Chang Books

We bought this book because we loved The Runaway Rice Cake and it was Chinese New Year. Both my girls, 4 & 6, always ask me to reread favorite books. This one went on the shelf and is gathering dust.

This is the second of the Boulder-based author's planned trilogy on the origins of three Chinese inventions: chopsticks, noodles, and (I believe) paper. The stories all feature the Kang brothers, three boisterous young boys who live in ancient China and have a penchant for accidentally coming up with new technologies. In this story, the brothers manage to make a mess of the dumpling dough their mother has left them to shape. The dough ends up torn into strips, but they discover that the strips make a tasty dish when they are cooked. This mian tiao (flour strips) dish ends up winning the annual cooking contest.

Children will enjoy the description of the different ways of eating noodles: rolled on the chopsticks is "eating a drumstick"; slurping the noodle is "sucking a worm"; and biting the noodles is "cutting the grass." Young readers will also undoubtedly enjoy the author's note that people in China customarily make big slurping noises while eating noodles.

The illustrations-papercuts which have bold lines and colors reminiscent of stained glass-complement the boisterous, happy tone of the book. As an added bonus, Compestine includes a recipe for "Long-Life Noodles" and a note about the history and customs of noodles.

I think it is not good book in this area

"A concise and practical guide to help team leaders and members understand the dynamics of working in teams and take action to improve their effectiveness." Ron Remillard, Director of Training, Georgia-Pacific Corporatio

Don't let the title fool you, this book doesn't contain 365 things to do that might make your love-life more exciting. Some of the pages are filled with medical facts and a few warnings about safe-sex, but that's not to say that the ideas it does present aren't interesting. I can't say that I found all of them practical or, in some cases, physically possible, but I did have a fun time reading it and wondering.

Perhaps best left in the hands of children who love history (are there such?) or just those who enjoy board games, "Ancient Board Games" provides durable playing surfaces and markers, but little or no data. Also, if I'm not mistaken, for none of these games were the full rules discovered.

Heewon Chang has written a good overview of the current state of autoethnography, but has failed to add anything to it.

She starts with a broad outline of what culture is, and how the individual must always sit within culture. Then she examines the growing interest in self-narratives, and some ways these have been used in social sciences. In Chapter Three Chang narrows her focus down to autoethnography, and she uses Ellis & Bochner's (2000) extensive list of labels that have been applied to autoethnography. I found this chapter the most useful, as it discusses a number of researchers working in autoethnography (although Change explicity makes the case that she is not attempting a full literature review).

I think Chang's take on auto-ethnography is summed up by her statement that "mere self-exposure without profound cultural analysis and interpretation leaves this writing at the level of descriptive autobiography or memoir" (p. 51). Chang would reject Sela-Smith's (2002) autoethnographical approach as being too personal, and not analytical enough. Chang argues that autoethnography must always be brought back to the context of a wider cultural interpertation, and the strength of her point of view perhaps places her slightly askew from the positioning of Ellis and Bochner (whom she quotes extensively).

So far so good, but it was the remainder of the book which was the biggest let-down for me. Part two is about collecting ethnographic data, and part three is about turning data into autoethnography (this section includes information about coding and analyzing data from a traditional qualitative research p.o.v., which gives you an idea of the direction she is appraoching autoethnography from). Throughout Chang gives many data collecting and writing exercises, making this akin to an autoethnographic workbook. In the text, and in the appendices, Chang gives extensive examples of her own autoethnographic writing.

I admire Ruth Behar's work, and particularly her point that to write work that has the ability to resonate with other's experiences, one must be willing to be a "vulnerable observer" who is painfully open. Sela-Smith states that a heuristic self-search inquiry requires an autoethnographer who is "focussed on the I-who-feels and addresses the exeriencing self... as a way to access knoweldge that is significant to human experience". Unfortunately I found Chang the least vulnerable observer possible, and giving no sense of being in a self-dialog with an I-who-feels. She clearly has a fascinating life history, with relationships that cross many cultural boundaries. Sadly her autoethnographic writing gives no sense of what it would be like to experience this. By leaving out any sense of a lived life I am unable to draw wider culutral interpretations from them. I am unable to sense if my own cross-cultural experiences are similar to hers, as she doesn't self-disclose enough for me to gain a sense of any real experiences.

On pages 164 and 165 Chang gives an example of autoethnographic writing about her mother; such a potentially loaded and emotionally charged topic! Yet Chang's writing leaves me without any real understanding of what she experienced. She states "[my mother] juggled immense multiple roles in her life as a professor, church officer, mother, daughter-in-law, and friend. So her balancing act was a natural sight to my childhood eyes. I occasionally felt inconvenienced by her busy involvement in many different things and absences during the day and some evenings every week. My stay-at-home nurturing grandmother filled the void, which sufficiently satisfied my basic needs".

Now, is it just me, or does it seem to you that behind the phrase "sufficiently satisfied my basic needs" is a piece of real autoethnographical writing just jostling to get out? I imagine that in a Korean-American culture it must have involved some internal conflict trying to balance an intellectual and cultural understanding of the roles her mother needed to play, with Chang's own emotional needs and desires. I think that effective autoethnographic writing should have given an example of a specific time this caused internal (if not external) conflict, and how she felt about it. But then perhaps I am wrong; perhaps Chang never had any emotional qualms about her mother, and she truly did receive all the emotional attention she wished for; however from this writing I cannot tell. If she experienced nothing but feelings of happiness, care and fulfillment as a child then I would have liked to have read about them too.

In contrast Chang includes a marvellous piece of autoethnographic writing in Appendix F, by Jaime J. Romo, about his experience of identity development through school, college, and professional life. I found this writing painfully open, and very moving, and it gave me real insight into some of the cultural capital issues that are present in my own multi-cultural society.

Romo's writing highlighted the disappointment I experienced with the rest of Chang's book; a lack of the "rich details" which Chang herself argues are the essence of autoethnography. I can think of lots of reasons why Chang has not self-examined in her writings, however this lack means the book fell flat for me.

I had high hopes for this book, and I think there is definitely room for someone else to attempt this same overview of the field, bringing together all the strands from other researchers and adding their own stories. Until then I recommend researchers interested in this methodology stick with Ellis, Bochner, Behar, and Sela-Smith.

Zhang's Barings Bankruptcy presents a workable, though at times dry treatment of the Barings debacle and financial derivatives. Despite what the web page blurb says, this book only speculates at what caused the Barings bankruptcy. Zhang hints at certain things, but does not give us any real facts beyond what made the headlines throughout the world.

At first glance, the book is organized fairly well. Starting with the fall of the bank in early 1995, the first three chapters of the book give some interesting background on the Barings family and merchant bank. We also learn that at one point, the Barings family was considered to be one of the six great powers of Europe. In part two of the book, readers who are unfamiliar with exotic financial instruments received a thorough and comprehensive introduction to options, futures, and other exotic derivatives. Throughout the explanations Zhang employs vivid analogies and clever examples to get his point across. In part three of the book, Zhang makes a weak though well substantiated attempt to implicate the Japanese economy as the real culprit and devotes nearly a whole chapter to explaining the state of the Japanese economy at the time of the bankruptcy. Zhang gives us a brief history lesson of the Japanese political economy and Japanese financial markets, and a snapshot of Japanese economic and financial activity in and around the first two months of 1995.

Zhang agrees with such financial scholars as Jorion, author of Big Bets Gone Bad, that the people who wield these exotic derivative products are often more dangerous than the products themselves. Here, just as in the case of Robert L. Citron's key role in the Orange county bankruptcy and the rocket scientists at the helm of Long Term Capital Management's financial collapse, this line of reasoning may very well be true.

It feels like an introductory book. It gives the basics, but when you're in the ward, you often ask yourself, "OK, now what do I do?" But this book focuses on background information more that treatments. There is no chapter on strokes, per se. It is spread out into various chapters. At this stage of my education, I would prefer a chapter dedicated to stroke.

Reprints a comprehensive set of articles from Glass Industry magazine over the past 50 years. Many are papers that were presented at Society of Glass & Ceramic Decorators annual meetings. Although most are dated, it is interesting from an historical perspective. Some are still relevant.

I wanted something more applicable to decorating my own home not a book about actual homes in the French countryside. I don't think that I will ever use it again in terms of a reference.

I thought the book was insightful for ideas on how to arrange items and colors in your loft. But as stated previously, I was looking for a garage/loft plan.