I love vintage travel books, because they enable me to travel in time as well as space. I found this one in a Salvos store:
Sally Backhouse went out to the Far East with few prejudices and fewer illusions, prepared for almost anything. In this book she records her life in Hong Kong and her travels in Japan, Korea and China. Intending tourists will find a fascinatingly personal commentary on such sights as the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City, Hiroshima, the temples of Kyoto; but the book is not a guide in the ordinary sense. Everyday life in the Orient proved quite as extraordinary as its architectural and historical wonders, and the enchantment , shocks and surprises experience by the author are conveyed in a series of vividly observed and sometimes hilarious encounters.
Her curiosity about the people among whom she lived and the differences made by varying cultural attitudes is as lively as is her enjoyment. How does the Communist school system work? What is the Far Eastern attitude to women? How do they feel about us--the "big noses" of the West? These are some of the questions asked and answered in a shrewd and sympathetic look at a part of the world which is still shrouded by false glamour or sheer ignorance, but it is undeniably vital to understand.
(There will be a lot more of these coming up--I found an bagful at the Green Shed the other day!)
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