Video Night in Kathmandu: And Other Reports from the Not-so-far East [Hardcover]

Pico Iyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 16, 1988

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 civilizations, 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 its curious mixture of innocence and calculation, turn from confrontation into mating dance? Iyer travelled to Bali where, despite its notoriously spoiling tourism, he realized that Paradise might not be lost after all. China, trumpeting its first case of AIDS, was throwing open doors of trade with breathless courtesy. The ragged population of the Philippines at the end of the Marcos era sang along to "We are the World" in sight of US military installations. Burma, in its efforts to lock out the modern world, had locked in the Raj, and in Hong Kong a crowded new multinational empire of industrial Yuppies was poised to rule the future. In the land where movies and politics respond to the same need for mythical figures, the movie star had become a god and Rajiv Gandhi a celluloid hero. The Japanese were in the midst of a baseball craze, but only in order to demonstrate that, as with Western technology, the game can be played more efficiently in the land of the Rising Yen. Iyer introduces a wide variety of individuals and the reader discovers the seductions and ironies of today's Asian culture - and of our own.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Only in India would the American film Rambo be remade with the title role played by a woman--in a sari, no less! Only in Hong Kong would a man at a cocktail party pick up a woman with the line "What do you think of the dollar?" And only in Video Night in Kathmandu will you find detailed, unsettling portraits of a Far East in flux as experienced by Pico Iyer, a travel writer beyond compare. Tibet, China, India, and Thailand--these are among the objects of Iyer's wanderlust, the subjects of 11 essays chronicling his travels. In India, he explores the lucrative Bombay film business: "The process of turning an American movie into an Indian one was not very difficult ... but it did require a few changes.... the Indian hero had to be domesticated, supplied with a father, a mother, and a clutch of family complications." As one film director told him, " ... for example, Rambo must be given a sister who was raped." In Bangkok he finds the sex trade is well nigh impossible to avoid: " ... by the time a third official government tout approached me with the novel invitation: 'My friend. You no like birdwatching?' I was inclined to suspect that ornithology was not among his interests."

Pico Iyer is more than just a travel writer. For four years, he wrote about world affairs for Time, and he brings to these brilliant, comical, and poignant essays his extensive knowledge of politics and culture as well as a journalist's eye for the telling details. Video Night in Kathmandu provides both a stark, unsettling view of modern Asia and an exploration of the ambivalent attitudes Asians hold toward the West. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

In 1985, Iyer, a British freelance writer, crisscrossed eastern Asia to view the spread of America's pop-cultural imperialism through 10 of the world's oldest civilizations. With serendipity as his guide, he spent only a few weeks in each country, and most of his intelligence came by chance. Nevertheless, this traveler's casual observations make a book of warmth, charm and sensibility, and anyone intending to visit the Orient will greatly benefit from his arresting descriptions and shrewd assessments: Bangkok is a mixture of "pizzas, pizzazz and all the glitzy razzmatazz of the American Dream, California style." China displays "the get-rich-quick politics of the Cultureless Revolution." Money-mad Hong Kong is "the largest metropolis in the world without a museum." Despite its "impatience of limitations," Japan is obsessed by baseball and Disneyland. Tibet is "the latest way station of the Denim Route." The people of the Philippines, "masters of Asia's hospitality business," are the most depressing and desperate. One word characterizes Singapore: "McCity." In the end, it is poor, shabby Burma, "the dotty eccentric of Asia, the queer maiden aunt who lives alone" that has the most appeal. If the image abroad of America is "perplexingly double-edged" the responses it provokes are "appropriately forked-tongued," and, in the last chapter, "The Empire Strikes Back," Iyer begins to suspect that every Asian culture he visited is probably "too deep, too canny or too self-possessed to be turned by passing trade winds from the west."
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (June 16, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0747501831
• ISBN-13: 978-0747501831
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,938,345 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Late 80s Asia March 2, 2003

By therosen VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Pico Iyer has written an interesting set of annecdotes on Asia during the late 80s boom years. It covers the isolation of Burma, the sex trade in Thailand, the night life in Nepal, and everything inbetween. The book takes a deeper view beyond the stereotypes to understand the complexities of the cultural merging.

The book really has two main values. First, it gives an annecdotal view of a lifestyle that, while only 15-20 years ago, is already gone. Hong Kong 1986 is a place in transition that is different than Hong Kong today. While many books today provide political and economic viewpoints on the times, and the changes, they don't accurately cover an expats view of life and cultural exchange.

The second value is in understanding aspects of the culture that still apply. India's polyclot of ethnic groups and interaction with the West applies today. Pico Iyer is adept at capturing cultural traits that last, and perhaps even grow, despite the pressures of a globalizing world.

I'm not a universal fan of all of Iyer's material, but this is certainly one of his better works. It's more readable, and the concepts more universal and lasting than some of his other books.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Flawless reporting from ground zero of "west" meeting "east" March 11, 1999

By Amit Gilboa ([e-mail])

Format:Paperback

This book is excellent. Iyer is not trying to - nor does he in any way claim to - "interpret" or "explain" the countries or people or cultures he is visiting. His goal is to report from the fault line where the colossal mass of Western money and consumer culture bumps up against the even more colossal mass of Asian societies and cultures. This collision produces many fascinating, humorous, and poignant situations which Iyer captures perfectly in his excellent writing. In each country he visits, Iyer is able to identify and bring to the page exactly those details that perfectly symbolize the situations he is writing about.

What especially impressed me was that Iyer does not romanticize or glorify or exoticize what is beautiful about the lands he travels to. Nor does he denigrate their shortcomings. He is a fair and honest observer of what he has chosen to observe: the ground zero of "west" meeting "east".

As someone who has studied in both China and Thailand (as well as two other Asian countries which were not in the book), I can vouch for the accuracy of what Iyer is reporting. Sure, a scholarly author might have added more details about Chinese philosophy or Thai history. But for his chosen topic, Iyer's accounts are complete and flawless.

The book is certainly entertaining, but it is also informative and thought-provoking as well. Well done, Mr. Iyer.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Cynical Romantic February 6, 2008

By Chan Joon Yee

Format:Paperback

The currency and accuracy of the information aside (China abolished FECs and foreigner prices more than a decade ago), this book presents many truths that may go against a lot of things that the tourism authority and the infatuated romantic writers say. Without actually making fun of everybody, Pico Iyer skillfully paints a poetic yet cynical and down to earth, almost Dickensian picture of developing Asian countries where the citizens quite happily watch Hollywood movies and pore over the latest electronic gadgetry.

Iyer's insights are by no means new, unique or even profound. He sympathised with Chinese-occupied Tibet. He blew the spiritual cover of hippies in Nepal. He talked about the sex trade in Thailand. However, it is through this book that I discovered Pico Iyer's great talent with words and highly polished writing style. For those who like "plain English", I would certainly not recommend Iyer's books. But for those who enjoy introspective literary works, Iyer will not disappoint.

My favourite chapter is Thailand - Love in a Duty-Free Zone. The content of the chapter is as full of nuances as the title.