A handbook on the art of tai chi chuan by Chinese linguist, historian and tai chi practitioner Louis Swaim. This text provides instructions based on Fu's 20 years of study with Yang Chengfu, the father of tai chi. Line drawings demonstrate the movements and provide a historical resource.
For over a millennium, Chinese literati have almost unanimously considered Tu Fu (712-770 A.D.) to be their greatest poet. Tu Fu radically altered poetry as he found it in the High T’ang period. In addition to making formal innovations in language and structure, he extended the range of acceptable subject matter to include all aspects of public and private experience, thus becoming in the words of translator David Hinton, “the first complete poetic sensibility in Chinese literature.” This edition of The Selected Poems of Tu Fu is the only comprehensive selection of the poet's work currently available in English. While retaining a scholar's devotion to the text, Hinton has attempted “to recreate Tu Fu's poems as new systems of uncertainty." By reflecting all the ambiguity and density of the originals, he has created compelling English poems that significantly alter our conception of Chinese poetry. Included with the poems are the translator’s introduction and translation principles. as well as a biography of Tu Fu; together these provide a fascinating portrait of a uniquely sensitive spirit during one of the most tumultuous periods in Chinese history.
The poems of Du Fu (712-77) had a diverse range of subject matter, from personal detail to historical fact, expressed with a richness of language that stretched from the elegant to the colloquial, and from the allusive to the direct. This selection includes both famous and lesser-known works.
Du Fu (712–770) is one of the undisputed geniuses of Chinese poetry—still universally admired and read thirteen centuries after his death. Now David Young, author of Black Lab, and well known as a translator of Chinese poets, gives us a sparkling new translation of Du Fu’s verse, arranged to give us a tour of the life, each “chapter” of poems preceded by an introductory paragraph that situates us in place, time, and circumstance. What emerges is a portrait of a modest yet great artist, an ordinary man moving and adjusting as he must in troubled times, while creating a startling, timeless body of work. Du Fu wrote poems that engaged his contemporaries and widened the path of the lyric poet. As his society—one of the world’s great civilizations—slipped from a golden age into chaos, he wrote of the uncertain course of empire, the misfortunes and pleasures of his own family, the hard lives of ordinary people, the changing seasons, and the lives of creatures who shared his environment. As the poet chases chickens around the yard, observes tear streaks on his wife’s cheek, or receives a gift of some shallots from a neighbor, Young’s rendering brings Du Fu’s voice naturally and elegantly to life. I sing what comes to me in ways both old and modern my only audience right now— nearby bushes and trees elegant houses stand in an elegant row, too many if my heart turns to ashes then that’s all right with me . . . from “Meandering River”
Published within a few months of each other in 1906, "Stones in the Sea" by Fu Lin and "The Sea of Regret" by Wu Jianren take opposite sides in the heated turn-of-the-century debate over the place of romantic and sexual love and passion in Chinese life. "The Sea of Regret", which came to be the most popular short novel of this period, is a response to the less well-known but equally significant "Stones in the Sea". Taken together, this pair of novels provides a fascinating portrait of early twentieth-century China's struggle with its own cultural, ethical, and sexual redefinition. Patrick Hanan's masterful translation brings together these novels -- neither of which has before been available in any foreign language -- in a single volume, with a valuable introduction and notes. | "A tour de force in the art of translation. 'The Sea of Regret' is not only accurate, but, in the typical Hanan fashion, it is succinct and elegant as well. Impeccable work from an eminent scholar of Chinese fiction and a master of prose." --Lee Ou-fan Lee, UCLA | "These two short novels are especially interesting for their insights into the debate in educated circles concerning marriage, family, and the status of women. The chaos in China caused by the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 is also vividly rendered in both works. Readers will find not only intrinsic interest but also historical relevance in these early modern novels." --Michael S. Duke, University of British Columbia | Patrick Hanan is Victor S. Thomas Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University. He is the author of "The Chinese Vernacular Story" and "The Invention of Li Yu" and the translator of "The Carnal Prayer Mat" and "A Tower for the Summer Heat".
Chinese opera has a history of over 800 years. However, since the early twentieth century, following increased contact with the West, drama without music has also become popular in China. The development and prosperity of modern drama has created a new landscape for Chinese theater, which, as a whole, has become more diverse.
A groundbreaking book by one of the world's leading historians of Chinese architecture Translated by Alexandra Harrer. Fu Xinian is considered by many to be the world's leading historian of Chinese architecture. He is an expert on every type of Chinese architecture from every period through the nineteenth century, and his work is at the cutting edge of the field. Traditional Chinese Architecture gathers together, for the first time in English, twelve seminal essays by Fu Xinian. This wide-ranging book pays special attention to the technical aspects of the building tradition since the first millennium BC, and Fu Xinian's signature drawings abundantly illustrate its nuances. The essays delve into the modular basis for individual structures, complexes, and cities; lateral and longitudinal building frames; the unity of sculpture and building to create viewing angles; the influence of Chinese construction on Japanese architecture; and the reliability of images to inform us about architecture. Organized chronologically, the book also examines such topics as the representation of architecture on vessels in the Warring States period, early Buddhist architecture, and the evolution of imperial architecture from the Tang to Ming dynasty. A biography of Fu Xinian and a detailed Chinese-English glossary are included. Bringing together some of the most groundbreaking scholarship in Chinese architectural history, Traditional Chinese Architecture showcases an uncontested master of the discipline.
China’s most outrageous character—the magical Monkey who battles a hundred monsters—returns to the fray in this seventeenth-century sequel to the Buddhist novel Journey to the West. In The Tower of Myriad Mirrors, he defends his claim to enlightenment against a villain who induces hallucinations that take Monkey into the past, to heaven and hell, and even through a sex change. The villain turns out to be the personification of his own desires, aroused by his penetration of a female adversary’s body in Journey to the West. The Tower of Myriad Mirrors is the only novel of Tung Yüeh (1620–1686), a monk and Confucian scholar. Tung picks up the slapstick of the original tale and overlays it with Buddhist theory and bitter satire of the Ming government’s capitulation to the Manchus. After a nod to Journey’s storyteller format, Tung carries Monkey’s quest into an evocation of shifting psychological states rarely found in premodern fiction. An important though relatively unknown link in the development of the Chinese novel, and a window into late Ming intellectual history, The Tower of Myriad Mirrors further rewards by being a wonderful read.
Huang Xiang 黄翔, the protagonist of this book, was born on 26th December 1941 in Guidong county, Hunan province of central China. After the Communists came to power in 1949, he was imprisoned six times and severely persecuted for his free-spirited writing and his campaigns for human rights. For more than thirty years, this self-educated poet and writer, wrote secretly against the bondage of totalitarian ideology to safe-guard the freedom of speech. According to the author of the book, Huang is a great dark poet who has expressed the painful memories, fears and struggles that haunted his life creating wonderful poetic beauty in the darkness. His poetic creation is a miracle in the history of Chinese contemporary literature. We may say that Huang's identity as an unknown dark poet is conditioned by his personal, emotional and tragic experiences of struggles while facing historical events such as the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, the April 5th Movement in 1976, the Democracy Wall Movement in 1978 and the Pro-Democracy Movement in 1989 in China.
Tens of millions of Christians live in China today, many of them leading double lives or in hiding from a government that relentlessly persecutes them. Bob Fu, whom the Wall Street Journal called "The pastor of China's underground railroad," is fighting to protect his fellow believers from persecution, imprisonment, and even death. God's Double Agent is his fascinating and riveting story. Bob Fu is indeed God's double agent. By day Fu worked as a full-time lecturer in a communist school; by night he pastored a house church and led an underground Bible school. This can't-put-it-down book chronicles Fu's conversion to Christianity, his arrest and imprisonment for starting an illegal house church, his harrowing escape, and his subsequent rise to prominence in the United States as an advocate for his brethren. God's Double Agent will inspire readers even as it challenges them to boldly proclaim and live out their faith in a world that is at times indifferent, and at other times murderously hostile, to those who spread the gospel.
This book examines the Chinese political tradition over the past two thousand years and argues that the enduring and most important feature of this tradition is autocracy. The author interprets the communist takeover of 1949 not as a revolution but as a continuation of the imperial tradition. The book shows how Mao Zedong revitalised this autocratic tradition along five lines: the use of ideology for political control; concentration of power in the hands of a few; state power over all aspects of life; law as a tool wielded by the ruler, who is himself above the law; and the subjection of the individual to the state. Using a statist approach, the book argues that in China political action of the state has been the single most important factor in determining socio-economic change.
The Chinese earth is pervasively humanized through long occupation. Signs of man's presence vary from the obvious to the extremely subtle. The building of roads, bridges, dams, and factories, and the consolidation of farm holdings alter the Chinese landscape and these alterations seem all the more conspicuous because they introduce features that are not distinctively Chinese. In contrast, traditional forms and architectural relics escape our attention because they are so identified with the Chinese scene that they appear to be almost outgrowths of nature. Describing the natural order of human beings in the context of the Chinese earth and civilization, "A Historical Geography of China" narrates the evolution of the Chinese landscape from prehistoric times to the present.Tuan views landscape as a visible expression of man's efforts to gain a living and achieve a measure of stability in the constant flux of nature. The book ranges the period of time from Peking man to the epoch of Mao Tse-tung. It moves through the ancient and modern dynasties, the warlords and conquests, earthquakes, devastating floods, climatic reversals, and staggering civil wars to the impact of Western civilization and industrialization. The emphasis throughout is on the effect of a changing environment on succeeding cultures.This classic study attempts to analyze and describe traditional Chinese settlement patterns and architecture. The result is a clear and succinct examination of the development of the Chinese landscape over thousands of years. It describes the ways the Communist regime worked to alter the face of the nation. This work will quickly prove to be crucial reading for all who are interested in this pivotal nation. It goes far beyond the usual political spectrum, into the physical and social roots of Chinese history.
This colorfully illustrated multicultural children's book presents Chinese fairy tales and other folk stories--providing insight into a rich literary culture. Treasury of Chinese Folk Tales is a wonderful collection of seven classic Chinese stories that make for great reading adventures. From the stories of Pan Gu and Nu Wo, creators of the world, to Bai Su-Tzin, a snake who took on human form and found true love, this mesmerizing book includes myths of creation, mortality and love. More than just a Chinese children's storybook, Treasury of Chinese Folk Tales also explores the historical impact and roots of each tale, inviting you and the children you love to enjoy the many layers of meaning contained within them fully. The included pronunciation guide, as well as information for further reading, makes this a perfect tool for educators, librarians and parents.
This colorfully illustrated multicultural children's book presents Chinese fairy tales and other folk stories--providing insight into a vibrant literary culture. Chinese Myths and Legends is a delightful collection of seven classic Chinese stories that make for great reading adventures. From the stories of Pan Gu and Nu Wo, creators of the world, to Bai Su-Tzin, a snake who took on human form and found true love, this mesmerizing book includes myths of creation, mortality, and love. More than just a Chinese children's storybook, Chinese Myths and Legends also explores the origins of each tale, as well as its impact on Chinese culture and history, inviting you and the children you love to enjoy the many layers of meaning. The included pronunciation guide, as well as information for further reading, makes this a perfect tool for educators, librarians, and parents.
This text discusses the Chinese Legalists, an ancient school of Chinese philosophy which flourished during the Period of the Hundred Contending Schools (6th-3rd century B.C.E.) The school perfected the science of government and art of statecraft to a level that would have greatly impressed Machiavelli. This period and its personalities, as well as a taste of the style and spirit of the Legalists' discourse, are made accessible to the student and general reader, placing into focus the roots of the great Chinese philosophy-as-statecraft tradition. The Legalists - most famously Li Kui, Shang Yang, Shen Buhai, Shen Dao, and Han Fei - had a great impact not only on the institutions and practices of Chinese imperial tradition but also on the Maoist totalitarianism of the People's Republic of China.
This book provides a more rational and systematic explanation for the origin and evolution of the Chinese narrative tradition, based on studies of Chinese literary classics, local culture and items such as bronze wares and porcelain vessels with “portrayed stories.” By doing so, it uncovers forgotten interconnections and reestablishes obscured or unacknowledged lines of descent. Furthermore, it makes an initial study of acoustic narrative. Going beyond the field of literature, it employs tools and materials from diverse fields such as anthropology, religious studies, mythology, linguistics, semiotics, folklore and local culture. The book also offers an archeological inquiry into the knowledge found in various narrative texts, objects with “portrayed stories” and perceptions with “relevant plots.” Providing a wealth of insights, inspiring investigative methods and practical tools that can be applied in narrative studies, the book is an essential resource for researchers and students in the fields of comparative literature, narratology and ancient Chinese literature.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.