A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East - Hardcover

An Asia correspondent recounts a year of traveling the Far East by foot, boat, bus, car, and train--visiting Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Mongolia, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia and rediscoverring the people and unique culture of each country. 25,000 first printing.

Hong Kong fortune-teller not to risk flying for a whole year, Tiziano Terzani ― a vastly experienced Asia correspondent ― took what he called “the first step into an unknown world. . . . It turned out to be one of the most extraordinary years I have ever spent: I was marked for death, and instead I was reborn.”

Traveling by foot, boat, bus, car, and train, he visited Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Mongolia, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. Geography expanded under his feet. He consulted soothsayers, sorcerers, and shamans and received much advice ― some wise, some otherwise ― about his future. With time to think, he learned to understand, respect, and fear for older ways of life and beliefs now threatened by the crasser forms of Western modernity. He rediscovered a place he had been reporting on for decades. And it reinvigorated him.

The result is an immensely engaging, insightful, and idiosyncratic journey, fil