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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 915
EAN num: 9780470181843
ISBN number: 0470181842
Label: Frommers
Manufacturer: Frommers
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 896
Printing Date: March 31, 2008
Publishing house: Frommers
Sale Popularity Level: 122363
Studio: Frommers
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Frommer's. The best trips start here.
Experience a place the way the locals do. Enjoy the best it has to offer. -
Insider tips on China's top attractions, plus extensive coverage of unique and off-the-tourist-track regions and villages. -
Outspoken opinions on what's worth your time and what's not. -
Exact prices, so you can plan the perfect trip whatever your budget. -
Off-the-beaten-path experiences and undiscovered gems, plus new takes on top attractions.
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User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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This book is heavy, however since the information is so valuable, I bring it to China and have a great time as the results of following the directions from this book. If you are going to China for more than 2 week and you didn't joining a tour, this is a must have book. However,
it's pretty heavy to carry around so try to take notes and leave the book in your hotel room.
Rated by buyers 
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We just returned from a month in China and needless to say we shipped this book back stateside. Very disapointed in it Was more like reading some other persons vacation instead of giving helpful tips of where to go and what to see.
Rated by buyers -
This 2006 second edition follows the very first edition of two years earlier. Some of the detailed listings (including such things as hotel tariffs and phone numbers) have changed, a very few towns or attractions have been added or deleted, and a four-page introductory chapter, What's New in China has been added listing some of the few changes.
The revision can scarcely be described as thorough. The remark that Chinese currency is "not easily obtainable overseas" has not been true generally since well before the date of this new edition; the report concerning the Lhasa railway, that "foundations have already (sic!) been laid for over half the track", speaks of a thousand-kilometre railway which opened for service on 2nd July in the year of publication, years after foundations for "over half the track" had been completed. The fewness of changes to tariffs, charges and phone numbers suggests that checking has been far from complete.
Each chapter is attributed to an individual author. The puzzle is that, although with only one exception every chapter in the new edition is attributed to a different author from the chapter in the very first edition, most of the text is identical. Nowhere does this edition seem to acknowledge the contribution of the original authors. Perhaps an essential ingredient of plagiarism is a degree of furtiveness that is lacking her, and perhaps the original authors agreed to their text being attributed to others; but the reader is entitled, observing the differences of asserted authorship, to expect revision and rewriting altogether more substantial than what has occurred.
Any guidebook to such a vast country as China faces the danger that thinness of coverage will limit its usefulness, and that calls for the greatest discipline in deciding what should be included and what may be left out. In large measure, this book fails that test. In particular, it fails comparison with what has become, whether begrudgingly or otherwise, the industry standard - Lonely Planet.
Roughly comparable with Lonely Planet China in terms of weight, Frommer's China contains substantially less text. The book has no qualities to outweigh that disadvantage.
Rated by buyers -
I might give Frommer's 3 stars for quantity of content, but when I compare what they've written with the places I'm familiar with (and I've been in China over 20 years), I find their negative, jaded slant puts such a spin on some places that they are unrecognizable.
For example, Frommer's online description of Xiamen reads: "Much of the island is a hideous white-tiled wasteland to match anything else in China, but even so, the odd turret and spire reflect the city's pride in its stock of original European architecture." From that description, one would have no idea that Xiamen is in fact one of China's most beautiful cities, loved by foreigners and Chinese alike for its natural beauty and historic heritage. In fact, Xiamen won the gold in the 2002 Livcom Awards competition in Germany, (the "Oscar" of environmental awards), and it has won numerous other international awards.
The authors wrote that Gulangyu Islet is supposedly the "Piano Island" but "no one seems to have told the locals." Did they talk to the locals? Gulangyu Islet is known throughout Asia for its pianos (1 in 5 families has one). If their writing about Xiamen, my adopted home, is so inaccurate, how can I trust what they write about other areas of China?
I'm used to the sarcasm of jaded travelers and their jaded travel guides; I even chuckle at some of it. But Frommer's takes it a bit far this time. They remind me of the fictitious author of the hilarious fictitious guidebook to the Asian country "Phaic Tan" who said, "I visit every place twice--the very first time to experience it and the second time to complain about the changes."
I don't think Frommer's need visit China a third time. I'll stick with Lonely Planet.
Rated by buyers 
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Frommer's "China Complete" tries hard to include a lot of information, but there's just not enough room in "only" 800 pages to pack it all in. Let's face it, China is too big a country to be covered adequately by an all-in-one guidebook. I'd definitely go for more specialized, regional and city, guidebooks whenever you can find them.
For something more inclusive, though, I can suggest two possibilities, especially for first-timers: (1) "Frommer's China: The 50 Most Memorable Trips" and (2) "The Eyewitness Travel Guide to China." The Eyewitness Guide is very attractive and informative visually, while "50 Trips" has excellent descriptive text and not a single photograph! You could decide which one to buy, depending on your own preferred orientation (visual or text). Both do a fine job of describing China's many cultural sights: temples, palaces, gardens, and more. They are cultural guides, rather than "Frommer's Complete" all-things-to-all-people approach, but I prefer them for that very reason. In trying to do too much, "Frommer's Complete" doesn't really fit the bill.
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