Overview

When Pico Iyer began his travels, he wanted to know how Rambo conquered Asia. Why did Dire Straits blast out over Hiroshima, Bruce Springsteen over Bali and Madonna over all? If he was eager to learn where East meets West, how pop culture and imperialism penetrated through the world's most ancient civilisations, then the truths he began to uncover were more startling, more subtle, more complex than he ever anticipated. Who was hustling whom? When did this pursuit of illusions and vested interests, with it's curious mix of innocence and calculation, turn from confrontation into the mating dance? Iyer travelled to Bali where despite tourism he realised that Paradise might not be lost after all. He checked on how Tibet was faring as the word's last secret to be revealed to full view. In Nepal, he saw how the Dharma path met Freak Street, and witnessed in China how doors locked to trade were thrown open with breathless courtesy. This is a world where the movie star has become a god and Rajiv Gandhi a celluloid hero, and to travel with Iyer is to experience the seductions and ironies of today's Asian cultures - and our own.

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Quick-witted and perceptive...something more than a deft and entertaining traveler's tale. -- The New Yorker The book is filled with Iyer's enthusiasms and opinions, both engaging and provocative, and is...a sensual feast of rich impressions. -- Los Angeles Times A fresh approach, embellished by the author's humorous and perceptive style. -- San Francisco Chronicle Mohawk haircuts in Bali. Yuppies in Hong Kong. In Bombay, not one but five Rambo rip-offs, complete with music and dancing. And in the new People's Republic of China, a restaurant that serves dishes called Yes, Sir, Cheese My Baby, A Legitimate Beef, and Ike and Tuna Turner. These are some of the images -- comical, poignant, and unsettling -- that Pico Iyer brings back from the Far East in this brilliant book of travel reportage. A writer for Time, Iyer approaches his subject with a camera-sharp eye, a style that suggests a cross between Paul Theroux and Hunter Thompson, and a willingness to go beyond the obvious conclusions about the hybrid cultures of East and West.

Some of the most polished travel writing to appear in a long time - always revealing, sometimes reflective, frequently riotous - as Iyer investigates the impact of Reagonomics, Rambo, and rock-and-roll on the countries of the Orient. Eschewing the standard itinerary format of most travel journals, Iyer offers essays that range in subject from the Marcoses' Manila to the decline of New Age questing in Kathmandu - and displays a sharpshooter's eye for evocative detail whether discussing baseball mania in Japan, movie-making in India, or flesh-peddling in Bangkok. Along the way, the young English-born writer creates some unforgettable set pieces. Take, for example, the octogenarian American Marxist he encounters as she careens about the world in search of socialist answers, or the night spent in an airport hotel in Lhasa, where everything that could go awry - did. Then there is his visit to Professor Dr. Mr. Joshi, Ph. D., the Royal Astrologer of Nepal. The soothsayer offers such enlightening advice as, every month on the night of the full moon, you must meditate for one hour. One whole hour? Okay, okay. Fifteen minutes. Iyer is especially effective in capturing the time-capsule quality of Burma, where, he points out, the remnants of British Raj have lingered on long after they have vanished everywhere else. Equally effective: the depiction of Hong Kong's world of Yuppiedom; an analysis of why Filipino singers sound so familiar; and why the foreign visitor in Japan seldom sees more than what his hosts want him to see. Though the work, at nearly 400 pages, may be somewhat overextended, taken chapter by chapter it is a fresh and immensely accomplished Baedeker through the cultural thickets of the Not-So-Far East. (Kirkus Reviews)

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