Want Your Name In A Beijing Guidebook?

Ever wanted a chapter in a guidebook named after you? With pads and smartphones wrecking the publishing industry, we haven’t seen a freshly printed Beijing travel guide on a cafe bookshelf in a while. (We had to stop publishing our very own Immersion Guides series). But a new funding project to finish a second edition of Beijing, Peter Neville-Hadley’s classic guidebook, was just launched and it looks like an interesting idea with plenty of fun incentives.

Hadley writes:

These are difficult times for the guidebook publishing industry, with too many titles chasing too few readers. So even a guide to Beijing that receives reviews like these may wait a long time for a second edition:

"Fun but authoritative, the book is written in the strong voice of someone who loves poking around Beijing's hutongs, buzzing with pleasure at each new find... old China hands will even learn a thing or two. And the well-worn tourist attractions like the Forbidden City are given a new spin in a refreshing break from all the been-there-seen-that guides on the shelf." ~ Time

The writer goes on to explain that the plug was pulled on a nearly-completed second edition of the book and other interested publishers eventually backed down. Rather than let the work go to waste he’s looking to raise a minimum of only USD 5000 to get the job done. Some of the more exciting feature of the book include the following:

• Fuller details of more sights of interest than any other current guide; several walking routes around little-visited sections of traditional housing and along less-known sections of the Great Wall; descriptions of multiple day trips into the surrounding countryside with information on travel options from public transport, through Chinese bus tours, to one-day taxi hires; all with detailed directions in both English and in Chinese characters, and GPS data
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• Reading on everything: the lives of the palace eunuchs; corruption in China's modern art scene; the damage caused by UNESCO World Heritage Listing in China; myths about the Great Wall; the keeping of insects as pets; the true story of the Anglo-French destruction of the Summer Palace; the expulsion of Starbucks from the Forbidden City; the Boxer Rebellion, the former brothel quarter of Qian Men; and much more
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• A language section that provides all the characters visitors really need to get what they want; tone-marked pinyin and characters throughout to aid those who have learnt some Mandarin to be understood; a directory of all the attractions around each individual metro stop; a concise and readable history of the city; and much more.


This kind of rich content is unattainable on a map app and isn't easily found in regular media (just see the boring tour video above). If that's not enough of a reason to get support, extra incentives have been included for different donation amounts, like sealed and autographed copies of the book, one-on-one travel advice by phone with the author and a chapter named after you. Even for USD 5 you can get “a pat on the back” and feel like you’ve helped future tourists better explore Beijing.

While we wait for this book to be completed, we'll be wondering what exactly we could quiz Hadley on if we got him on the phone. “Where’s the best chuanr stand Pete?” seems a fair test.

Click here for full info about the funding project and to make a donation.