How can I get old episodes of CCTV's 'Travel in Chinese'?

[trisha2766]

I just recently found the 'Travel in Chinese' series on CCTV, but they don't have the first episodes of the series on their site. Is there anyway to still view them?

The older series they had I'm not able to view either, a message in Chinese pops up, but I'm not able to read it.

[leeyah]

Try >>http://www.heychinese.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=4&zenid=9ad97a93455e801df57cfd412f93338b, except that 2, 9 & 10 and some others seem to be missing...

[Xiwang]

The "Travel in Chinese" series was made into a series of five paperback books with DVDs. The books are attractive and contain the transcripts, vocabulary, grammar points, and cultural discussions. Unfortunately, I don't see that it is on sale in the United States through Amazon or China Books/US or through any used booksellers via Alibris or Abe Books.

Volume 1 (ISBN 978-7-5600-7496-2) of the series contains Lessons 1 through 16. If you're interested, you can order it directly from China from the publisher for about US$10 plus shipping:

http://en.fltrp.com/productDetails.asp?bsno=46289

It is also available from China Books Australia for about US$38 plus shipping.

If you want the book and have any problems with the publisher, send me a PM. They sell the book in the store down the street from me here in Shanghai.

(I really do miss Eve Bower.)

[trisha2766]

Thanks! Sorry it took me so long to respond, didn't have time to follow up until now.

Not sure what I will do yet.

It's cool to be able to watch it free at heychinese, but the transcripts look hard to read and the grammar points, etc. aren't there.

It turns out that China Sprout sells the first book, but not the rest and for $32. $10 dollars sounds much better, but I wonder how much the shipping would be?

Xiwang - how much are bookstores selling it for?

From the little I saw of it, it looks like it could be very helpful for my listening skills since there are native speakers in it that are talking fast.

I'll have to see what other alternatives I can come up with too.

[Xiwang]

The bookstores are selling the book for 75 RMB, which is slightly under US$10.

I'm heading to the post office in a few days to mail some postcards so I'll ask about the postage costs. I don't expect that it will be super expensive since we're just talking about a paperback book with a DVD inside.

[trisha2766]

I sent an email to the publisher about prices and shipping but have not heard back from them. I have heard good things about studychineseculture.com so I just contacted them to see if they can get it. They don't currently have it one their site, but they have Dashan's Communicate in Chinese, so maybe they can get this too.

So bookstores are selling them for just around $10 too then? I didn't know if they would mark them up a for a lot more than what the publisher charges. Thanks for checking on that for me!

[Xiwang]

Dear Trisha:

I saw Mark Rowswell (“Dà Shān”), the host of “Travel in Chinese,” today. He was kind enough to sign and dedicate a copy of his “Travel in Chinese” book to you. (I think that I was wrong; only the first of the five volumes seems to be out right now.)

If you send me a PM with a mailing address, I would love to mail the book to you. Please consider it a gift.

[trisha2766]

Oh my gosh Xiwang! I didn't expect anything like that! How were you able to meet him? You are in Shanghai - is he usually in that area? I thought he lived in Beijing. Did he seem nice?

I will send you a pm - but let me know how much the shipping ends up being, I want to send you something for it. Do you have a paypal account?

Thank you very much!

[trisha2766]

For future reference, in case anyone is interested - studychineseculture.com sells the first part of Travel in Chinese, it is the only part that is available so far.

[trisha2766]

I got the book and DVD's!

I think it will be very useful! The text in the book includes pinyin, which will be very helpful for looking up words I don't know. And I love that there are English translations. That seems to be missing from many of the learning materials I have. Sometimes just knowing the meanings of the individual characters and words isn't enough to really understand what is being said.

I wish 大山 would make a series just focusing on grammar. Most grammar explanations are not easy to understand. I think a native English speaker whose Chinese is very good would be able to explain grammar in a way that would be more understandable to native English speakers.

Attached is an image of 大山's autograph!

If anyone hears when the next book in the series comes out - please let me know!

[Xiwang]

I'm glad that you like the book. When I saw Mark Rowswell, he was giving a talk at the Royal Asiatic Society in Shanghai. Among the many things that he does, he has also been appointed Canada's Commissioner General for Shanghai Expo 2010. Thus, he said, he and his family will be moving to Shanghai in March 2010 for the Expo.

The funny thing was that, even though the "Travel in Chinese" book had been out for a few months, the publisher never sent him one so he had never seen the book before. I had an extra copy so I gave it to him.

One of the local Chinese present at the talk mentioned during the Q&A session that she never knew his Canadian name before because everyone in China knows him only as Dashan. As you noted in your PM to me, the publisher badly misspelled his name on the back cover of the book. I didn't realize that myself when I gave him the book. I hope he had a good laugh about it later that evening when he read it.