Chinese Books

I picked up this book from my local public library solely on the basis of its title, but I was very pleasantly surprised once I started reading it. This book is a collection of autobiographical essays written by Chinese-American women who are now teaching at universities in the United States. All of the essays examine the authors' experiences growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution from a feminist perspective. The introduction makes it clear that the authors were motivated by a desire to go beyond the standard (at least in the U.S. and Europe) version of the Cultural Revolution as a period of complete chaos, despair, and oppression. Instead, the authors write about the many ways they felt, often including senses of empowerment, freedom, and creativity.

This book is quite straight-forward and does not require anything more than a general knowledge of modern Chinese history and maybe a tiny bit of familiarity with feminist theory (for the introduction).

The American market has been flooded with memoirs from the Mao era that present this time, especially the Cultural Revolution years, as a purely dark, depraved, and tragic age with nothing but victims and victimizers, inhumanity, cruelty, and sexual repression. The editors of this volume, in their probing introductory essay, have no quarrel with these individuals representing their tragic experiences through memoirs, but do take issue with the assumption that many Westerners (and in some cases the authors of these other memoirs) take for granted, that is, that these victim/victimizer memoirs speak for all Chinese women who grew up in this era. The authors of these nine chapter length memoirs grew up in big cities in China during the Mao era, and all have gone on to PhDs and American professorships. While they note that this makes themselves unrepresentative in a sense, they are representative in that the vast majority of urban women were never victims or victimizers during the Cultural Revolution. These authors have both good and bad memories, were both harmed and empowered by the state's official ideology, and experienced personal growth.

One of the authors mentions that American friends act almost disappointed when she tells them she has no personal horror story to share. The editors mention a revealing anecdote from an American academic conference in 1999 titled "Memory and Cultural Revolution". During the Q&A session, someone said that their memory of the period did not coincide with the panel's wholly gloomy and tragic view, rather they recalled a high and youthful spirit, and that they were neither victim nor victimizer. The chair of the panel condescendingly dismissed this by saying that some Holocaust survivors are nostalgic for their camp days too. Thus, no more time needed to be wasted on such invalid memories, and the panel moved on with their discussion of politically correct memory. These authors simply want to add their experiences, and their astute and balanced analysis into the mix.

All nine memoirs are high quality and raise our understanding of what it was like for an average girl/young woman in urban China in the 1960s-70s, and they raise important philosophical and sociological questions about gender. Many are moving while always avoiding pretentiousness. Moments of humor are common. Horror story memoirs are sadly true, but the other reality is people laughed, children played, parents and children argued and bonded, adults gossiped, youth aspired, friendships formed, people worked, students studied (usually), performers performed, farmers farmed, and ordinary people lived their lives. These memoirs, being full of rich, colorful details of family and neighborhood life, increase our knowledge of Chinese culture as well as the Cultural Revolution.

Here is a brief description of each memoir. This by no means does them justice.

Naihua Zhang -- "In a World Together Yet Apart: Urban and Rural Women Coming of Age in the Seventies" -- tells a moving story of life long bonds formed with 2 rural young women after being sent to the countryside.

Wang Zheng -- "Call Me 'Qingnian' But Not 'Funu': A Maoist Youth in Retrospect" -- shares rich details of her happy childhood during the CR, then applies her scholarly expertise (women's studies) to her own life coming of age as a young woman in a time of empowering feminist ideology, yet continuing influence of older cultural assumptions about gender. Insights abound.

Xiaomei Chen -- "From 'Lighthouse' to the Northeast Wilderness: Growing Up Among the Ordinary Stars" -- was the daughter of two elite theatre stars who were persecuted during the CR. She nevertheless had a "happy, even exhilarating childhood, though I was not spared growing pains", including a sent-down experience where she got to understand ordinary people in the countryside via work as a reporter.

Bai Di -- "My Wandering Years in the Cultural Revolution: The Interplay of Political Discourse and Personal Articulation" -- Bai, who is from Harbin in northern China, discusses, among other things, how the CR impacted the parent-child dynamics of households in her neighborhood.

Jiang Jin -- "Times Have Changed, Men and Women are the Same" -- was the daughter of Shanghai intellectuals, a red guard, a sent down youth, a university student, and now a historian in the US. Inspired by her parents, especially her liberated mother, and using their private library of classics, she aimed to "read 10,000 books, travel 10,000 miles [for true knowledge]", a Chinese expression.

Lihua Wang -- "Gender Consciousness in My Teen Years" -- discusses her evolving perceptions and consciousness as a female worker (and later college) who ultimately realizes her aspiration of being an educated independent person who contributes to society while finding self-fulfillment.

Xueping Zhong -- "Between 'Lixiang' and Childhood Dreams: Back from the Future to the Nearly Forgotten Yesteryears" -- from Shanghai, whose parents instilled in her a love of learning early on; her mother pushing her to model herself after great intellectuals in history, like the author of _Dream of the Red Mansion_, Cao Xueqin. She did in fact follow the CR trend of rebellion, studying hard for college while others were not. Throughout, the conflict and harmony between lixiang [ideals] and personal aspirations are discussed thoughtfully.

Zhang Zhen -- "Production of Senses in and out of the 'Everlasting Auspicious Lane': Shanghai 1966-1976" -- a Cinema Studies scholar at NYU today, discusses her unique neighborhood, her childhood love of films and literature, her amateur performance experiences, and intellectual maturation.

Yanmei Wei -- "'Congratulations, It's a Girl!' Gender and Identity in Mao's China" -- the only one of these memoirs of someone who grew up mostly in the post-Mao era, which makes for an interesting point of comparison with the others. Expectations of female behavior evolved, but with some continuities too.

Kim San was executed during the Communist revolution in China. He was a promising communist who dremt korea's independence. He thought that the success of chinese communism would ultimately bring about the defeat of japan. And this would produce korea's independence. That's why he worked for Chinese communism.

He said that I was defeated to everything, I lost my mother country, and I lost my youth because I was devoted to independence movement. But I triumphed over myself.

Even though, he lost his life during revolution movement. His life itself is the reflection our modern era.

Try to read this book, you can get a glimpse of Korean culture and korean people's way of thinking.

Most of korean intellectuals have read this book. Before '90, south korean government prohibited the publishing of this book.

If you lost your value system, why don't you try this book?
This book will probably teach you the true way to your life.....

My review title reflects my own experience in Korean society during the 1980s as a college student. At that time, the Korean translation of this book 'Ariran' (actually, the correct Korean sound is 'Arirang') was read among many Korean college students in addition to the biography of Cheon Tae-Il, a young worker who self-immolated in 1970 protesting against the harsh working condition and the poor treatment of factory workers by employers and the military regime. These books' consciousness-awakening influence may have been like that of Marcuse in the US during the 1960s and 70s or that of Howard Zinn now, and they are still being read in Korea.

Many college students awakened by their modern history's agony and workers' poor condition just dropped out of school and went to factories and other sites for engaging in or organizing social movements for progress and emancipation, which people now call 'democratization' in a more or less technical way.

Actually, this book was published in 1941 in the US by a prominent American woman journalist, Nym Wales, who went to China for the purpose of writing newspaper articles and interviewing the leaders of Chinese revolution with then her husband, Edgar Snow, who was the author of a well-known book, the Red Stars of Chinese Revolution.

If you read this beautifully written book 'Ariran'(actually, Arirang is more corrent in terms of pronunciation, which means somebody who is loved and missed so much according to a general interpretation of the term, or a lost country by imperialism according to a more political interpretation), you can get some ideas of not-so-much studied events in East Asian history during the 1920s and 30s from the author's description of a Korean revolutionary (Kim San, whose real name is Jang Ji-Rak), who left Korea occupied by Japanese imperialism at that time, went to the mainland, and finally engaged in the several battles of Chinese Revolution believing the Revolution as the first step toward a region-wide revolutions including Korean and Japanese ones.

His earlier experience in Korea of changing his identity from a Christian to a Anarcho-Socialist revolutionary after seeing the Japanese brutality of bloody suppression during the March 1st Independence movement in 1919 is also revealing(tragically, he was executed in his thirties by Chinese communists who labelled him a Trotskyist shortly after this book was published in the US, but his contribution to the revolution was recently recognized by the Chinese government). This is a tragic but inspiring saga incorporating a history of imperialism and revolution and an existential story into one person's life.

Kim San, whom Nym Wales found as the most attractive figure among her interviewees including famous revolutionaries, was a person who could discuss in English with her and translated some Russian revolutionary texts into Korean as an intellectual but also was a combatant in several significant battles in the revolution. He may be considered someone like Che Guevara in the East.

This book is a classic. And I wonder why this book is out of print. Nym Wales wrote a great book, which stimulated a historical imagination so strongly that many people could change their own lives in Korea by reading it even after the book was published decades ago.

If I had to choose one word to sum up this book it would be "comprehensive". Don't let the mysterious cover put you off (there's a point to it), this is one of the most elaborate accounts of Chinese characters I have seen.

From its descriptive starting point, it advances into the territory of analysing individual characters, digging deeper to where it presumably all began. Philipsen boldly proposes that the characters didn't originate in China, or that at least the concept writing was brought there by an immigrant elite. Provocative, perhaps, but Philipsen supports his theory with accurate references, and makes an attractive argument.

This is just one aspect of a fascinating book about how sound is the decisive factor in the formation af Chinese characters, and about unlocking your understanding of them through this approach. Rare and insightful.

Covering analysis of everything from character function, usage, etymology,
classification and historical origins, this is an ambitious work. It is
clear that the author is on a mission to spell out the prime role that sound
plays in every aspect of Chinese characters, and he presents a clear, very
thorough picture of past and present issues in this regard.

The wealth of information covered in this slight volume is quite staggering
and the conclusions reached certainly rise above the ordinary, although a
bit more elucidation on the historical part in the last chapter concerned
with non-Chinese influence on the rise of the characters might have done it
some good. Still, there is no doubt that we are dealing with an original
mind that is not afraid to air unorthodox thought and the author does an
impressive job in painting a diverse, no-nonsense picture of Chinese
characters, in turn drawing on an extensive literature.

Recommended to all people interested in Chinese characters from both a
Japanese and Chinese perspective. If, like me, you already consider yourself
knowledgeable, this will add a special depth and breadth of vision rarely
found to your own mental inventory.

Great Book focusing on the "baba nyonya" chinese. Give a refreshing view and angle of the strait chinese. A reminder of historical past to the straits chinese themselves.

Oon Soon Teik

Dr. Khoo has gathered and set to paper an amazing body of knowledge about a little known but vital part of the history of Southeast Asia. The photography and sources alone are more than worth the price of the book. This book is required reading for anyone wishing to have a complete view of the history and dynamics of this region.

This book contains more than 500 words and phrases commonly used in Chinese to show meanings like contrast, cause-effect, surprise, disagreement, conditionals, you name it, it's in this book. The explanations of meaning and usage are clear and easy to understand, and each entry is supported with examples written in traditional and simplified Chinese and pinyin.

This book is definitely user friendly. Each word is listed in chinese character, pinyin pronounciation guide and part of speech identification followed by 2 or more sentences. I found the sentences to be interesting and useful. Since the sentences are variable from simple to complex in their grammatical structure, they give a fair view of the uses of the words in this volume.

Additionally, I found the layout of the entries to be well designed and easy to find. An excellent addition to any serious or casual Chinese Language learner's reference collection.

Demi's new picture book, "Su Dongpo," is an entrancing work of art.

"Su Dongpo" is a biography of "China's greatest genius." Su Dongpo (1036-1101) was "a statesman, philosopher, poet, painter, engineer, architect, and humanitarian who approached everything with joy and grace." Demi tells the story of Su Dongpo's life, illustrated with poetry about and by Su Dongpo. It's a fascinating tale in and of itself, but the poetry and the pictures are what really make this book.

Here, for example, is one of Su Dongpo's poems he wrote as a schoolboy:

"To what can human life be likened?
Perhaps to a wild goose's footprint on snow;
The foot imprint is accidentally left,
But carefree, the bird flies east and west."

Demi's illustrations are stylized, accented with gold ink, and truly breathtaking in their beauty. I had to stop myself from cutting them out and tacking them up above my desk.

"Su Dongpo" is out this month from Lee & Low Books and would be an excellent addition to any school (or homeschool) unit on China and Chinese history.

Written and illustrated by Demi, "Su Dongpu: Chinese Genius" is the picturebook story of a man named Su Shih in ancient China who as a boy began to write stories and versus expressing an admiration of the natural world. When Su Shih grew up to become an important scholar and influential statesman, he changed his name to Su Dongpo and risked his life by promoting justice and condemning corruption. The celebration story of a life of hardship and success lived with grace, ;humility and compassion that is designed to inspire young readers with a real-life example of dignity, ingenuity, courage, and resilience, "Su Dongpu: Chinese Genius" is a strongly recommended addition to both school and library picturebook collections.

When I decided to do a term paper on the topic of Chinese American Women, I realized how little researched this particular topic is. I praise Ms. Ling for composing a book on a topic that is so important to so many Chinese Americans, Asian Americans, and everyone who wants to learn something important about Chinese American women. She is very detailed, thorough about her topic and also succinctly lucid. The amount of research that was done to write such a book must have been immense for Surviving on the Gold Mountain is a pure gem of a book. I have learned so much about the forgotten history of Chinese American women in the US. They are often overlooked by historians, especially the collective history of Chinese American women from 1850 to the 1990s. I applaud Ms. Ling for the detailed nature of her history and for her special research on certain important issues such as interracial marriage and the different occupations that Chinese American women have been forced to participate in in the past and in the present as well. This is by far the most comprehensive book published to date on the history of Chinese American women. Every issue one may need to know about the history of Chinese American women from the nineteenth and twentieth century is somehow encapsulated in this wonderfully written book.

I really liked the way that this was done. Not only was it interestingly written, it included good facts and nice pictures. The use of statistics was not overblown for the common reader, and it really gave a good flavor of the subjects. (I believe in short and sweet reviews)

The "Lover's I Ching" and "Symbols of Love" both by Stephen Karcher are amazing wonderful clear and revealing books. I especially like finding out when you have a moment that is a focus-type (my word. the review mentions "22 models of relationships") of relationship, a more powerful time.
Stephen Karcher's I Ching translation (the big one) has supplanted other versions I have used in my (since 1967) history of using the I Ching for my life. One thing to notice is he extracts the reality whivhis the positivism out of the time. And he links you to the original Chinese. This helps me to see when one hexagram is using the same concept, the same word, as another hexagram.

I have a question. Are these books the same? What is the difference? I haven't seen the black fuzzy one for years.(Lover's I Ching, Hardcover. PUBLISHERS: it should come in a box. imho)

To add to the editorial review of this one, he has had some people who work with relationships add interesting material to this book (Symbols of Love), to help you think through the issues of the time, pictured in the hexagram and echoed by what you cast.

As I have recently taken up learning I Ching I found this book a great edition to my new collection.This book is all about guidance in regards to relationships.If you are single,or,in a relationship,married,etc you will find this book a great guide.

This book shows how I Ching can help with relationships/matters of the heart and in detail too.This is a very accurate book.
I'm amazed at the guidance I'm getting from this book.

Each hexagram is covered in great detail.About 4 pages to each one.Thats a good thing.(The author's book "Total I Ching" has 4-6 long pages).

This is the first and only book I found on I Ching that specifically caters to relationships and its a great book.

There are similarities between this book and the author's book,"Total I Ching" but this one focuses on relationships matters but "Total I Ching" covers other matters and both are indepth books.

If you have other books by this author you might like this book too.

I also recommend these books:
1)I Ching:a new interpretation for modern times.By Sam Reifler.
2)Practical guidance to the I Ching.By Kim-Anh Lim.

I actually never knew this book existed. I First began to study Taiji from Erle Montaigue a couple weeks ago by video instruction. But Yang Cheng Fu's Taiji form is a moving Qigong (Chi Kung). So breathing in and out with/during each individual flowing movement is important or its useless. Just as if you had the breathing down perfect and you're postures were wrong it would be useless. I can see on the excerpt pages that he tells you when to breath in or out. He tells you these things in the video but more time is spent describing the postures and movements.
And I can tell you it's the original Taiji. If you get Erle Montaigue's book "Encyclopedia of Dim Mak ,Volume 1" He will go into the history of Taiji. See his instructional videos at " Taichiworld.com".

This book contains a wealth of information for serious Tai Chi practitioners. It may feel a little difficult to learn the complete long form from this book alone , but it can act as an useful companion to the author's beginner's tape on Taijiquan (MTG1). Tai Chi is being constantly abused by con masters many of whom happen to come from the land of its origin and as a result myriad short forms are being devoloped to make it easy and accessible. But, there is no substitute for hard work. As someone who had been practicing the complete long form for sometime now and greatly benefited from it, my advise to beginners would be to learn from authentic materials such as this. Begin slowly. After one learns the 'opening form' and 'grasping sparrow's tail', even repeating these two forms perhaps a dozen times on both sides would give one actual tangible benefit. And, don't rush to the next until you truely master the previous form. May you realize the Tao.

Involved with Tai Chi classes, this book covers the 24 form. Aside from an error in foot naming for one of the movements, the book is very visual and explanatory, however, footwork drawings can appear confusing when trying to follow by yourself. In order for true benefit, one should enroll in classes with a knowledgable instructor.

This book is clearly and concisely written for 24-movement TaiChi Short Form (Simplified TaiChi form). With very clear and step-by-step detailed photos/illustrations, this excellent book is the ultimate introduction to the world of TaiChi.