As Octavio Paz writes in the afterword, “Eliot Weinberger’s commentary on the successive translations of Wang Wei’s little poem illustrates, with succinct clarity, not only the evolution of the art of translation in the modern period but at the same time the changes in poetic sensibility.”

    What Thubron reveals is an astonishing diversity, a land whose still unmeasured resources strain to meet an awesome demand, and an ancient people still reeling from the devastation of the Cultural Revolution.

    Special features of this edition include direct word-for-word translations showing the range of meaning in each Chinese character, the Chinese pronunciations, as well as biographical and historical commentary following each poem.

    The description for this book, The Languages of China, will be forthcoming.

    Jennie Low's clear, step-by-step instructions make it possible for even the beginning cook to prepare gourmet Chinese meals. She explains it all: how to shop, how to chop, how to stir-fry, and how to use a wok. There is even a glossary of Chinese food terms presented both in English and in Chinese characters to allow the reader to shop with ease in Asian markets. Jennie Low's is the essential cookbook for anyone who wishes to cook authentic dishes in the Chinese style.

    768-831) was well known as a poet in an age when all men of learning were poets--and almost all women were illiterate. As an entertainer and official government hostess, she met, and impressed, many of the most talented and powerful figures of her day. As a maker of beautiful paper and a Taoist churchwoman, she maintained a life of independence and aesthetic sensibility. As a writer, she crrated a body of work that is by turns deeply moving, amusing, and thought-provoking. Drawing knowledgeably on a rich literary tradition, she created images that here live again for the contemporary reader of English. This bilingual edition contains about two-thirds of Xue Tao's extant poems. The translations are based on accurate readings of the originals and extensive research in both Chinese and Japanese materials. The notes at the end of the book explain allusions and place the poems in the context of medieval Chinese culture and its great literary heritage, while the opening essay introduces Xue Tao's work and describes her unusual life history.

    

    Among the dictionary's many features are: *Simplified Chinese characters as well as Pinyin romanization *Pronunciation using international phonetic symbols *Numerous examples of usage in both languages *Appendices including consonants and vowels of the Chinese phonetic alphabet, and names and abbreviations of China's provinces, regions, and municipalities *Handy pocket-sized form

    Seven stories depict the lives of ordinary Chinese citizens during recent political and social upheavals in their homeland.

    It was in the middle schools that much of the fury of the Cultural Revolution and Red Guard movement was spent, and Gao was caught up in very dramatic events, which he recounts as he understood them at the time. Gao's father was a county political official who was in and out of trouble during those years, and the intense interplay between father and son and the differing perceptions and impact of the Cultural Revolution for the two generations provide both an unusual perspective and some extraordinary moving moments. He also makes deft use of traditional mythology and proverbial wisdom to link, sometimes ironically, past and present. Gao relates in vivid fashion how students-turned-Red Guards held mass rallies against 'capitalist roader' teachers and administrators, marching them through the streets to the accompaniment of chants and jeers and driving some of them to suicide. Eventually the students divided into two factions, and school and town became armed camps. Gao tells of the exhilaration that he and his comrades experienced at their initial victories, of their deepening disillusionment as they utter defeat as the tumultuous first phase of the Cultural Revolution came to a close. The portraits of the persons to whom Gao introduces us - classmates, teachers, family members - gain weight and density as the story unfolds, so that in the end we see how they all became victims of the dynamics of a mass movement out of control.

    In that time an abortive uprising, the escape of the Dalai Lama, a border war with India and the Cultural Revolution have done nothing to quell people's religious instincts or to improve their economic lot. Uniform concrete apartment blocks have replaced thousands of Buddhist monasteries, which once housed a fifth of the male population, but to Elaine Brook, travelling alone in the country in 1982, Tibetans expressed more anger about the hunger, while food was being whisked away to China, than about the violence and suppression that had overtaken their lives.

    

    Johnston's experience as a colonial official in Weihaiwei more than sixty years ago. Johnston paints a detailed picture of the rich fabric of life in Weihaiwei--the customs, social structure, family life, religion, law, and history--at a time before the region was transformed by Western influences and Chinese reformers

    The discovery of gunpowder in China by the 9th century AD was followed by its rapid applications. It is now clear that the whole development from bombs and grenades to the invention of the metal-barrel hand gun took place in the Chinese culture area before Europeans had any knowledge of the mixture itself. Uses in civil engineering and mechanical engineering were equally important, before the knowledge of gunpowder spread to Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Dr Needham's new work continues to demonstrate the major importance of Chinese science and technology to world history and maintains the tradition of one of the great scholarly works of the twentieth century.

    Library Journal called it remarkable...an unusual and valuable book about pre-1949 China. A fitting sequel to that volume, this book collects more of Morrison's photographs from China during the same period; in this case, her subject is the China beyond Peking's boundaries. Morrison's travels took her such places as Yun Kang, one of the most important Buddhist sites; Jehol, the old Imperial summer seat whose edifices were built by the Emperor Kang Hsi; Hua Shan, the awesome mountain sacred to Taoists; the Shantung coast, where houses were built of stone (unlikeanywhere else in China); and Nanking, a city rich in history and culture in the lush lower Yangtze valley. Ranging from portraits to architectural studies to images of landscapes, the 230 photographs collected here display the same keenness of observation and sympathy for their subjects that wereso in evidence in the earlier book