Chinese Books

A fine book on cigars. I completely enjoyed this book and refer to it often.

I just picked this book up recently (2007) and though the book is getting on in age, it really holds up today. The first half of the book discussed history of tobacco, cigars, and smoke shops. The authors can really tell a good story and their historylessons were highly entertaining.

This is a useful and well-written cigar guide. It is getting a bit dated, but it is still very good for all cigar lovers.

The Good Cigar is to your brain what your tobacconist's walk-in humidor is to your nose. It's a cornucopia of history, anecdotes, and general cigar lore that makes you want to relax and stay a while.

Jeffers and Gordon start their history with the original tobacco lovers, the indigenous people of the Americas. Then they discuss the introduction and development of tobacco in Europe and the New World. Jeffers and Gordon acquaint us with many of the people who have influenced our image of cigars (Mark Twain, Groucho Marx, Ernest Hemingway, etc.) and give quotation buffs a nice supply of material. From the "Wooden Indian" to cigar boxes and bands, they explore the history and artistry of cigar paraphernalia.

The authors include a cigar index complete with their personal ratings of each cigar. The book shows its age here, as some of the cigars are no longer sold. This doesn't necessarily detract from the book. You just might run into somebody who's had a box aging for several years and is willing to trade a few sticks. In a situation like this, an older index of cigars would be helpful.

Jeffers and Gordon also cover humidors, cutters, and lighters. They even include a resource guide. These sections might lead the cigar neophyte to believe that cigar smoking is a costly pursuit, but this doesn't have to be the case. Less expensive and perfectly functional accessories are readily available; but as Winston Churchill warned, "Shoddiness can be found easily, in quantity" (I got that from this book). Choose carefully. There are several Internet message boards devoted to cigars that would be more helpful than this book in finding accessories that fit your taste and budget.

Prof. Mungello wrote this comprehensive book on the intercourse of China and West in culture and religion in a highly readable text.
Between 1500-1800, China was a powerful country. Catholics dreamed of converting China into a Christian country. However, it was Chinese influence to Europe to bring about Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. He showed that missionaries sent back Tao Te Ching, I Ching and Confucius teaching to the European educated to help bring about the Enlightenment Movement.
What would happen when China is Christianized and the West goes Taoist Way?
By 1800, China was still in its glorious satisfaction while European Powers underwent industrialization. Britain unable to balance the trade deficit pushed opium and war on China. The 1997 Hong Kong Hand-over concluded the last British Imperial chapter in history. China was at its nadir at 1900 Boxer Movement with eight foreign countries invaded Peking.
Napoleon said, "When China wakes, it will shock the world". History affirms the Tao in East and West, strong and weak, grandeur and decline, war and peace. Prof. Mungello presents the readers the historical background to understand the modern China. A number of Westerners see Deng's reform with market economy lead to China rising as a world threat. Reading this book will help open up their horizon.

Will US wage war on China in the billions of dollar trade deficit as their British cousins did in 19th Century?

I think Mungello has done a wonderful job in reconstructing the meeting between China and the Western world.

Dr. Mungello has done a great job in presenting how the (Far) West met with Chinese culture over the period of 1500-1800. This book was written in easy and non-technical language. As a Chinese that has learnt Chinese history all through my school years, I am intrigued to read simialar materials presented from a Western perspective in simple English.

Dr. Mungello noted that the Chinese in Song Dynasty mistook the picture of Virgin Mary as Guanyin (Chinese Goddess of the sea). A three-story high statue given by Portuguese to Macau, China shortly before 1999 was meant to be Guanyin but it certainly looks like Virgin Mary. What went around has come around:) Thanks for writing such a good book and I enjoyed it very much.

University Profs take note: Although I had to read this book because I was in the author's class at Baylor, it really is a good introductory book. Dr. Mungello is one of the world's top Sinologists and did his graduate work at the U. of California at Berkeley and I am privelaged to be one of his students.

Half of the book is focused at the West meeting China, and the other half is China meeting the West. It answers the questions: What did the West reject and accept from China? What did China accept and reject from the West?

I bought this so my daughters could better understand the Chinese zodiac and all the animals. it has a great story that is very understandable to them (ages 2 and 4) and the pictures are great too. highly recommended.

Cute story about the Chinese Zodiac and why the cat is not in the calendar. Fun illustations. My daughter who is 5, enjoys this book.

I purchased this boook for use in a Third grade unit on China. I ended up using it with my Kindergarten and First grade social studies classes as well. It's a little wordy in parts for the very young children but can be easily abridged without losing the context of the story.

The Great Race: The Story of the Chinese Zodiac is a picturebook retelling of an ancient Chinese legend of how their annual calendar came to be. The Jade Emperor decreed a grand race between the animals to determine the order of the years. Thirteen animals raced, but the rat, eager to be first, tricked the unfortunate cat into missing the finish line completely - as a result, the rat and the cat remain worst enemies to this very day! Playful color illustrations by Anne Wilson add an enthusiastic touch to this adventurous narrative, rounded out with fun facts about the Chinese calendar and Chinese astrology.

The first thing you'll notice about this book is the artwork. Like "Always Come Home to Me" the colors and lines seem to float over the pages; it's that vivid. They brightened my daughter's eyes as we turn page after page never stopping until we've reached the end.

The story itself is an honest one. Hannah is a cute little girl from Taiwan who with her two parents tries to assimilate to the US -- not unlike the many immigrants before her. I won't spoil the story but I will say I am thoroughly pleased this story is told and I feel my daughter will be better for it.

I can't recommend this wonderful book enough. Get it and you'll treasure this book for years to come.

Very insightful story of the author and her family as they entered into the American society. It was about their struggles to get their green card so they didn't have to hide, but could walk around in the open without fear.A very heart warming story for children and adults.

In this evocative children's tale of a Chinese family's arrival in California, Belle Yang traces her own roots. The Yangs came to this country from Taiwan when she was a young girl. As the author and creator of the the luscious color illustrations, the author has done a marvelous job of combining image and language. The story, set in San Francisco, conveys the pervasive uncertainty that colors the immigrant experience yet ultimately gives readers a story of triumph, as Hannah and her parents make their way in purusit of the American Dream. This is a children's story that is perfect for the whole family. Its message has never been more timely, nor more universal.

Not only is this book brightly illustrated depicting the action, but the story is captivating, suspenseful. Those children who have immigrated to the US will relive their history and all other children will be given a vivid insight to how it is to be a foreigner in this land. I highly recommend this book to school librarians and to parents who want their children to empathize with immigrant children. Furthermore, it's a story that helps us all appreciate how fortunate we are to live in this country even with its imperfections. The setting in San Francisco is an additional plus.

Good book, detailed and easy to follow. I bought to perhaps help deal with my uti's without antibiotics and so far nothing has helped. I'm still trying though. Still a lot of great information and wroth a read.

This book had alot of good information but it would have been nice if they could have included a glossry of terms of a dictionary for some of the words. I couldn't even find half of the words in a regular dictionary.

This is a vastly revised 2nd edition. Anyone perusing the numbers of herbs books available on the market should notice at least two shortcomings: 1. They are not written by practicing clinical herbalists and so they often just pass on 2nd and 3rd hand information 2. They are not wholistic in the sense that they do not integrate diet, lifestyle and the many other factors necessary for a successful therapeutic result. Then there is the current wave of herb books written by inexperienced medical authorities with little or not practical experience in the clinical herbal medicine. Most of these are practically useless.

None of this is true of the latest of edition of this Lesley Tierra's Healing with The Herbs of Life. This book offers the rare opportunity to participate in the herbal healing strategies of one of the world's foremost practicing herbalists with over 20 years clinical experience. Integrating Western and Chinese energetics, it is an excellent source for self healing useful for both the lay person and the professional practitioner.

When the qualities and energetics of diet and lifestyle are appropriately adjusted, herbs offer the most time-honored and effective way for treating the underlying causes of disease rather than merely the outer symptoms. With chapters on "Causes of disease," The Energy of Illness," "The process of Healing," Treatment of Specific conditions" along with other chapters on the "Energy of Food," "Living with the Seasons." The reader is fully empowered in the process of herbal medicine.

This is not simply another herb book with a catalogue of herbs and common indications but allows for a much needed personalized approach to herbal healing.

Another thing the reader will appreciate is that the book is well organized and well written making it all the more enjoyable and useful.

You will not regret owning a copy of this book.

The reader might check out the author's other unique book for kid's, appropriately called The Kid's Herbal.

Lesley Tierra's book is a refreshing look at the old system of energetic herbology. While many herbals focus on healing the ailments, this book introduces the concept of healing the energy imbalance. As such, it is not a reference book for a quick fix. It teaches a different philosophy for using herbs.

Western medicine once used such a concept as the equilibrium between humors. In "Healing with the Herbs of Life", the author uses the Chinese energetic system. She explains why an energetic approach to healing with herbs is more efficient than the ones dealing with symptoms.

This is a very useful book for curious amateur or professional herbalists and energy healing students:

Part 1 deals with herbal fundamentals such as herb chemistry, energy and a materia medica (dictionary of herbs) of 148 herbs from all over the world.

Part 2 discusses the energetic causes of illness, its energy, the process of healing according to the chinese five elements system and a compendium of specific conditions to treat with herbs, always in an energetic perspective and with general guidelines that may apply (keeping in mind that every ill person is different).

Part 3 deals with the energy of food, living with the seasons, herbal preparations.

There is also a complete appendice of resources, bibliography and glossary. An index to identify the names of herbs in their common names, latin names, chinese name and sanskrit name is included at the end.

Completely worth its price since it is so well done and complete.

More than poetry, this book teaches Chinese history, language and culture. Each poem appears in 4 forms, English with syntax adjusted, Raw English word-for-word translation, pinyin (pronunciation guide), and Chinese charaters. The commentary on each poem ranges from an explanation of the symbolism to anecdotes about the poets themselves.

Very pleasing collection of classical Chinese Poetry! The Chinese is provided with the translation so it is also an excellent opportunity to learn more about the Characters as well. This was a joy to read and it connects the reader to the notion that poetry has always been with us and is as inherent to humans as breathing!

THE HEART OF CHINESE POETRY. By Greg Whincup. 178 pp. (Anchor Books). New York : Doubleday, 1987. ISBN 0-385-23967-X (pbk.)

Greg Whincup has here had the useful idea of making Chinese poetry come alive for the Western reader by bringing readers face-to-face with the original texts. Although it has been done before, for example by David Hawkes in his 'A Little Primer of Tu Fu' (Renditions Press, 1988), Whincup seems certainly to have done as well, and considering the incredible importance of the Chinese language, and the wealth of its literature, there really ought to be many more books like this.

Whereas Hawkes' book focused exclusively on the work of Tu Fu, Whincup has chosen instead to give us fifty-seven of China's greatest poems from a wide range of writers - Li Bai, Du Fu, Du Mu, Su Shr, etc. If these names look strange it's because Whincup, rather than employing the Wade-Giles system of transcription which everyone is familiar with, has chosen instead to use the far less well-known Yale system of romanization. For those who don't know it, which probably includes almost everyone, he has provided a brief guide on pages 173-74. The book also contains an extensive 5-page English-language Bibliography

The poems have been topically arranged under the following headings : The Heart of Chinese Poetry; The History of Chinese Poetry; Three Poets of the Golden Age; Poems of War; Poems by and about Women; Landscape/Enlightenment.

For each poem we are given : 1. Whincup's final translation; 2. the Yale word-by-word romanization; 3. the printed full-form Chinese character (ideogram; sinograph); 4. a literal translation of each character; 5. explanatory notes. A nice touch is that the texts have been arranged vertically.

As anyone who has read the poems like this can vouch, it really is the only way for the non-specialist to get an idea of how glorious Chinese poems are when understood in their original language. My only complaint is that, although the Chinese font that has been used in the book is a beautiful cursive form and without the stiffness of the usual printed form, it's also incredibly tiny, and the beginner is going to need very good eyes and very good lighting to be able to discern the structure of the more complex characters.

Here is an example of Whincup's final translation of a famous poem, 'Deer Fence,' by Wang Wei (with my obliques added to indicate line breaks) :

"In the empty mountains / I see no one, / But hear the sound / Of someone's voice. // Slanting sunlight / Enters deep forest, / And shines again / On green moss" (p.169).

This is a respectable effort, and readers might care to compare it with Wai-lim Yip's treatment of Wang Wei in his excellent bilingual anthology, details of which follow below.

Whincup's is a wonderful book that, by enabling the reader to come to grips with the Chinese, will help anyone to arrive at a deeper and richer appreciation of Chinese poetry, and to see how far short of the originals any English translation must inevitably fall. You simply can't do in English what can be done in Chinese, and there really ought to be more books like 'The Heart of Chinese Poetry.'

For those who may be interested, here are details of the Yip:

CHINESE POETRY : An Anthology of Major Modes and Genres. Edited and translated by Wai-lim Yip. 358 pp. Durham NC and London : Duke University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8223-1951-9 (pbk.)

One of the best books of translated Chinese poetry. The Chinese characters and word by word translation lets one get a real feel for the original. How could this have gone out of print?

I've owned this book for years. The receipes and particularly the descriptions of cooking techniques have proven invaluable. I consider myself a reasonably accomplished home cook but, until purchasing this wonderful resource I never quite "got it" as far putting really good Chinese cooking on the table. Helen explains both the how and the why allowing one to re-create the tastes, aromas and textures of Chinese home cooking. The format of the book is clear and easy to follow. The heavy emphasis on FRESH produce is wonderful. Most receipes are easily adapted to those that wish to reduce or even eliminate meat in the diet. I enjoyed the stories from her youth in her mother's kitchen, in the family restaurant, shopping in Chinatown. I love chicken and highly recommend the delicious and incredibly simple "Chinese White Chicken" (if you can boil water, you can make this great dish). Helen includes many easy and tasty dipping sauces that enhance almost any meal, yum!!!!

I've used this cookbook for years; I have soy sauce stains on a number of its pages! Ms. Chen takes the mystery out of preparing wonderful Chinese food. I have not tried a recipe that we did not like. Try it, you'll like it!

Her straight forward instructions are easy to follow. Most ingredients are easily attainable. I am able to get dinner on the table in about 30-40 minutes. My husband says her dishes reminds him of his mother's home cooking. I think that speaks for itself.

As an always - on - move graduate student raised in an Italian - American family, I must confess that I was always a bit mystified by the the techniques used in the Chinese food I loved so much, but was always unable to achieve in the kitchen. Since I don't have a lot of time at this point in my life because of my studies, Helen Chen's book gives me simple to perform instructions for her quick and absoluetly delicious and nutritious recipes. Thank you Ms. Chen! I highly recommend this book. It is wonderful.

My son and I love cooking from this book...He is an especially big fan of tofu and "In the Chinese Kitchen" provides some seriously tasty tofu recipes. We also love the potstickers and Tina's Onion Pancakes!

The shelves, in stores and online, are weighed down by cookbooks, including those for Chinese cuisine. If you're looking for all the basics of Chinese food & cooking, plus a variety of interesting (but easy) recipes, all presented in a breezy, concise manner, look no further. The author was born into a Chinese restaurant family and has come full circle, teaching cooking classes and conducting highly-regarded tours of San Francisco's Chinatown. But that's another book...

Experienced chefs as well as those just venturing into the world of asian cooking will find this book helpful. Fong-Torres is a true expert and master chef.

No other book on Chinese cuisine does such a good job of teaching the subject. This is the first book every Chinese chef, cook or wannabe should read.

I must start off by admitting that the author of this book is one of my teachers (at Leeds University) and he is a very lovely and enthusiastic man. But this isn't just a personal endorsement of Dr.Yip: this book is really very useful indeed. Whether you work through the chapters systematically (which I have done when revising for exams) or just dip into random chapters to clear up grammar problems, you'll find this book indispensable. I think the examples are relevant, and the explanations both clear and comprehensible (unlike other Chinese grammars I could mention - any of the Beijing University Press ones are shockingly bad). This book is tops - it's getting me through my Chinese degree almost painlessly!

Intermediate Chinese provides clear and concise explainations of Mandarin grammer. Explainations and examples are especially well suited to native English speakers, and far clearer than most other Mandarin grammer books that I have encountered. Example sentences use both Pin Yin and Simplified Characters making reading much easier. This book has been an essential companion to my study of Mandarin.

I have used and enjoyed this series of grammars for years now. They have clear and concise explanations and thought provoking commentary. A great feature is that both figurative and literal translations are provided, really giving an insight into Chinese grammar patterns. Another endorsement is the number of good Chinese students that Leeds University (the author's school) produces. I have met a number in China and they are generally impressive. Highly recommended.

I've owned this book for a few years now, and frankly I can't
say enough good about it. I'm not one who likes to study
things like "adjectival predicates", and I can assure you the
book is not like that. While there are technical terms in there,
the moment one starts reading the description, it's crystal
clear what is meant. Everything is defined in a way that
non-grammarians can understand.

I especially like the use of pinyin, English, and Chinese
characters for virtually every example in the book, and there
are many (along with exercises). A number of times I've read the
English part of some example and thought "so that's how to
say that in Chinese".

If I had to nit-pick, the only thing I didn't like about the
book was that the pinyin is in bold font, while the Chinese
characters are not. I'm trying to read/write characters, but
my Western eyes are always pulled to the bold pinyin font.

Although I own several Chinese grammars, mostly published

in China, this volume and its companion (Basic Chinese) are the
ones I always turn to first.

I'm a Taiwanese myself. Even though the content of this book is not new to me, it still provides a fantastic read for me personally and I can imagine it'd be more fantastic for someone wishing to know more about Taiwan. Because Taiwan is so isolated in the international arena, books such as this one is highly recommended for the average person. The only aspect I did not like about this book is the first part of this book's title: "Is Taiwan Chinese?". I'd just like to inform readers that all the population in Asian countries (east, north and south east) all originated from China. So basically everyone is Chinese, so it doesn't just apply to Taiwan. It is like saying: Is Australia British? Nevertheless, a rather informative book for all.

"The "one China" policy officially supported by the People's Republic of China, the United States, and other countries asserts that there is only one China and Taiwan is a part of it." The Description of this book is Misleading.

United States acknowledged China's claim but do not agree with "Taiwan is a part of China". United states position is the resolution shall be peaceful.

At last, a book that covers an aspect of Taiwanese history and culture not often discussed until recent years: the Taiwanese people are a hybrid people. Many have some Plains Aborigine blood (traced on the maternal side). But, with cultural stigma, many Plains Aborigines and part Plains Aborigines forfeited their identity and were absorbed by "Han" identity. I've been waiting for a book in English to discuss this area and am glad Melissa Brown published this book.

If - like me - you are interested in the title's answer, Ms.Brown's is the book! Quoting some of her words: " Many events are completely unknown to us, many events are known only through extremely biased perspectives, and many events are so contradictorily reported that is difficult to reconstruct even a chronological sequence of what occurred". And - believe me! - Ms. Brown interviewed people - in Taiwan ( living there) and interviewed people - in China !!! We are talking about an Stanford University Professor. Congratulations and thanks to Amazon .