Frommer's China
Chapter One
The Best of China
With every new edition of this book, identifying the "best of China" becomes a
more and more difficult task. As this once isolated giant awakens, forces are being
unleashed that impact tourism. Devastating pollution, widespread corruption, and
the sheer volume of tourists have transformed many of China's best-known sights into
filthy, overpriced circuses. To find the very best that China has to offer, it is sadly
becoming more important to know what to avoid, rather than what to see.
Perhaps the best advice that we can give is to focus on nature. After suffering
through the devastating Cultural Revolution, what little remains of the country's
much-vaunted 5,000 years of culture is being lost in the rush to get rich-even small
cities have become heavily polluted sweatshops. Fortunately, China still has some of
the most spectacular natural scenery on the planet. Many places within the People's
Republic have only recently been opened to visitors, so we have ... read full excerpt from Frommer's China ebook
