A handy Mandarin Chinese phrasebook and guide to the Chinese language, Survival Chinese contains basic vocabulary necessary for getting around. This book contains all the necessary words and phrases for speaking Mandarin Chinese in any kind of setting. Perfect for students, tourists, or business people learning Mandarin or traveling to China or Taiwan, it also contains a beginner guide to the Mandarin language, allowing for a deeper understanding of Chinese than a typical Mandarin phrasebook or Chinese dictionary. The book is broken into four basic sections: Common Chinese Expressions and Key Words, Essential Chinese Communication Tools, Chinese Travel Vocabulary, and making your own sentences. All Chinese words and phrases are written in Romanized form (pinyin) as well phonetically, making pronouncing Chinese a breeze. For example, the word for "reservation", yuding is also written as yuu-deeng. Authentic Chinese characters are also included so that in the case of difficulties the book can be shown to the person the user is trying to communicate with. Key features of Survival Chinese include: Hundreds of useful Chinese words and expressions. An A-Z index which allows the book to function as a English to Chinese dictionary. Romanized forms, phonetic spellings, and Chinese Characters (Hanzi) for all words and phrases. A concise background and history of the Chinese language. A complete guide to Chinese pronunciations. A concise guide to using Chinese tones. A brief introduction to Chinese grammar.

Whatever your purpose, this book is a great place to start your Chinese language learning journey.

This updated edition of the best-selling travel guide to China is your ticket to the trip of a lifetime. Compact, affordable, reliable, a delight to read—these qualities are what has made China Survival Guide so popular with first-time and seasoned China travelers. This third edition has a brand new section on train travel, plus updates and fresh recommendations. Includes practical strategies for lodging, walking, haggling, medical and bathroom emergencies, etiquette, crowds, and learning the twin arts of patience and persistence.

The modern Chinese state has traditionally affected every major aspect of domestic society. With the growing liberalization of the economy, coupled with increasingly complex social issues, there is a belief that the state is retreating from an array of social problems from health to the environment. Yet, a survey of China’s contemporary political landscape today reveals not only a central state which plays an active role in managing social problems, but also new state actors at the local level which are increasingly seeking to partner with various non-governmental organizations or social associations. This book looks at how NGOs, social organizations, business associations, trade unions, and religious associations interact with the state, and explores how social actors have negotiated the influence of the state at both national and local levels. It further examines how a corporatist understanding of state-society relations can be reformulated, as old and new social stakeholders play a greater role in managing contemporary social issues. The book goes on to chart the differences in how the state behaves locally and centrally, and finally discusses the future direction of the corporatist state. Drawing on a range of sources from recent fieldwork and the latest data, this timely collection will appeal to students and scholars working in the fields of Chinese politics, Chinese economics and Chinese society.

A social history of the role of the Chinese laundry on the survival of early Chinese immigrants in the U.S.during the Chinese Exclusion law period, 1882-1943, and in Canada during the years of the Head Tax, 1885-1923, and exclusion law, 1923-1947. Why and how Chinese got into the laundry business and how they had to fight discriminatory laws and competition from white-owned laundries to survive. Description of their lives, work demands, and living conditions. Reflections by a sample of children who grew up living in the backs of their laundries provide vivid first-person glimpses of the difficult lives of Chinese laundrymen and their families.

China's management of urbanization is an under-appreciated factor in the regime's longevity. The Chinese Communist Party fears "Latin Americanization" -- the emergence of highly unequal megacities with their attendant slums and social unrest. Such cities threaten the survival of nondemocratic regimes. To combat the threat, many regimes, including China's, favor cities in policymaking. Cities and Stability shows this "urban bias" to be a Faustian Bargain: cities may be stabilized for a time, but the massive in-migration from the countryside that results can generate the conditions for political upheaval. Through its hukou system of internal migration restrictions, China has avoided this dilemma, simultaneously aiding urbanites and keeping farmers in the countryside. The system helped prevent social upheaval even during the Great Recession, when tens of millions of laid-off migrant workers dispersed from coastal cities. Jeremy Wallace's powerful account forces us to rethink the relationship between cities and political stability throughout the developing world.