Chinese Books - Page 2

Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming Man

Jonathan D. Spence

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A renowned historian captures a critical moment in Chinese history

Zhang Dai is recognized as one of the finest historians and essayists of China’s Ming dynasty. When he was born into a wealthy family in 1597, the Ming dynasty had been in place for 229 years. Zhang’s early life was marked by the expansive sense of progress that permeated Ming culture: the flourishing of reformist schools of Buddhism; wide-scale philanthropy; the education of women; a celebration of the visual arts, writing, and music; intellectual pursuit of medicine and science—this was truly a time of cultural creativity and renaissance in China.

When the Ming dynasty was overthrown in the Manchu invasion of 1644, Zhang Dai’s family lost their fortune and their way of life. Zhang Dai fled to the countryside, where, as a writer of tremendous skill, acuity, and passion, he spent his final forty years recounting his previous life as a way of leaving a legacy to his children and rebuilding a spirit shattered by the violent upheaval he had witnessed.

Celebrated China scholar Jonathan Spence has pored over Zhang Dai’s extraordinary documents and vividly brings to life seventeenth-century China. This absorbing book illuminates a culture’s transformation and reveals how China’s history affects its place in the world today.

The Jesuit & the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution, and the Search for Peking Man

Amir D Aczel

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Informative and thought provoking 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book for my husband after we heard an interview with the author on NPR. He (my husband) loved it. Well written, intelligent.

The resurrection of two fossils 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

In his very readable The Jesuit and the Skull, Amir Aczel offers a rather sweeping account of the early and mid-twentieth century search for the "missing link," focusing in particular on the contributions of the French cleric and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In the process he discusses the history of paleoanthropology, the Scopes trial, disagreements in the scientific community over the significance of the Java Man and Peking Man fossils, and the Galileo-like struggle between de Chardin and Church authorities.

The two undisputed stars of Aczel's account are de Chardin and Peking Man. In a curious manner, both suffered similar fates and similar resurrections. Both were "silenced," buried under layers of nearly impenetrable sediment, literally in Peking Man's case and metaphorically in de Chardin's when he was silenced and exiled by the Church. But both also came to light: Peking Man in 1929 when he was discovered in a cave near Beijing, and de Chardin posthumously with the publication of the thousands of pages he wrote but couldn't publish during his lifetime.

Aczel's account of this chapter in the tussle between religion and science is certainly timely, and it provides a good overview of the topic. I wish, though, that he'd taken more care to explain de Chardin's unique understanding of the convergence of Christian faith and evolutionary theory. This would've made the Church's opposition more clear. Aczel focuses especially on an early essay of de Chardin's that calls the original sin doctrine into question. But this is only the tip of the iceberg of what ecclesial authorities saw as problematic in his position. Much of the book's details about the relationship between Lucile Swan and de Chardin could've been omitted to make room for this kind of discussion.

Still, well worth reading. Three and a half stars.

Editorial Review:

In The Jesuit and the Skull, bestselling author Amir D. Aczel vividly recounts how the discovery of Peking Man by, among others, a young Jesuit priest named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin helped to open the eyes of the world to new theories of humanity's origins that alarmed the traditionalists within the Church. A deft mix of narrative history and a poignant personal story, The Jesuit and the Skull brings fresh insight to a debate that still rages today.

The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The Memoirs of Mao's Personal Physician ('Mao ze dong si ren yi sheng hui yi lu', in traditional Chinese, NOT in English)

Zhisui Li

By: Shi bao wen hua chu ban qi ye gu fen you xian gong si Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $0.56

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Exercise & Fitness -> Tai Chi & Qi Gong
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 83 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Genuine portrait of Mao 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

It is difficult to find a relatively objective portrait of Mao, and Dr. Li provides one of the most direct and honest descriptions of the Chairman that I have been able to find. His knowledge of the details of the Chairman's political conflicts is often superficial or naive, but this stems from Dr. Li's desire to stay out of the dangerous, entangling politics that surrounded Mao. The real value of the book is in Dr. Li's observations and insights into Mao's personality and how the political struggles surrounding Mao resulted in disastrous national policies.

Editorial Review:

For 22 years, Dr Zhisui Li was Mao Tse-tung's personal physician, confidant and companion. He saw Mao and his country through the years of "the Great Leap Forward" and the Cultural Revolution. In this book Li reveals details of Mao's relations with Krushchev and other Soviet leaders, and the growing paranoia that led Mao to turn against the Chinese Communist Party's ruling clique. The book also includes details of Mao's private life - his sexual appetite, the luxury and corruption of his imperial court, how he dominated his circle of intimates, his gradual physical disintegration, and the political effects of his aims, fears and idiosyncrasies.

The Gary Snyder Reader

Gary Snyder

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This monumental collection gathers the essays, travel journals, letters, poems, and translations of one of the most influential literary voices of the twentieth century.

Gary Snyder has been a major cultural force in America for five decades-prize-winning poet, environmental activist, Zen Buddhist, and reluctant counterculture guru. Having expanded far beyond the Beat poems that first brought his work into the public eye, Snyder has produced a broad-ranging body of work that encompasses his fluency in Eastern literature and culture, his commitment to the environment, and his concepts of humanity's place in the cosmos. The Gary Snyder Reader showcases the panoramic range of his literary vision in a single-volume survey that will appeal to students and general readers alike.

Prose selections include letters to Lew Welch and Philip Whalen; journals from his travels to Saigon, Singapore, Kyoto, Ceylon, New Delhi, and Daramshala; meditations on Buddhism and the surrender of self; a cultural survey of communal living; and notes from the lookout tower on Sourdough Mountain, where Snyder once watched for forest fires. Also included are two long interviews with Snyder from East West Journal and The Paris Review.

The Reader also gathers poems from each phase of Snyder's long career-from his first collection, Riprap, to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Turtle Island, through his recently completed poem cycle, Mountains and Rivers Without End. It also includes Snyder's little-known translation of the great "Long Bitter Song" poem by Bai Juyi, the longest poem in the Chinese language.

From freighter to firetower, Zendo to Himalayan mountain ridge, Snyder's writings reflect a lifetime of study, journey, and mindfulness. Time and again, his work has captured key moments in our changing culture, transforming our concept of literature and its place in a purposeful life.

Concubine's Children

Denise Chong

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A history of a polygamous family 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

For those of you who think polygamy works when it is culturally supported, this is the book that will give you a new viewpoint to consider.

This book was written by the granddaugther of a concubine, a second wife taken while the first wife was still in the picture. Culture and practicality allowed and supported concubinage in China of the 1920s, yet this family suffered greatly for generations under the practice. It is the history of her grandparents' marriage, a second marriage. The grandfather took a concubine to be his wife in the New World while he worked to make a better living from his At Home family and to elevate his social status in his home community.

The story tells of the struggles of being a "second family," of the depravation that had to go hand-in-hand with supporting two households, with the shame of having parents who were together for the convenience of sex and income, of the pain of being separated from siblings who were being raised by the first wife. It's about the descent from being a merely disfunctional family unit to being essentially an out-of-control single-parent household when the bonds of dependency and culture were broken by the stress of having two wives and two families.

I couldn't put this book down once I started because it's like watching a train-wreck. I could anticpate the troubles and sorrows, as could the family involved, yet they were just as powerless as I to change things.

Editorial Review:

Drawing on letters, photographs, and reminiscences, the granddaughter of a woman who came from China as the concubine of a traveler to the New World describes her discovery of the Chinese family left behind and her reunion with them. 15,000 first printing. Tour.

Footprints in the Snow: The Autobiography of a Chinese Buddhist Monk

Master Chan Sheng Yen

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this landmark memoir, a renowned Buddhist master traces his spiritual journey against the panoramic story of China from the pre-Communist era to the present.

Master Sheng Yen has devoted much of his life to spreading the teachings of Chinese Buddhism—a practice that antedates the more familiar Japanese and Tibetan traditions—throughout the world. He became known in the United States after he began founding meditation centers here in 1980. Now in his late seventies, he tells the remarkable story of his life and spiritual education in Footprints in the Snow. From descriptions of the private world of Buddhist masters to first-hand accounts of Chinese history, it is a rare document that is both an important look at China’s past and a compelling spiritual journey across a lifetime.
Sheng Yen’s story is of a life lived in the last years of the Republic of China, the Sino-Japanese War, and the founding of the People’s Republic of China. An eye-opening slice of modern history as well as an authoritative introduction to an ancient religious tradition, Footprints in the Snow will appeal to spiritual seekers, travelers who want to understand more about China, or anyone looking for a fascinating story.

Chinese Through Tone & Color

Nathan Dummitt

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This title is avilable in book and CD. Most linguists believe that writing was unveiled in China during the latter half of the 2nd millennium BC. Despite the many thousands of written characters however, there are approximately 1,700 possible syllables in Mandarin, compared to over 8,000 in English. As a result, there are many homophones, distinguished in written Chinese by the use of different characters to represent each one. Not all the characters are pronounced using the same tone, so to Chinese ears they sound different. To Westerner ears, however, they all sound the same. It is even possible to write a test in Chinese using only one syllable, pronounced with different tones. The well known story by Chinese linguist Zhao Yuanren - Story of Shi Eating the Lions - uses nothing but the sound "shi".This book offers a new, intuitive method for more effectively mastering spoken Mandarin Chinese. It assigns a colour to each of the four tones in Mandarin, creating a psychological, synaesthetic resonance between written characters, colour and sound. Sample sentences and grammatical patterns are printed in colour to reinforce the association between tone and colour. With practice, each character generates a colour association, and the tone for the word can therefore be recalled immediately and effortlessly - a true asset to any beginner learning Mandarin. Designed as an engaging introduction to 100 primary characters, the book also contains an audio CD of the lessons and tones, as well as downloadable files and artwork for mp3 players or computers. Compact, well designed and innovative, it is perfect for a student interested in mastering spoken Chinese while simultaneously studying the written characters.

The Lost Daughters of China

Karin Evans

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Total reviews: 67 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"This book calls attention to the pressing issues of abandoned baby girls in China, the result of a combination of historical and cultural prejudices against women and the current draconian, one-child policy. The Lost Daughters of China is an evocative memoir that will not only attract parents or would-be parents of Chinese baby girls but will touch the hearts of us all." (Chicago Tribune)

Proclaimed an instant classic upon its hardcover publication, The Lost Daughters of China is at once compelling and informative. Journalist Karin Evans tells the story of adopting her daughter, Kelly, who was once one of the hundreds of thousands of infant girls who wait for parents in orphanages all over China. Weaving her personal account with extensive research, Evans investigates the conditions that have led to generations of abandoned Chinese girls and a legacy of lost women.

With a new epilogue added for the paperback edition, this book will appeal to anyone interested in China and in the emotional ties that connect people regardless of genes or culture. In the words of bestselling novelist Amy Tan, The Lost Daughters of China is "not only an evocative memoir on East-West adoption but also a bridge to East-West understanding of human rights in China."

Bound Feet & Western Dress: A Memoir

Pang-Mei Chang

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Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"In China, a woman is nothing."

Thus begins the saga of a woman born at the turn of the century to a well-to-do, highly respected Chinese family, a woman who continually defied the expectations of her family and the traditions of her culture. Growing up in the perilous years between the fall of the last emperor and the Communist Revolution, Chang Yu-i's life is marked by a series of rebellions: her refusal as a child to let her mother bind her feet, her scandalous divorce, and her rise to Vice President of China's first women's bank in her later years.

In the alternating voices of two generations, this dual memoir brings together a deeply textured portrait of a woman's life in China with the very American story of Yu-i's brilliant and assimilated grandniece, struggling with her own search for identity and belonging. Written in pitch-perfect prose and alive with detail, Bound Feet and Western Dress is the story of independent women struggling to emerge from centuries of customs and duty.

The Man on Mao's Right: From Harvard Yard to Tiananmen Square, My Life Inside China's Foreign Ministry

Ji Chaozhu

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Great personal history but filter the propaganda 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

I knew Ji back in the 70's. At that time none of us, I suspect, had any idea the hardships he had endured in China, particularly during the Cultural Revolution. Toward the end of the book, however, when he gets to Tiananmen, I felt he was trying to set up his readers to conclude (incorrectly) that the Tiananmen demonstrations were essentially a reenactment of the Red Guards/Cultural Revolution excesses and as such deserved to be suppressed by whatever means necessary. This of course is the party line in China and it was disappointed to see someone like Ji parroting it. Toward the end I even began to wonder if the whole purpose of the book was to justify the Tiananmen massacre.
I was also disappointed that Ji denigrated Han Xu, his colleague and sometime superior in the Foreign Office. He depicts Han as hard line, but it was Han (now dead) who was disillusioned by the Tiananmen suppression and, according to people I trust, contemplated seeking refuge in the United States or some other democratic society.

Editorial Review:

A riveting biography and unique historical record, The Man on Mao's Right recounts the heartfelt struggle of a man who loved two powerful nations that were at odds with each other.