Yu Hua, award-winning author of To Live, gives us a surreal tale of two brothers riding the dizzying roller coaster of life in a newly capitalist world. As comically mismatched teenagers, Baldy Li, a sex-obsessed ne’er-do-well, and Song Gang, his bookish, sensitive stepbrother, vow that they will always be brothers--a bond they will struggle to maintain over the years as they weather the ups and downs of rivalry in love and making and losing millions in the new China. Their tribulations play out across a richly populated backdrop that is every bit as vibrant: the rapidly-changing village of Liu Town, full of such lively characters as the self-important Poet Zhao, the craven dentist Yanker Yu, the virginal town beauty (turned madam) Lin Hong, and the simpering vendor Popsicle Wang.With sly and biting humor, combined with an insightful and compassionate eye for the lives of ordinary people, Yu Hua shows how the madness of the Cultural Revolution has transformed into the equally rabid madness of extreme materialism. Both tragic and absurd by turns, Brothers is a monumental spectacle and a fascinating vision of an extraordinary place and time.

    However, the days are long, and the little girl is lonely. Then she meets Bronze, who, unable to speak, is ostracized by the other village boys. Soon the pair are inseparable, and when Bronze's family agree to take Sunflower in, it seems that fate has brought him the sister he has always longed for. But life in Damaidi is hard, and Bronze's family can barely afford to feed themselves. Can the little city girl stay here, in this place where she has finally found happiness?A classic, heartwarming tale set to the backdrop of the Chinese cultural revolution.

    From his earliest work, Bei Dao developed a wholly original poetic language composed of mysterious and arresting images tuned to a distinctive musical key. This collection spans Bei Dao’s entire writing life, from his first book to appear in English, The August Sleepwalker, published a year after the Tiananmen tragedy, to the increasingly interior and complex poems of Landscape Over Zero and Unlock, to new never-before-published work. This bilingual edition also includes a prefatory note by the poet, and a brief afterword by the editor Eliot Weinberger. A must-read book from a seminal poet who has been translated into over thirty languages.

    Through astute diplomacy, economic investment, and a series of ambitious military campaigns into the heart of Central Eurasia, the Manchu rulers defeated the Zunghar Mongols, and brought all of modern Xinjiang and Mongolia under their control.

    "Eyewitness Travel Guide: China" provides insider tips every visitor needs from taking the Trans-Siberian railway to seeing Hong Kong from a traditional sail boat. There are comprehensive listings of the best hotels, resorts, restaurants and nightlife in each region for all budgets, as well as 3D cutaways and floor-plans of all the must-see sites, from the spectacular Forbidden Palace to China's splendid temples and palaces plus street-by-street maps of all the great cities and towns of China. With up-to-date information on getting around by train, car, walking in cities, scenic tours and all the sights, beaches, parks and gardens listed town by town, "Eyewitness Travel Guide: China" explores the culture, history, architecture and festivals of this diverse country not missing the best in shopping and entertainment in the major cities.

    In "Written on Water," first published in 1945 and now available for the first time in English, Chang offers essays on art, literature, war, and urban life, as well as autobiographical reflections. Chang takes in the sights and sounds of wartime Shanghai and Hong Kong, with the tremors of national upheaval and the drone of warplanes in the background, and inventively fuses explorations of urban life, literary trends, domestic habits, and historic events.These evocative and moving firsthand accounts examine the subtle and not-so-subtle effects of the Japanese bombing and occupation of Shanghai and Hong Kong. Eileen Chang writes of friends, colleagues, and teachers turned soldiers or wartime volunteers, and her own experiences as a part-time nurse. Her nuanced depictions range from observations of how a woman's elegant dress affects morale to descriptions of hospital life.With a distinctive style that is at once meditative, vibrant, and humorous, Chang engages the reader through sly, ironic humor; an occasionally chatty tone; and an intense fascination with the subtleties of modern urban life. The collection vividly captures the sights and sounds of Shanghai, a city defined by its mix of tradition and modernity. Chang explores the city's food, fashions, shops, cultural life, and social mores; she reveals and upends prevalent attitudes toward women and in the process presents a portrait of a liberated, cosmopolitan woman, enjoying the opportunities, freedoms, and pleasures offered by urban life. In addition to her descriptions of daily life, Chang also reflects on a variety of artistic and literary issues, including contemporary films, the aims of the writer, the popularity of the Peking Opera, dance, and painting.

    Full of historical and cultural facts, the book is a learning adventure - and a lot of fun.Is it magic? Ms. Frizzle, Wanda, and Arnold simply duck under the dragon at the local Chinese New Year's parade, and they are mysteriously whisked back in time to ancient China! They arrive in a village where the farmers are in trouble. The Friz and friends vow to go to the capital to get the emperor's help. As they journey, they learn how silk is made, travel on the Grand Canal, and see the Great Wall under construction, but will they fulfill their mission to help the farmers?Cole and Degen relay a bounty of facts with charm and humor as they bring the majesty of imperial China to life.

    Book by Robert Lawrence Kuhn

    Zen Baggage is an account of that journey. He weaves together historical background, interviews with Zen masters, and translations of the earliest known records of Zen, along with personal vignettes. Porter’s account captures the transformations taking place at religious centers in China but also the abiding legacy they have somehow managed to preserve. Porter brings wisdom and humor to every situation, whether visiting ancient caves containing the most complete collection of Buddhist texts ever uncovered, enduring a six-hour Buddhist ceremony, searching in vain for the ghost in his room, waking up the monk in charge of martial arts at Shaolin Temple, or meeting the abbess of China’s first Zen nunnery. Porter’s previously published Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits has become recommended reading at Zen centers and universities throughout America and even in China (in its Chinese translation), and Zen Baggage is sure to follow suit.

     Chinese Houses focuses on 20 well-preserved traditional homes, presenting examples from a range of rural and metropolitan areas throughout China.The photographs of each are accompanied by extensive background information and historical content. An introductory essay examines the different types of Chinese homes and provides an overview of the rich regional variety of Chinese dwelling forms. It also provides insights into little-known design concepts that emphasize the flexibility, adaptability, and versatility of traditional building forms and the work of traditional craftsmen.Richly illustrated with photographs, woodblock prints, historic images, and line drawings, Chinese Houses portrays an architectural tradition of amazing range and resilience.

    Located in the southern part of the Anhui province in northern China, Mount Huangshan has often been described as the world’s most beautiful and enchanting mountain. Over the centuries this mountain with its seventy-two peaks has been the subject of Chinese landscape painters, whose singular works are so haunting it seems impossible that these mountains exist in nature. Inspired by the legacy of these paintings, Wang Wusheng has sought to portray this scenic wonder. As shown in the collection of ninety photographs in this extraordinary volume, here are mist-shrouded, granite peaks emerging from an ever-changing veil of clouds, sculptural craggy rocks on lofty cliffs, and weathered, oddly-shaped pine trees, depicted in all seasons and at various times of day. Wang Wusheng’s images are so exceptional that they look like paintings.Accompanying the photographs are two fascinating essays about the art history and natural history of the Yellow Mountains. Art historian Wu Hung provides an eloquent, comprehensive survey of the region’s artistic, literary, and photographic tradition, relating how Wang Wusheng’s work is an important part of this notable legacy.In a second essay, Damian Harper presents an authoritative account of the geology, geography, and natural history of this legendary place. In addition, there is an introduction by the Japanese critic Seigo Matsuoka, who contributes an insightful appraisal of Wang Wusheng’s work.

    The rain and snow have weathered me, and I too have weathered them’.At the end of the twentieth-century an old woman sits among the birch trees and thinks back over her life, her loves, and the joys and tragedies that have befallen her family and her people. She is a member of the Evenki tribe who wander the remote forests of north-eastern China with their herds of reindeer, living in close sympathy with nature at its most beautiful and cruel.An idyllic childhood playing by the river ends with her father’s death and the growing realisation that her mother’s and uncle’s relationship is not as simple as she thought. Then, in the 1930s, the intimate, secluded world of the tribe is shattered when the Japanese army invades China. The Evenki cannot avoid being pulled into the brutal conflict which marks the first step towards the end of their isolation…In The Last Quarter of the Moon, prize-winning novelist Chi Zijian, creates a dazzling epic about an extraordinary woman bearing witness not just to the stories of her tribe but also to the transformation of China.

    In this rich, astonishing collection, Yiyun Li illuminates how mythology, politics, history, and culture intersect with personality to create fate. From the bustling heart of Beijing, to a fast-food restaurant in Chicago, to the barren expanse of Inner Mongolia, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers reveals worlds both foreign and familiar, with heartbreaking honesty and in beautiful prose.“Immortality,” winner of The Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize for new writers, tells the story of a young man who bears a striking resemblance to a dictator and so finds a calling to immortality. In “The Princess of Nebraska,” a man and a woman who were both in love with a young actor in China meet again in America and try to reconcile the lost love with their new lives. “After a Life” illuminates the vagaries of marriage, parenthood, and gender, unfolding the story of a couple who keep a daughter hidden from the world. And in “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers,” in which a man visits America for the first time to see his recently divorced daughter, only to discover that all is not as it seems, Li boldly explores the effects of communism on language, faith, and an entire people, underlining transformation in its many meanings and incarnations.These and other daring stories form a mesmerizing tapestry of revelatory fiction by an unforgettable writer.From the Hardcover edition.

    Poets are organized based on their status in Tang dynasty society: women of the court, women of the household, courtesans and entertainers, and women of religion. While each poet’s concerns vary with their social status, common thematic threads include heartbreak and the mysteries of the natural world. Thumbnail biographies of each poet and notes regarding individual poems complete this important collection.Jeanne Larsen has published poetry, three novels set in China, and a book of poetry translation, Brocade River Poems: Selected Works of the Tang Dynasty Courtesan Xue Tao. She teaches in the creative writing program at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

    This collection includes some of Xiao Hong's most famous short stories, such as "On the Oxcart," "Spring in a Small Town," "The Family Outsider," "Flight from Danger," "Vague Expectations," "The Bridge," and "Hands."

    Yu Hua, award-winning author of To Live, gives us a surreal tale of two brothers riding the dizzying roller coaster of life in a newly capitalist world. As comically mismatched teenagers, Baldy Li, a sex-obsessed ne’er-do-well, and Song Gang, his bookish, sensitive stepbrother, vow that they will always be brothers--a bond they will struggle to maintain over the years as they weather the ups and downs of rivalry in love and making and losing millions in the new China. Their tribulations play out across a richly populated backdrop that is every bit as vibrant: the rapidly-changing village of Liu Town, full of such lively characters as the self-important Poet Zhao, the craven dentist Yanker Yu, the virginal town beauty (turned madam) Lin Hong, and the simpering vendor Popsicle Wang.With sly and biting humor, combined with an insightful and compassionate eye for the lives of ordinary people, Yu Hua shows how the madness of the Cultural Revolution has transformed into the equally rabid madness of extreme materialism. Both tragic and absurd by turns, Brothers is a monumental spectacle and a fascinating vision of an extraordinary place and time.

    Set in a poor village in Henan province, it is a deeply moving and beautifully written account of a blood-selling ring in contemporary China. Based on a real-life blood-selling scandal in eastern China, Dream of Ding Village is the result of three years of undercover work by Yan Lianke, who worked as an assistant to a well-known Beijing anthropologist in an effort to study a small village decimated by HIV/AIDS as a result of unregulated blood selling. Whole villages were wiped out with no responsibility taken or reparations paid. Dream of Ding Village focuses on one family, destroyed when one son rises to the top of the Party pile as he exploits the situation, while another son is infected and dies. The result is a passionate and steely critique of the rate at which China is developing and what happens to those who get in the way.

    Packed with practical information, Good Luck Life contains an abundance of facts, legends, foods, old-village recipes, and quick planning guides for Chinese New Year, Clear Brightness, Dragon Boat, Mid-Autumn, and many other festivals.Written with warmth and wit, Good Luck Life is beautifully designed as an easily accessible cultural guide that includes an explanation of the Lunar Calendar, tips on Chinese table etiquette for dining with confidence, and dos and don'ts from wise Auntie Lao, who recounts ancient Chinese beliefs and superstitions. This is your map for celebrating a good luck life.

    Vintage photography and artwork showing these costumes and textiles in use are also featured, as well as Young's recent research which is sure to settle longstanding debates among textile scholars. Beyond history and style, she presents a wealth of information about the symbolism and meaning of embroidered designs, just as she explains the uses and functions of embroidered textiles.

    Chinese characters are fascinating, but can be frustrating. In particular, looking them up in a typical Chinese dictionary can be a nightmare, as there is no 'alphabetical order.' Reading Chinese as well as writing Chinese requires referencing dozens of characters. Typical Chinese–English Dictionaries and Chinese character dictionaries often take a long time to look up a particular character. With Chinese Character Fast Finder you can find a character in seconds from its appearance alone. From the finder chart inside the front cover, you can turn to the correct page immediately, and finding the character on that page has also been made as simple as possible. As an optional feature you can make a double thumbnail index to speed things up even more. The fast finder is designed primarily for serious Chinese language learners of modern simplified Chinese (Mandarin Chinese) and serves as a quick reference for experts, but is also well suited for beginners with no previous experience, or people who wish to dip into characters, browse, or simply discover what a street sign means. With this book you can:Find characters quickly, reliably and intuitively– from their visual appearance alone.Quickly check the meanings, pronunciations, stroke–counts and radical characters.Look up traditional characters to see how they have been simplified.Look up newly encountered characters or check on those you have temporarily forgotten.Find elusive characters more easily in large character dictionaries.Simply browse and explore, comparing similar characters.Lists 3,200 characters, including all those prescribed for the Chinese government's official HSK Language Proficiency Test (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi).This book contains hints and suggestions on finding kanji but the system is so intuitive that you will be able to use it immediately and with very little guidance. By the time you have looked up half a dozen characters, you will appreciate the speed with which you can locate kanji in the Fast Finder.

    Based on years of unprecedented field studies by the author, the illustrations depict many of the temples, pagodas, tombs, bridges, and imperial palaces comprising China's architectural heritage. 152 halftones, 94 diagrams.

    The "slang" of the title refers to a wide range of Hong Kong vernacular Cantonese speech styles, notably the language of the underworld (a major source of innovation in late 20th-21st century speech), of teenagers, and of Hong Kong movies and comics.The volume offers a general introduction to the history of "vernacular" and "vulgar" dictionaries, including the lexicography of Cantonese; the sociopolitical and linguistic background to Hong Kong; and the specific problems faced by the linguist as urban anthropologist in researching such issues. The Dictionary itself offers for the first time a survey of the commonest slang and colloquial phrases used in Hong Kong, including taboo language not hitherto found in any dictionary. It is Cantonese-English, arranged alphabetically according to a widely-used transcription system.

    Deemed illicit by imperial rulers and clerics and officially banned by republican and communist leaders, the fox cult has managed to survive and flourish in individual homes and community shrines throughout northern China. In this new work, the first to examine the fox cult as a vibrant popular religion, Xiaofei Kang explores the manifold meanings of the fox spirit in Chinese society. Kang describes various cult practices, activities of worship, and the exorcising of fox spirits to reveal how the Chinese people constructed their cultural and social values outside the gaze of offical power and morality.

    

    He thinks that China and Israel both share a long history with rich cultures. Due to the many similarities and belief in God as the only Creator, the author points out in detail how Chinese characters manifest historical evidences and many aspects recorded in the Bible. He claims China's 4000 years of history as proof to support that God has never left this country. Like New: Pages are clean and are not marred by notes or folds.

    Memories of a Future Home offers an intimate look at how diasporic Chinese in Panama construct a home and create a sense of belonging as they inhabit the interstices of several cultural-national formations—Panama, their nation of residence; China/Taiwan, their ethnic homeland; and the United States, the colonial force.Juxtaposing the concepts of diaspora and citizenship, this book offers an innovative framework to help us understand how diasporic subjects engage the politics of cultural and political belonging in a transnational context. It does so by examining the interaction between continually shifting geopolitical dynamics, as well as the maneuvers undertaken by diasporic people to negotiate and transform those conditions. In essence, this book explores the contingent citizenship experienced by diasporic Chinese and their efforts to imagine and construct "home" in diaspora.

    It was thought the great teacher studied this period and its leaders through documents that included the Zhouyi. Though there is no real evidence to prove that Confucius studied the Zhouyi, the influence of its wisdom is easy to find in the Classical Confucian teachings on statecraft and leadership. In fact, the Confucian interpretations of the Zhouyi have become more important in the Chinese tradition than the original Zhouyi itself. The Confucian commentaries that were added to the Zhouyi transformed it into the Yijing (I Ching).

    Elman offers a much-needed synthesis of early Chinese science during the Jesuit period (1600-1800) and the modern sciences as they evolved in China under Protestant influence (1840s-1900).By 1600 Europe was ahead of Asia in producing basic machines, such as clocks, levers, and pulleys, that would be necessary for the mechanization of agriculture and industry. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Elman shows, Europeans still sought from the Chinese their secrets of producing silk, fine textiles, and porcelain, as well as large-scale tea cultivation. Chinese literati borrowed in turn new algebraic notations of Hindu-Arabic origin, Tychonic cosmology, Euclidian geometry, and various computational advances.Since the middle of the nineteenth century, imperial reformers, early Republicans, Guomindang party cadres, and Chinese Communists have all prioritized science and technology. In this book, Elman gives a nuanced account of the ways in which native Chinese science evolved over four centuries, under the influence of both Jesuit and Protestant missionaries. In the end, he argues, the Chinese produced modern science on their own terms.

    In the first full-length study of the subject, Janet Theiss examines a vast number of laws, legal cases, regulations, and policies to illustrate the social and political processes through which female virtue was defined, enforced, and contested. Along the way, she provides rich details of social life and cultural practices among ordinary Chinese people through narratives of criminal cases of sexual assault, harassment, adultery, and domestic violence.

    Beautifully commissioned photographs, spectacular 3-D aerial views, and comprehensive information help travelers to China discover both the charm and majesty of this fascinating destination.

    Call them cheongsam, qi pao, or Suzy Wong dresses—the high-collared, body-clinging, slit-to-the-thigh gowns evolved in a world of dramatic change, where Chinese citizens mingled with foreigners from such cosmopolitan cities as Tokyo, London, New York, and Moscow. In SHANGHAI GIRL GETS ALL DRESSED UP, Asian art-historian Beverley Jackson explores the city that fostered such radical cultural and social change and the daring and fashionable women—including actresses, courtesans, and showgirls—who wore these fabulous and revealing dresses. Twenty luminous photos of cheongsams and Chinese costumes from the author'¬?s collection, combined with spectacular archival photographs and art, chronicle the social life and history of a groundbreaking city and the beautiful fashions that were born within its walls. Part history and part fashionable frolic, SHANGHAI GIRL steps back in time and paints a vivid picture of a lost generation of intrigue, style, and beauty. Includes more than 100 new and vintage photographs of the city, the clothes, the Chinese cinema stars who led the trends, and the Hollywood movie queens who inspired them.Addresses the profound influence of Chinese costumes on Western fashion trends via film in the 1930s.

    But when Chairman Mao rejected the proposal to build a new capital for the People's Republic of China and decided to stay in the ancient city, he initiated a long struggle to transform Beijing into a shining beacon of socialism. So began the remaking of the city into a modern metropolis rife with monuments, public squares, exhibition halls, and government offices.Wu Hung grew up in Beijing and experienced much of the city's makeover firsthand. In this lavishly illustrated work, he offers a vivid, often personal account of the struggle over Beijing's reinvention, drawing particular attention to Tiananmen Square—the most sacred space in the People's Republic of China. Remaking Beijing considers the square's transformation from a restricted imperial domain into a public arena for political expression, from an epic symbol of socialism into a holy relic of the Maoist regime, and from an official and monumental complex into a site for unofficial and antigovernment demonstrations.Wu Hung also explores how Tiananmen Square has become a touchstone for official art in modern China—as the site for Mao's monumental portrait, as the location of museums narrating revolutionary history, and as the grounds for extravagant National Day parades celebrating the revolutionary masses. He then shows how in recent years the square has inspired artists working without state sponsorship to create paintings, photographs, and even performances that reflect the spirit of the 1989 uprisings and pose a forceful challenge to official artworks and the sociopolitical system that supports them.Remaking Beijing will reward anyone interested in modern Chinese history, society, and art, or, more generally, in how urban renewal becomes intertwined with cultural and national politics.

    In this groundbreaking work, Gray Tuttle reveals the surprising role Buddhism and Buddhist leaders played in the development of the modern Chinese state and in fostering relations between Tibet and China from the Republican period (1912-1949) to the early years of Communist rule. Beyond exploring interactions between Buddhists and politicians in Tibet and China, Tuttle offers new insights on the impact of modern ideas of nationalism, race, and religion in East Asia.After the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, the Chinese Nationalists, without the traditional religious authority of the Manchu Emperor, promoted nationalism and racial unity in an effort to win support among Tibetans. Once this failed, Chinese politicians appealed to a shared Buddhist heritage. This shift in policy reflected the late-nineteenth-century academic notion of Buddhism as a unified world religion, rather than a set of competing and diverse Asian religious practices.While Chinese politicians hoped to gain Tibetan loyalty through religion, the promotion of a shared Buddhist heritage allowed Chinese Buddhists and Tibetan political and religious leaders to pursue their goals. During the 1930s and 1940s, Tibetan Buddhist ideas and teachers enjoyed tremendous popularity within a broad spectrum of Chinese society and especially among marginalized Chinese Buddhists. Even when relationships between the elite leadership between the two nations broke down, religious and cultural connections remained strong. After the Communists seized control, they continued to exploit this link when exerting control over Tibet by force in the 1950s. And despite being an avowedly atheist regime, with the exception of the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese communist government has continued to recognize and support many elements of Tibetan religious, if not political, culture.Tuttle's study explores the role of Buddhism in the formation of modern China and its relationship to Tibet through the lives of Tibetan and Chinese Buddhists and politicians and by drawing on previously unexamined archival and governmental materials, as well as personal memoirs of Chinese politicians and Buddhist monks, and ephemera from religious ceremonies.

    It rises in the highlands of Tibet, where glaciers drip and ooze to create a network of icy channels that join to form what the Chinese call simply Chang Jiang, the Long River. From here it snakes and cascades its way through some of the worlds most spectacular scenery precipitous mountains, narrow gorges, and lush lowlands of eastern China, made fertile by the mud spread by the rivers frequent flooding. Yangtze follows the river on this fascinating and varied course. As it does so it explores many aspects of the river that have intrigued Chinese and westerners alike. It looks at the rivers unique wildlife, from the dazzling colours of rhododendrons and camellias on its banks to the endangered creatures, such as the baiji river dolphin, that dwell in or on the banks of its waters. It describes the teeming human activity along the river the fishing, farming, and trade that make it a lifeline and a livelihood for millions. And it looks at the rivers role in some of the turning points in Chinese history, such as the wars of the Three Kingdoms Period, the culture of the Tang dynasty, the Taiping Rebellion, and the Long March of Mao and his communist allies. Finally, Yangtze looks at the changes and challenges affecting the river today. For the Yangtze stands at a turning point. The worlds biggest civil engineering project, the construction of the Three Gorges dam across the river, is nearing completion. Chinas government hopes that the enormous dam will control the rivers floods, open up further reaches to big ships, and generate hydro-electricity. Opponents of the scheme point to the damage to the environment, the human costs, and the enormous risks involved. Beautifully illustrated with outstanding photographs and specially created maps, Yangtze pictures the river at a crucial time in its long and absorbing history.

    Richard Wilhelm arrived in China before the Boxer Rebellion and stayed for a quarter of a century. He became intimate with retired princes and Taoist priests; he steeped himself in Chinese philosophy and occultism; he emerged with a profound respect for the Chinese culture. With chapters on the Revolution, Chinese country life, royalty and soundrels, and occultism and religious movements, this book is one man's fascinating travelogue and exploration of an important age in Chinese history. Richard Wilhelm (1873-1930) was a German scholar who translated many philosophical and spiritual works from Chinese into German that in turn have been translated into other major languages of the world, including English. His translation of the I Ching is regarded as one of the finest.

    Regarded as China's finest contemporary poet, Gu Cheng (1956-1993) has captivated readers worldwide.

    After the trauma of three miscarriages, Emily and her husband Gerald were forced to accept the knowledge that they would not be able to have children of their own and decided to look into adoption. Their desire to have a very young baby led them to consider an adoption from abroad. As a journalist Emily knew only too well the sad plight of many children in the world trafficked to desperate couples and determined that her child had to come from a country where adoption was properly regulated. In this touching story Emily describes their first meeting with Jade Lin, who had been left on the steps of an orphanage in a small town in Inner Mongolia just after she had been born. Unlike many of the thousands of less fortunate babies abandoned each year in China, Jade Lin had been placed with a foster family before being approved for adoption and allocated to a family. It was love at first sight for Emily and Gerald, but they still had obstacles of language and culture to cross, as well as dealing with the reaction of friends and family back at home. This diary tells in vivid detail the highs and lows of Emily's journey to motherhood.extraordinarily brave and honest, and written with great clarity. I can't remember reading anything on the subject that was as open, ... or done with as much dignity. ...neither of us could puit it down, and we were both very moved by it. John Simpson A delightful and candid account of a quest for much wanted children. Kate Adie A factual and honest account of a mother's journey in adopting two daughters from China. Adeline Yen Mah

    From its dramatic expansion in the early nineteenth century to its decline on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War in the late 1930s, salt production in Zigong was one of the largest and one of the only indigenous large-scale industries in China. Madeleine Zelin recounts the history of the salt industry to reveal a fascinating chapter in China's history and provide new insight into the forces and institutions that shaped Chinese economic and social development independent of Western or Japanese influence. Her book challenges long-held beliefs that social structure, state extraction, the absence of modern banking, and cultural bias against business precluded industrial development in China.Zelin details the novel ways in which Zigong merchants mobilized capital through financial-industrial networks. She describes how entrepreneurs spurred growth by developing new technologies, capturing markets, and building integrated business organizations. Without the state establishing and enforcing rules, Zigong businessmen were free to regulate themselves, utilize contracts, and shape their industry. However, this freedom came at a price, and ultimately the merchants suffered from the underdevelopment of a transportation infrastructure, the political instability of early-twentieth-century China, and the absence of a legislative forum to develop and codify business practices.Zelin's analysis of the political and economic contexts that allowed for the rise and fall of the salt industry also considers why its success did not contribute to "industrial takeoff" during that period in China. Based on extensive research, Zelin's work offers a comprehensive study of the growth of a major Chinese industry and resituates the history of Chinese business within the larger story of worldwide industrial development.

    But when the excited little girlbug goes to wake her human friend, she realizes that something is not quite right. Shaoey's cheeks are bright red and her forehead is too hot to set foot on! Shaoey can't be sick! There's too much to do! Never to give up, the determined little bug slips on her red Christmas boots and heads out to pick up all of the required elements to make a happy Christmas for her friend. Yet, when the frustrated Dot returns, a little miracle teaches them all that sprinkled cookies and big presents--however nice--are not what truly makes Christmas special. This endearing story, from Mary Beth and Steven Curtis Chapman, is a wonderful reminder of the miraculous love that makes every Christmas a special one.

    Robert Sharf opens this important and far-reaching book by raising a host of historical and hermeneutical problems with the encounter paradigm and the master narrative on which it is based. Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism is, among other things, an extended reflection on the theoretical foundations and conceptual categories that undergird the study of medieval Chinese Buddhism.Sharf draws his argument in part from a meticulous historical, philological, and philosophical analysis of the Treasure Store Treatise (Pao-tsang lun), an eighth-century Buddho-Taoist work apocryphally attributed to the fifth-century master Seng-chao (374-414). In the process of coming to terms with this recondite text, Sharf ventures into all manner of subjects bearing on our understanding of medieval Chinese Buddhism, from the evolution of T'ang gentry Taoism to the pivotal role of image veneration and the problematic status of Chinese Tantra.The volume includes a complete annotated translation of the Treasure Store Treatise, accompanied by the detailed exegesis of dozens of key terms and concepts.

    Competing Japanese tribal leaders engaged in "ambassador diplomacy" and actively sought Chinese support and recognition to strengthen their positions at home and to exert military influence on southern Korea. They requested, among other things, the bestowal of Chinese insignia: official titles, gold seals, and bronze mirrors. Successive Chinese courts used the bestowal (or denial) of the insignia to conduct geopolitics in East Asia. Wang Zhenping explains in detail the rigorous criteria of the Chinese and Japanese courts in the selection of diplomats and how the two prepared for missions abroad. He journeys with a party of Japanese diplomats from their tearful farewell party to hardship on the high seas to their arrival amidst the splendors of Yangzhou and Changan and the Sui-Tang court. The depiction of these colorful events is combined with a sophisticated analysis of premodern diplomacy using the key concept of mutual self-interest and a discussion of two major modes of diplomatic communication: court reception and the exchange of state letters. Wang reveals how the parties involved conveyed diplomatic messages by making, accepting, or rejecting court ceremonial arrangements. Challenging the traditional view of China's tributary system, he argues that it was not a unilateral tool of hegemony but rather a game of interest and power in which multiple partners modified the rules depending on changing historical circumstances.

    The practice originated in the dance culture of China's medieval court and spread to gentry families, brothels, maid's quarters, and peasant households. Conventional views of footbinding as patriarchal oppression often neglect its complex history and the incentives of the women involved. This revisionist history, elegantly written and meticulously researched, presents a fascinating new picture of the practice from its beginnings in the tenth century to its demise in the twentieth century. Neither condemning nor defending foot-binding, Dorothy Ko debunks many myths and misconceptions about its origins, development, and eventual end, exploring in the process the entanglements of male power and female desires during the practice's thousand-year history.Cinderella's Sisters argues that rather than stemming from sexual perversion, men's desire for bound feet was connected to larger concerns such as cultural nostalgia, regional rivalries, and claims of male privilege. Nor were women hapless victims, the author contends. Ko describes how women—those who could afford it—bound their own and their daughters' feet to signal their high status and self-respect. Femininity, like the binding of feet, was associated with bodily labor and domestic work, and properly bound feet and beautifully made shoes both required exquisite skills and technical knowledge passed from generation to generation. Throughout her narrative, Ko deftly wields methods of social history, literary criticism, material culture studies, and the history of the body and fashion to illustrate how a practice that began as embodied lyricism—as a way to live as the poets imagined—ended up being an exercise in excess and folly.

    It goes beyond generalization to clarify the diverse nature of house, home, and family in China, exploring such topics as the Chinese garden as an integral part of living, house-building ritual and fengshui, architectural aesthetics, the inter-relatedness of furniture and architecture, preservation of historical structures, the structure and development of the family (jia), gender and household space, the role of lineage in the construction of ritual and social space, the function and meaning of the architectural division of space, and domestic space and privacy. The Chinese house, the elementary space in which a family lives and works, resonates the tensions between continuity and innovation that characterize China today. As a dynamic instrument of socialization and a domain of propriety, its inner and outer spaces as well as ornamentation and ritual helped shape the identity of the Chinese and simultaneously serve as a reflection of this identity.This inaugural volume in the series Spatial Habitus: Making and Meaning in Asia's Vernacular Architecture contains more than five hundred illustrations, most in color and including a number of rare drawings that demonstrate the richness of domestic architecture and living patterns in traditional and contemporary China. Through its exploration of how Chinese families are organized and why Chinese construct their living spaces the way they do, this carefully researched, convincingly argues, and refreshingly insightful book yields a deeper and wider understanding of what it means to live and be Chinese.Contributors: Nancy Berliner, Maggie Bickford, Francesca Bray, Myron L. Cohen, David Faure, James Flath, Wen Fong, Puaypeng Ho, Nancy Jervis, Ronald G. Knapp, Cary Liu, Kai-Yin Lo, Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt, Joseph Wang, Yan Yunxiang.

    This is one of the most tense and potentially explosive relationships in world politics.This book explains succinctly the impetus, the methods and the consequences if China is to use force, a prospect that has become greater following the return of President Chen Shui-bian to power in Taiwan for a second term in 2004.If China Attacks Taiwan shows how in reality there can be no real winner in such an eventuality and how the consequences would be dire not just for Taiwan and China, but East Asia as a whole. Whether China will use force depends ultimately on how its policy making apparatus assess potential US intervention, whether its armed forces can subdue Taiwan and counter US military involvement, as well as on its assessment of the likely consequences. Given the extremely high probability of American involvement this volume appeals to not only scholars and students working on China, its foreign policy and the security and prosperity of East Asia, but also to policy makers and journalists interested in China's rise and its defense policy, Taiwan's security and development, regional stability as well as US policy toward China and the East Asia region generally. This text is also essential for understanding China's efforts to achieve a 'peaceful rise', which requires it to transform itself into a global power not by the actual use of force but by diplomacy backed up by rapidly expanding military power.This book is an excellent resource for all students and scholars of military and security studies, Asian (China/Taiwan) studies and international relations

    Rather than becoming a concubine, she was employed as a maid and educated as a doctor. She married the man's son and bore three children. When the Japanese invaded Hong Kong in 1941, her skill and bravery ensured the family's survival. Having witnessed terrible violence and suffering, the adolescent Ore joined the Chinese Communist Party, which he believed would alleviate the poverty and injustice he saw every day. It was a secret he guarded from his parents and siblings until, disillusioned with the Party, he emigrated to Canada to begin the process of rebuilding his life. Now as Hong Kong struggles to find a place in the People's Republic of China, he reflects on his clandestine life and the painful secrets he kept from his beloved mother.

    The very sound of the word conjures images of secret rooms in exotic lands, where languid smokers lounge dreamily in a blue haze of fragrant poppy smoke, inhaling from long bamboo pipes held over the ruby flame of the jade lamp. Yet today very little accurate information is available regarding a substance that for 300 years was central to the lives of millions of people throughout the world.In Opium Culture Peter Lee presents a fascinating narrative that covers every aspect of the art and craft of opium use. Starting with a concise account of opium’s long and colorful history and the story of how it came to be smoked for pleasure in China, Lee offers detailed descriptions of the growing and harvesting process; the exotic inventory of tools and paraphernalia required to smoke opium as the Chinese did; its transition from a major healing herb to a narcotic that has been suppressed by the modern pharmaceutical industry; its connections to the I Ching, Taoism, and Chinese medicine; and the art, culture, philosophy, pharmacology, and psychology of this longstanding Asian custom. Highlighted throughout with interesting quotes from literary and artistic figures who were opium smokers, such as Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Herman Melville, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the text is studded with gems of long forgotten opium arcana and dispels many of the persistent myths about opium and its users.

    This was the moment when a group of young women authors began writing and soon took over the cultural scene of the besieged metropolis. Women, War, Domesticity reconstructs cultures of reading, writing, and publishing in the city of Shanghai during the three years and eight months of Japanese occupation. It specifically depicts the formation of a new cultural arena initiated by a group of women who not only wrote, edited, and published, but also took part in defining and transforming the structure of modern knowledge, discussing it in various public forums surrounding the print media, and, consequently, promoting themselves as authoritative cultural commentators of the era.

    Selfless Offspring offers a fresh perspective on the genre, revealing the rich historical worth of these stories by examining them in their original context: the tumultuous and politically fragmented early medieval era (A.D. 100-600). At a time when no Confucian virtue was more prized than filial piety, adults were moved and inspired by tales of filial children. The emotional impact of even the most outlandish actions portrayed in the stories was profound, a measure of the directness with which they spoke to major concerns of the early medieval Chinese elite. In a period of weak central government and powerful local clans, the key to preserving a household's privileged status was maintaining a cohesive extended family.Keith Knapp begins this far-ranging and persuasive study by describing two related historical trends that account for the narrative's popularity: the growth of extended families and the rapid incursion of Confucianism among China's learned elite. Extended families were better at maintaining their status and power, so patriarchs found it expedient to embrace Confucianism to keep their large, fragile households intact. Knapp then focuses on the filial piety stories themselves--their structure, historicity, origin, function, and transmission--and argues that most stem from the oral culture of these elite extended families. After examining collections of filial piety tales, known as Accounts of Filial Children, he shifts from text to motif, exploring the most common theme: the reverent care and mourning of parents. In the final chapter, Knapp looks at the relative burden that filiality placed on men and women and concludes that, although women largely performed the same filial acts as men, they had to go to greater extremes to prove their sincerity.

    On the one hand, significant new voices were determined to undertake reforms that would enable the Qing empire to cope with the powerful West; on the other, the literate public was for the most part equally intent on preserving the old ways. Bringing the World Home sheds new light on China's vibrant cultural life between 1895 and 1919 - a crucial period that marks a watershed between the conservative old regime and the ostensibly iconoclastic New Culture of the 1920s. Although generally overlooked in the effort to understand modern Chinese history, the era has much to teach us about cultural accommodation and is characterized by its own unique intellectual life. This original and probing work traces the most significant strands of the new post-1895 discourse, concentrating on the anxieties inherent in a complicated process of cultural transformation. It focuses principally on how the need to accommodate the West was reflected in such landmark novels of the period as Wu Jianren's Strange Events Eyewitnessed in the Past Twenty Years and Zhu Shouju's Tides of the Huangpu, which began serial publication in Shanghai in 1916. optimism that characterizes the many essays on the New Novel appearing in the popular press of the time. Neither iconoclasm nor the wholesale embrace of the new could square the contradicting intellectual demands imposed by the momentous alternatives presenting themselves. Bringing the World Home fruitfully bridges the intellectual and literary history of the late Qing and early Republican era by showing how post-1919 radicalism - in an attempt to obscure the contributions made during the preceding period - obliterated an important legacy of cultural interaction and compromise that holds many lessons for the contemporary world.

    Through intimate conversations conducted over many years, China Candid provides an alternative history of the nation from its founding as a socialist state in 1949 up to the present. The voices of people who have lived under—and often despite—the Communist Party's rule give a compelling account of life in the maelstrom of China's economic reforms—reforms that are being pursued by a system that remains politically rigid and authoritarian. Artists, politicians, businessmen and -women, former Red Guards, migrant workers, prostitutes, teachers, computer geeks, hustlers, and other citizens of contemporary China all speak with frankness and candor about the realities of the burgeoning power of East Asia, the China that will host the 2008 Olympics. Some discuss the corrosive changes that have been wrought on the professional ethics and attitudes of men and women long nurtured by the socialist state. Others recall chilling encounters with the police, the law courts, labor camps, and the army. Providing unique insight into the minds and hearts of people who have firsthand experience of China's tumultuous history, this book adds invaluable depth and dimension to our understanding of this rapidly changing country.

    Reflecting Asian views on the subject matter, nine articles written by Asian scholars - Chung Chee Kit, Hsu Yun-Tsiao, Leo Suryadinata, Tan Ta Sen, Tan Yeok Seong, Wang Gungwu, and Johannes Widodo - have been reproduced in this volume.

    The Chinese Sultanate begins by contrasting the views of Yunnan held by the imperial center with local and indigenous perspectives, in particular looking at the strong ties the Muslim Yunnanese had with Southeast Asia and Tibet. Traditional interpretations of the rebellion there have emphasized the political threat posed by the Muslim Yunnanese, but no prior study has sought to understand the insurrection in its broader muti-ethnic borderland context. At its core, the book delineates the escalating government support of premeditated massacres of the Hui by Han Chinese and offers the first in-depth examination of the seventeen-year-long rule of the Dali Sultanate.

    This pioneering volume of essays, written by historians, art historians, and literary scholars, introduces the major issues in the social and cultural history of the book in late imperial China. Informed by many insights from the rich literature on the history of the Western book, these essays investigate the relationship between the manuscript and print culture; the emergence of urban and rural publishing centers; the expanding audience for books; the development of niche markets and specialized publishing of fiction, drama, non-Han texts, and genealogies; and more.

    Han Feizi was a prince of the state of Han in the waning years of the Warring States period (475-221 B.C.) in China. The theoretical topics he found most compelling were governing through punishments and rewards, names versus actuality, rule by law, and methods of statecraft. Collected and popularized by the immensely popular Chinese illustrator Tsai Chih Chung, the book includes over 100 ancient stories for the reader of today, bringing to life the spirit and philosophy of Han Feizi through cartoon panels with a text that is irreverently humorous yet replete with wisdom. It is a great and easy tool to learn Chinese classics.

    The HarperCollins Chinese Concise Dictionary offers up-to-date coverage of contemporary Mandarin Chinese Attractive layout and user-friendly organization make it easy to find what you need quickly Detailed language notes and pinyin romanization of Chinese words provide a wealth of useful information for the learner The indispensable Language in Action supplement teaches how to speak and write in fluent, natural Mandarin Chinese

    Huang comes a new anthology to introduce the form of the Chinese short-short story to the English reader. Huang has solicited, selected and translated 121 pieces, and 10 ancient stories, comprising an excellent reader for this narrative form.

    It does this through an examination of the philosophical activities and writings of four Chinese Marxist philosophers central to this process. These are Qu Qiubai, Ai Siqi, Li Da and Mao Zedong. The book sets the philosophical writings of these philosophers in the context of the development of Marxist philosophy internationally, and examines particularly the influence on these philosophers of Soviet Marxist philosophy. It argues that these Chinese Marxist philosophers’ interpretations of Marxist philosophy were quite orthodox when judged by the standards of contemporary Soviet Marxism. The book explores core themes in Marxist philosophy in China, including the dilemma of determinism, and investigates the way in which these Chinese Marxist philosophers sought a formula for the ‘Sinification’ of Marxist philosophy that both retained the universal dimensions of Marxism and allowed its application to the Chinese context. The book concludes with analysis of the role of the Yanan New Philosophy Association in developing from Soviet Marxist philosophy the philosophical dimension of Mao Zedong Thought, the official ideology of the Chinese Communist Party after 1945.

    She was a wife, a mother, and a Communist Party member. But because she followed a spiritual practice called Falun Gong, her life in China was shattered. Adhering to the practice's simple tenets of Truth, Compassion, and Forbearance, she was amazed that the Party would institute a crack down, arrest her and demand that she recant. After twice being held at a detention center and refusing, she was sentenced without trial to reeducation through forced labor. Her "enlightenment"-in part undertaken by fellow prisoners incarcerated for prostitution, pornography and drug addiction-took the form of beatings, torture with electric prods, starvation, sleep deprivation, and forced labor. She was compelled to knit for days at a time, her hands bleeding, to produce goods contracted for sale in the US market. Many Falun Gong practitioners died under the harsh conditions. Zheng Zeng was lucky.Thousands of others remain deprived by an oppressive Chinese government of their freedom of speech and assembly and the freedom to believe as they choose. This is the testament to her ordeal and theirs.

    With specialized, task-oriented content and an energetic corporate feel, its cutting-edge language curriculum closely approximates real-world commercial ventures. In Close the Deal, students will combine language and business learning in projects. As students explore these and other areas, students acquire both up-to-date trade and commercial vocabulary as well as decision-making acumen. Close the Deal engages them in role plays and projects that allow them to read, write, speak, collaborate with others, and make decisions in a Chinese-language business context. Close the Deal features extensive vocabulary lists, including idiomatic phrases that are a key component of professional fluency. The companion audio CDs and periodically updated online supplementary resources make Close the Deal a particularly dynamic learning experience in and beyond the classroom.

    Keenly attentive to how bodies are embedded in discourse, history, and personal exigency, Matthew Kohrman details ways that disability became a fount for the production of institutions and identities across the Chinese landscape during the final decades of the twentieth century. He looks closely at the creation of the China Disabled Persons' Federation and the lives of numerous individuals, among them Deng Pufang, son of China's Communist leader Deng Xiaoping.

    With over 30 clear color photos, Homestyle Chinese Cooking has everything you need to create 35 easy, light, healthy, delicious, and authentic home cooked Chinese recipes. This cookbook contains authentic, homestyle recipes for appetizers, rice, noodles, soups, seafood, meat, poultry, and vegetables. Recipes include: Poached tofu with spicy sauce Home-style fried rice Sesame noodles Vegetable and tofu soup Garlic chili prawns Red-braised pork with orange peel Broccoli stir-fried with ginger and onion Sichuan eggplant braised in fragrant sauce And many more Chinese favorites! Also included are unit conversion tables, dual measurements for each recipe, over 30 detailed photos, and an overview of essential Chinese ingredients for creating appetizing, home�cooked Chinese favorites. Each recipe includes cook time, prep time, and serving sizes. Enjoy!

    This is a pioneering work that systematically describes and analyzes the manner in which the Chinese used telegraphy during the late Qing, and the internet in the contemporary period, to participate in politics. Drawing upon insights from the fields of anthropology, history, political science, and media studies, this book historicizes the internet in China and may change the direction of the emergent field of Chinese internet studies. In contrast to previous works, this book is unprecedented in its perspective, in the depth of information and understanding, in the conclusions it reaches, and in its methodology. Written in a clear and engaging style, this book is accessible to a broad audience.

    A collection of 52 inspirational stories that illustrate the strength of Christianity in China.

    This new anthology, a sequel to the acclaimed first volume, compiled by Dooling and Kristina Torgeson and covering the early twentieth century, includes an impressive range of literary, personal, and journalistic responses to these tumultuous events. From succinct reportage of contemporary historical circumstances to comic accounts of twentieth-century urban living to carefully stylized modernist works of fiction, the selections in this anthology reflect the diversity, liveliness, humor, and surprising cosmopolitanism of women's writing from the period. This collection also reveals the ways in which women writers imagined and inscribed new meanings to Chinese feminism.Biographical information on the writers--including Yang Gang, Bai Wei, Hu Lanxi, Yang Jiang, Zong Pu, Chen Ruoxi, and others--introduces the selections from their works. Dooling's critical introduction and bibliographical materials further enrich readers'understanding of the role of women's writing in Chinese literary modernity.

    Using archival research, as well as oral histories and letters, Wong explores how Chinese Americans carved a secure place for themselves in American society during the war years.

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    When we can tell more than one story or make divergent arguments, the readability of the past then becomes an issue. Therein lies the beginning of history, the sense of inquiry that heightens our awareness of interpretation. How do interpretive structures develop and disintegrate? What are the possibilities and limits of historical knowledge?This book explores these issues through a study of the Zuozhuan, a foundational text in the Chinese tradition, whose rhetorical and analytical self-consciousness reveals much about the contending ways of thought unfolding during the period of the text's formation (ca. 4th c. B.C.E.). But in what sense is this vast collection of narratives and speeches covering the period from 722 to 468 B.C.E. historical? If one can speak of an emergent sense of history in this text, Wai-yee Li argues, it lies precisely at the intersection of varying conceptions of interpretation and rhetoric brought to bear on the past, within a larger context of competing solutions to the instability and disintegration represented through the events of the 255 years covered by the Zuozhuan. Even as its accounts of proliferating disorder and disintegration challenge the boundaries of readability, the deliberations on the rules of reading in the Zuozhuan probe the dimensions of historical self-consciousness.

    The view has generated popular cynicism about democracy promotion in general and China's prospect for democratization in particular. This book demonstrates that China in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (656-221 BC) consisted of a system of sovereign territorial states similar to Europe in the early modern period. It examines why China and Europe shared similar processes but experienced opposite outcomes.

    His early death ended a literary career that was influenced by the Cultural Revolution and that reawakened the lyricism of Chinese poets during the 1980s. Offering a unique blend of brooding imagism and political innuendo, Gu Cheng's poetry traces complex changes in the poet's life--familial, psychological, cultural-and also radiates an innocence and a touching melancholy. His poetry began on the farms in Shandong province where his parents were exiled during the Cultural Revolution, and ended on small island in New Zealand where he took up a Thoreau-like existence before his tragic suicide. His poem "One Generation" became emblematic for the generation coming of age in China in the '60s and '70s. Here for the first time is poetry based on the poet's own personal selections from his work, Sea Basket Blue. There are also prose works, including excerpts of Gu Cheng's novel Ying'er, plus a selection of his essays.

    In Of Tripod and Palate, leading scholars examine the relationship between secular and religious food culture in ancient China from various perspectives.

    Surveys and contributes to the prolific debates that occurred in the years between the collapse of communism and the enlargement of the European Union regarding the issues of constitutionalism, dealing with the past, and the rule of law in the post-communist world Eminent scholars explore the issue of transitional justice, highlighting the distinct roles of legal and constitutional bodies in the post-transition period.