M. A. Aldrich's interest in Chinese culture began more than 30 years ago. He is a graduate of the Foreign Service School of Georgetown University where he studied under Jesuit teachers who lived in China before the revolution of 1949. He later took a master's degree in History at SUNY at Stony Brook. After studying law at Columbia University, he has been an international commercial attorney in Greater China for 15 years. He works in the Beijing office of a London-based international law firm.
To me (a Chinese) it is Aldrich’s open-mindedness – his awareness
and acceptance that his values are not universal – that makes his
book a delight to read. I take pleasure not only looking at the Old
Beijing he so vividly portrays, but also, in looking at him looking
at Old Beijing. To me, his book is not so much a travel guide as a
mirror: it reflects ways of seeing my culture in a new light and
sets an example of how to communicate across culture… Aldrich’s
affection for the land that is China bursts forth so powerfully
that he happily occupies the intriguing paradox of being a foreign
devil while not really being one.
*Michelle Ng, Zing Magazine, Shanghai*
This is a quirky book...It’s not the kind of thing you get from
your average tour guide, and certainly not what you get from your
average guidebook. For someone who is going to linger here for a
few days, and really wants to walk around the hutongs – which
really is the most interesting thing to do in Beijing these days –
it is a fairly indispensable companion.
*Evan Osnos, author Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and
Faith in the New China*
Beijing is like the most interesting girlfriend you never had –
rich, beautiful and highly cultured but very, very difficult to
understand and requiring a lot of time and thought. Michael Aldrich
has produced by far the best crack at interpreting the city to
date.
*Paul French, author of Midnight in Peking*
M.A. Aldrich’s city history was my constant companion on bike rides
around town. If a building caught my eye, I could usually find its
description in Aldrich, who narrates in the relaxed voice of a
patient guide.
*Michael Myer, author of The Last Days of Old Beijing*
Like an old friend who knows Beijing inside and out, Aldrich takes
the reader by the arm as they discover the city together. By
weaving history, legend and humour, the author portrays, with a
sure hand, the rich tapestry of Peking. In doing so, the history of
china also unfolds.
*Valery Garrett, Asian Review of Books, Hong Kong*
The stories are what make the book a compelling read, regardless of
whether you actually make it to the sites he is describing. Some
are fact, some are myth, and many span the grey divide between the
two.
*Rebecca Kantor, Far Eastern Economic Review*
Buy this book and use it as you revisit the major sighs again and
again. In between times, take in some of the less familiar sights,
the bizarre and beautiful corners that still remain in this city of
a thousand pneumatic drills. You could not have a better guide than
long-time Beijing resident M. A. Aldrich.
*Jane Ram, Asian Business Traveller*
This is a tremendously enjoyable book; reading it feels like going
for a stroll through Old Peking who is a cross between Peter
Hopkirk and Mark Twain.
*John Grant Ross, author of Formosan Odyssey*
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