a two-week exploration of the SAR, and I found this book to be invaluable. Not only did it give me maps and all the essentials, but it gave me insight into the people and culture that surrounded me. The only thing I found lacking was the glossary of Chinese phrases.

While the book is older than some, and may be in some regards a bit out of date (hint to publisher - bring out a revised version), for instance some of the restaurants no longer exist, I found this to be the best book (and I brought many with me). The recommendations are solid, the highlighted points of interest are the most consistant (and often off-beat) and the essays and comments are the best (this is the only book for instance that explained why bamboo is used as scaffolding),

I did not find the recipes hard to follow at all - there are many alternative ingredients that do not take away the spirit of the dishes in question, and they are provided in the book.
Historically, I found it more than usually accurate as far as ethnic cookbooks go, and this is more of a multi-ethnic effort united mostly by history and to a lesser degree by religion and language.
Having no prejudices whatsoever before approaching it, I honestly believe this book deserves kudos for introducing the multi-ethnic cuisine of the lusophone world to us - and as a somewhat lost vegeterian in my city of adoption I'm particularly thankful to the many vegeterian dishes from Goa, Malacca, Macao, mainland Portugal and just a bit everywhere else I was able to find, prepare and serve in the family home with more lauding than my previous vegan attempts.
So thanks for the book, and whatever species you are - carnivourous, omnivourous, seafoodivourous or vegeterian, *do* try this book!

Having bought a copy of this book in spite of one of the reviews, I feel one should challege the notion that 'very silly recipes are the norm'. It might be fair to say that the section on Portuguese colonial history is a little thin but the explanations accompanying the recipes of how the dishes have moved from one location to another and have been altered in the process, together with details of variations, go some way to compensating for this. Then again, if I were looking for information on Portuguese history, I would not begin with a cookery book. The suggestion that recipe ingredients 'do not ring true' is rather baffling. I can find similar recipes in, for instance, other Portuguese, Brazilian and Goan cookery books. Likewise, the ingredients in African recipes are often common to nearby countries which do not have the same Portuguese influence. Also, while bibliographies are not a foolproof guide to the quality of books, it would be unusual to see a bibliography as good as this in a bad book.
All things considered, this book has a fascinating range of recipes - many relatively easy to prepare - from a wide variety of countries and its ingenuity is the simple linkage of Portuguese influence. It's not perfect but is highly unusual and I am thoroughly pleased to add it to my collection of several hundred other cookery books. My advice is: when you read a review from someone who is dismissive without providing substantive reasons for being so and fails to distinguish between a bad book and one they simply don't like, ignore it. Or, to put in another way, if you're interested in something different in the cookery line, why not buy this book?

I just found a great new cookbook. In the 16th century the Portuguese developed one of history's greatest empires. The Portuguese empire, in turn, created a diverse cuisine that was influenced by the local crops and recipes of many different nations, with a strong emphasis on seafood. Cuisines of Portuguese Encounters by Cherie Hamilton is filled with fantastic, easy-to-follow recipes that capture these amazing and unusual combinations of flavors. One evening I made fish curry from Goa (p 174), a stew of whitefish and grated coconut seasoned with cumin, coriander, ginger, onions, and green chiles. As a salad I made a delicious creamy mmixture of avocado and dates (p 59), pureed and served in the avocado shells, from the windward island of Sao Vincente. This venture was such a success with my family that I next made a fish ragout from Southern Angola (p 172), that is a marvelous blend of fish and okra. The side dish for this meal was rice with split peas cooked in coconut milk (p 144), a creamy preparation from Zambesia in central Mozambique. Urged on by the praises of my family, this past weekend I made Caranguejo em Cosquinha (stuffed crab), a dish tht has traveled from Goa to Brazil (p 206). It consists of a saute of crabmeat, green and white onions, curry, and black olives in a pastry shell. Along with this, we had a fantastic Arroz de Tomate (tomato rice), a popular way to prepare rice in Portugal (p 146), which is rice prepared with tomatoes, garlic, and onions. Each of these recipes was easy and fun to prepare, with wonderfully unusual combinations of flavors. Highly recommended!!

i did not care for this book at all. info was limited. i bought it because of the recent release date and i was traveling to hong kong and macau.

would have been much better off with a lonely planet book. book was of little use to me.

Accomodating Asia will accomodate your basic guidebook needs very nicely. Punctuated with commentary by recent travelers, the book covers all the basics, and then some. As a frequent traveler to Hong Kong myself, I found the authors have captured and shared the charm and vitality of this most exciting place. Whether you are discovering the delights of Hong Kong and Macau for the first time, or you're a returning visitor, you'll find Accomodating Asia to be just the ticket to maximize your fun and minimize your fuss. It makes me long for a lemon squash on the terrace of the Peak Cafe with the bustling Victoria Harbor and the blue South China Sea spread out before me!

I found myself yearning to return to Hong Kong after reading "Accommodating Asia... Hong Kong/Macau." The authors not only know the region well, but love the people and their unique culture. "Accommodating Asia" captures the energy and the excitement of Hong Kong through descriptions, illustrations, and personal recommendations. Easy-to-use, well-organized information abounds about attractions and lodgings, including prices, maps, and directions. If you are planning to visit this region and don't know what night market and MTR are, get this guide. If you have been on an escorted tour or have been only to the business district and want to explore Hong Kong for yourself, you'll rely heavily on this guide for the excellent list of attractions [many are free!], and the detailed subway and bus directions. On my next trip to Hong Kong,I'll be taking my copy of "Accommodating Asia."

I generally love Lonely Planet guides, but this one is factually inaccurate in many of its addresses, locations, etc. The introductory sections, however, on history, language, and such are as good as they get in a travel guide.

Disregard Amazon's reader reviews that precede this one. The earlier comments aren't based on this book at all, but were simply ported to this page from the previous edition's. The well-deserved complaints about "Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou," Ninth Edition, do not apply to "Hong Kong and Macau," 10th Edition. Note that "Guangzhou" was dropped from the title.

I never go on vacation somewhere without first buying the Lonely Planet travel book on the destination. So it's been with some frustration that for the last three years, the Hong Kong book has been among the weakest of the series, at least among those I've bought. But the long-awaited update has some badly needed changes and updates.

The previous edition came out in January 1999, several months after Lonely Planet had released another, entirely different Hong Kong book titled simply "Hong Kong." The "Hong Kong" book was pretty skimpy, including a mere 10 pages or so on Macau. But it did have some helpful color maps at the back of the book.

When "Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou" came out, it included some badly needed material on Macau, as well as the Chinese border cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai. Unfortunately, the book also lumped in about 90 pages on Guangzhou, and another eight-page supplement on "Hong Kong Film." For 99-plus percent of the people who are visiting the Hong Kong area, these pages were only dead weight. Virtually nobody visiting Hong Kong plans to visit Guangzhou, and why should they? It's a long trip, and by the book's own admission, there's nothing there for tourists anyway.

Even worse, this book was out of date from the moment it hit the streets. Both the "Hong Kong" and "Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou" books gave the location of the Hong Kong Museum of History as Kowloon Park. But the museum had already moved when I visited Hong Kong in November 1998, when the "Hong Kong" book had just came out. And so I was more than a little surprised that "Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou" repeated the same mistake in its January 1999 printing!

But what *really* annoyed me was that "Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou" didn't have the easy-to-read, easy-to-find color maps of the earlier "Hong Kong" book. Instead, the larger book had ugly, hard-to-read black-and-white maps scattered willy-nilly throughout.

This has changed under the book's all-new author, Steve Fallon. (Damian Harper does not get credit in this edition, despite what Amazon says.) Fallon has dropped the Guangzhou section and other useless padding, making the book a lot more portable. The Museum of History's current address is in there now. And the color maps from the slim "Hong Kong" book also are in the back of the new "Hong Kong and Macau." The new book still uses the hard-to-read, hard-to-find B&W maps for the border towns and Macau's islands, but that's a quibble I can live with. Other general information throughout also seems to be current.

I've been looking over the new book for several days now, and overall, it seems that while the worst parts disappeared, the best stuff carried over to the new edition. For instance, I was glad to see that the map of Shenzhen still has the names of landmarks and hotels in Chinese, as well as English. Showing the Shenzhen taxi drivers the Chinese name of where you want to go is usually the only way for non-Chinese-speaking tourists to communicate their intended destination.

While the new edition is a great improvement, it was at least a year overdue. Three years is a long time to have to wait for an update when so much has changed here, given the change in sovereignty in both Hong Kong and Macau. The ninth edition came out just a couple of months after the Hong Kong handover, and *before* the Macau handover, for crying out loud.

I don't know if I could have honestly recommended the ninth edition of "Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou," but I certainly can do so for the 10th edition of "Hong Kong and Macau." Even if you don't plan on visiting here in the immediate future, it's an interesting read.

I found this guide useful in all the usual practical ways (accomodation, eating, getting around, etc), and I visited the few tourist sites thanks to it, and I LOVED the hikes in the unspoilt New Territories countryside, but I have to say I was grateful for the way the guide alerted me to the unexpected side of Hong Kong - the huge, unruly, pushy-rude crowds, the unpleasant actions and attitudes of so many people, the frankly dreary-quality of much of the over-concreted urban areas (so different from Hong Kong's famous harbour setting, which only looks good from a ferry boat or a hilltop). The comments on why this all was so - the long, sad history of the Chinese refugee movement, pouring into Hong Kong when it was British, the subsequent (also sad) insecurity that resulted, helped me appreciate more the "effervesence" of the city which didn't seem so exhilherating after a few days, but, if anything, more fascinating.

It also led me to some fascinating books on the subject. I highly recommend Jan Morris's book Hong Kong, which gives great and moving detail on the whole refugee origins of modern Hong Kong and made me realise what an intense human story there lies behind the tourist bureau image of the place (there is much info on the interesting history on British days, too). The book also led me to some fascinating hill walks in the unspoilt north-east of the New Territories (Plover Cove - a world away from the jackhammers, noise and spitting).

Bo Yang's book The Ugly Chinaman gave me a Chinese account of where all this insecurity and unhappiness and rude behaviour comes from - the centuries of stagnation that went on inside China (he calls the process "the stagnat soy-vat barrel"), the insistance on imitating the past rather than looking forward - there's a lot more to China's story than Confucious and the poetry of Li Po, he insists (I thought Bo Yang's book much more helpful than the Culture Shock guide because it explains to western readers the Chinese actions that actually cause you culture shock; the Culture Shock books tend to just tell you to say "everything's great".)

Timothy Mo's novel, The Monkey King is a great read and a great description of many Hong Kong Chinese attitudes and actions I encountered on my trip - it centers around a fascinating, eccentric Chinese family living in 1950's Hong Kong but I was amazed at how much was still relevant.

Paul Theroux's novel, Kowloon Tong, set at the Handover, captures well the sleazy side of Hong Kong money-making and greed, focusing (democratically!) on British, Chinese and American characters living in the city. Really fine description here, and dark irony worthy of Saul Bellow and Gore Vidal.

And Austin Coates' classic Hong Kong book, Myself a Mandarin, will enrich any westerner's trip (it's the story of a British magistrate in 50's Hong Kong, and I found his stories of dealing with the Chinese, the clash of cultures, the insights he gained, fascinating, hilarious and, once again, oddly relevant and accurate for today's Hong Kong).