Sharkspotting

This weekend was the 15-year anniversary of the Handover of Hong Kong. We celebrated the three day weekend by going out on a junk boat for a day of swimming and sunbathing. While I was in the water with about ten other people, the folks on a boat nearby started yelling at us to get out because there was a shark. For a moment we thought they were joking, but climbed back onto the boat just in case. A few seconds later, I saw a fin the size of my arm sticking out of the water near the beach. The shark was over ten feet long and it hung around the three boats in the cove for about half an hour. I got a few pictures (which I'll post in my junk boat walking tour tomorrow), but the folks who first spotted the shark made an entire video! It turned out to be a harmless, filter-feeding whale shark. Enjoy this close-up look and I'll post my own pictures of the day tomorrow.

Fun with Amazon

Thank you to everyone who stuck around for the second round of my Olympics Beat blog tour. With less than a month to go until the London Olympics, I'll be popping up on a few more blogs and websites. Apart from that, I'll get back to my normal reviews, walking tours and bookspottings until the Games begin. If you missed any of the links, they're listed below and on the News page of my website.

Even if you personally are not into reading this sort of thing, you may be wondering what you can do to help. This is where "fun with Amazon" comes in.

A strong Amazon listing is a vital tool to help the right people discover the right books for them. So I have two requests for help, regardless of whether you yourself are interested in The Olympics Beat, and two calls to action for anyone who did buy the book.

Requests for Help (for everyone)

1) Go to the Amazon listing for The Olympics Beat and tag it with relevant key words. Some suggested tags: Olympics, Olympic Games, travel, memoir, travelogue, travel memoir, spectator, sports, China, Beijing. You can do this even if you don't care about the Olympics or China!

2) Go to the Amazon listing for The Olympics Beat and click the 'like' button just beneath the title. This has nothing to do with Facebook, but it could help boost my position in search results. 

Calls to Action (for Olympics Beat readers)

1) Write a review on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, or your own blog. Every review helps, even if you didn't like the book!

2) Add your own images to the product page by clicking share your own customer images underneath the cover on the Amazon listing. This could be a picture of the book on your device, you with the book, or any other cool pictures you have that are related to China and/or the Olympics.

Thanks for all your support everyone!


Guest Posts
The Expat Writer's Connection on Adventures in Expat Land
Energy, Inspiration, Influence on Susan Blumberg-Kason
Olympic-size Optimism on Book Dilettante
Reading China on Reading the World

Interviews
Questions about my family history in Asia from Susan Blumberg-Kason
Podcast interview with Stuart Beaton

Reviews of The Olympics Beat
"thoroughly enjoyed the physical, emotional and cultural journey of a lifetime this father-daughter duo makes. It's a great read, one that speaks to that special bond between a father and his daughter, made more so by sharing the Olympics experience together." - Adventures in Expat Land

"this book allows us a vicarious experience of the craziness and overwhelming hospitality that marked the Beijing Olympics beyond the Birds Nest." - Reading the World

"It's been more than 20 years since I visited Beijing, but I felt like I was back there with them, hearing the cheers of the stadium, the beats of the drums, the lights from the opening ceremony. Then there was the food." - Susan Blumberg-Kason, Book of the Week

On Reading China

Today, I have a guest post over at the lovely Reading the World blog. I hope you have all added Sarah's "literary Grand Tour" to your regular reads by now. It's a great concept for a blog and I've enjoyed all her other posts so far. My article is on reading about China. Here's a taste...

The China of novels is a land of ancient traditions, elegant hills covered in mist, and communal courtyards betwixt peak-roofed houses. In the China of novels, at least all the novels I read before my first visit in 2008, women have bound feet and pale, lotus faces, and men toil in rice paddies with honor and duty on their shoulders. The history, the poetry, the very language is full of mystery and inscrutable beauty.

The China of newspapers is frightening. It owns our debt, our means of production, our competition. It’s a place of mystery too, dogged by a recent history of shattering need, death, and whispered oppression. The China of newspapers is a threat and a crutch.

Between the China of novels and the China of newspapers lies a third China. Read the rest...

Tomorrow, I'll wrap up this little blog tour for The Olympics Beat with a list of all the places I've hopped around the internet lately and a request for help.

Interview: The Hong Kong Connection

The next stop on my blog tour is over on my friend Susan Blumberg-Kason's blog. She asked some great questions, especially about my family connections to Hong Kong. Susan herself lived here for quite a few years. She has had many of the same experiences and we've connected over our mutual love for HK. Here are some of the questions to give a taste of what the interview is like:

1.      find it fascinating that your grandparents lived in Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s, your father was born there, and you ended up there not entirely by your own doing. Given your family’s background, had you ever thought about a future in Asia, or in Hong Kong to be specific?

2.      When you decided to move to Hong Kong, do you think your parents were more understanding than the average American mother and father because your father’s family had a long history in Asia? Did your mother and father have different reactions to your decision? 

1.      Who are your favorite authors? 

2.       What books are in your Kindle waiting to be read?

Go to Susan's blog to see my answers!

If you're just tuning in, this is the blog tour for my $0.99 e-book about the 2008 Olympics called The Olympics Beat: A Spectator's Memoir of Beijing. It's available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Olympics Beat Review

 It's Day Two of my little blog tour for The Olympics Beat and we're approaching one month until the London Games.

Today I have a review for you on a cool new blog called Reading the World (a literary Grand Tour). Sarah writes about travel, culture and books in a thorough, thoughtful style. I think her blog will appeal to many readers of A Kindle in Hong Kong. In her 4-star review of The Olympics Beat, she quotes extensively from the book and makes some spot-on critiques.

Don't forget that if you want to see more pictures from the Beijing Olympics, you can visit ShannonYoungWriter.com. While you're over there don't forget to join my email list!

Bookspotting and Guest Posting

This was quite a successful bookspotting week. First I walked beside a boy reading what looked like a typical middle grade chapter book. I couldn't see the title, but I looked over his shoulder and saw that there's a character named Galen in the story. Does anyone know what book it was? A few days ago, I saw a young man sitting outside a restaurant reading a huge book (I'm talking Robert Jordan hardback size) and smoking a big cigar. A woman in a bookstore was sitting on a bench reading Now You See Me. I saw a guy walking with his girlfriend on one arm and small pile of books in the other, one of which was called What Money Can't Buy. I spotted four Chinese books this week and one guidebook. How about you?

We just have one month to go before the London Olympics begin! This week I'll be hopping around to some different blogs to promote my e-book The Olympics Beat: A Spectator's Memoir of Beijing. First up is a guest post about the inspiring nature of Hong Kong at Susan Blumberg-Kason's blog. Susan is a writer who reviews a new book on her blog each week, usually about China, and it's a great place to go for recommendations!

The blog tour continues tomorrow with a review on a great new literary/travel blog!

BACKPACKED by Catherine Ryan Howard

THE GIST:

A girl who really doesn't like being uncomfortable decides to go backpacking.

THE VERDICT:

In this fun travel memoir, Catherine Ryan Howard is a 20-something Irish girl who has just finished working for a fancy hotel in Disney World. She likes reading in cafes, sitting by the pool, and other activities that promote comfort and cleanliness. But when her US visa expires, she joins an adventurous friend for 10 weeks of backpacking in South America, not allowing the reality of what backpacking actually is to sink in until it's to late. Amidst dirty hostels, cold showers, and strange fellow travelers, she is out of her comfort zone pretty much 100% of the time.

This is a travel memoir for everyone who has ever thought, "Let's just stay in a hotel this time." It's about the backpacking experience without the dewy-eyed enthusiasm for roughing it shared by many young travelers. Howard is honest about the discomforts, and also the unexpected joys, of the traveling experience. She brings a fresh look to the places she visits by not idealizing the act of travel. She also manages to celebrate the beauty of the places she visits in spite of her own worries.

This is now the fourth book I've read by this author (I haven't reviewed Self-Printed yet). I'm a fan of her writing style, which is funny, snarky, and very down-to-earth. In this adventure, the portrayals of the characters are particularly strong. I haven't been on a serious backpacking adventure, but I recognize the types of some of these people. There was a pair of elderly women that could have come straight out of A Room With a View and a young man that I could have sworn I met in a youth hostel in Taiwan. This is an honest look at what it's like to travel in less than ideal circumstances and still manage to have a terrific time.

THE LINKS:

Catherine, Caffeinated
My reviews of MOUSETRAPPED, a travel memoir, and RESULTS NOT TYPICAL, a novel.

THE COST:

I downloaded this e-book for free during a special promotion, but it's $2.99.

THE QUESTION:

What's your favorite type of travel? Have you ever been backpacking?

Don't forget that my e-book, a travel memoir about the Beijing Olympics, is available from Amazon and B&N for $0.99. It's called The Olympics Beat: A Spectator's Memoir of Beijing. Only 35 days until the London Games begin!