"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 protrays, but, also, in looking at

"Buy this book and use it as you revisit the major sights 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 be

"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 humor, the author portrays, with a sure hand, the rich tapestry of Peking. In doing so, the histor

"The stories are what make the book a compelling read, regardless of whether or not 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 Kanthor, Far Eastern Economic Re

"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 intepreting the city

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.