Yingyu Zhang's Books

The Book of Swindles

Selections from a Late Ming Collection

By: Yingyu Zhang

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The Book of Swindles

Selections from a Late Ming Collection

By: Yingyu Zhang

This is an age of deception. Con men ply the roadways. Bogus alchemists pretend to turn one piece of silver into three. Devious nuns entice young women into adultery. Sorcerers use charmed talismans for mind control and murder. A pair of dubious monks extorts money from a powerful official and then spends it on whoring. A rich student tries to bribe the chief examiner, only to hand his money to an imposter. A eunuch kidnaps boys and consumes their "essence" in an attempt to regrow his penis. These are just a few of the entertaining and surprising tales to be found in this seventeenth-century work, said to be the earliest Chinese collection of swindle stories. The Book of Swindles, compiled by an obscure writer from southern China, presents a fascinating tableau of criminal ingenuity. The flourishing economy of the late Ming period created overnight fortunes for merchants—and gave rise to a host of smooth operators, charlatans, forgers, and imposters seeking to siphon off some of the new wealth. The Book of Swindles, which was ostensibly written as a manual for self-protection in this shifting and unstable world, also offers an expert guide to the art of deception. Each story comes with commentary by the author, Zhang Yingyu, who expounds a moral lesson while also speaking as a connoisseur of the swindle. This volume, which contains annotated translations of just over half of the eighty-odd stories in Zhang's original collection, provides a wealth of detail on social life during the late Ming and offers words of warning for a world in peril.

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Page Count

267

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231545649

ISBN 13

9780231545648

More Swindles from the Late Ming

Sex, Scams, and Sorcery

By: Yingyu Zhang

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More Swindles from the Late Ming

Sex, Scams, and Sorcery

By: Yingyu Zhang

A woman seduces her landlord to extort the family farm. Gamblers recruit a wily prostitute to get a rich young man back in the game. Silver counterfeiters wreak havoc for traveling merchants. A wealthy widow is drugged and robbed by a lodger posing as a well-to-do student. Vengeful judges and corrupt clerks pervert the course of justice. Cunning soothsayers spur on a plot to overthrow the emperor. Yet good sometimes triumphs, as when amateur sleuths track down a crew of homicidal boatmen or a cold-case murder is exposed by a frog. These are just a few of the tales of crime and depravity appearing in More Swindles from the Late Ming, a book that offers a panorama of vice—and words of warning—from one seventeenth-century writer. This companion volume to The Book of Swindles: Selections from a Late Ming Collection presents sensational stories of scams that range from the ingenious to the absurd to the lurid, many featuring sorcery, sex, and extreme violence. Together, the two volumes represent the first complete translation into any language of a landmark Chinese anthology, making an essential contribution to the global literature of trickery and fraud. An introduction explores the geography of grift, the role of sex and family relations, and the portrayal of Buddhist clergy and others claiming supernatural powers. Opening a window onto the colorful world of crime and deception in late imperial China, this book testifies to the enduring popularity of stories about scoundrels and their schemes.

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Page Count

159

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231559380

ISBN 13

9780231559386

Cyberpunk Style Design: Theoretical Analysis and Practical Exploration

A Case Study of Aesthetic Style Design for New Energy Vehicle Dashboard

By: Wei Sun,Zhenwei You,Yingyu Zhou

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Cyberpunk Style Design: Theoretical Analysis and Practical Exploration

A Case Study of Aesthetic Style Design for New Energy Vehicle Dashboard

By: Wei Sun,Zhenwei You,Yingyu Zhou

In an era of rapid development in digital technology, the Cyberpunk style finds in-creasingly broad applications in various artistic domains, greatly appealing to the younger generation. Compared to the well-developed research on the Cyberpunk lit-erary genre, there is still a lack of a comprehensive theoretical framework for study-ing Cyberpunk style visual imagery, leaving ample room for exploration across inter-disciplinary media expressions. Simultaneously, with the ongoing digitalization and smartification trends in the new energy vehicle industry, the user base for new energy vehicles is becoming younger, with a growing demand for novel driving experiences. Currently, personalized design in new energy vehicles mainly focuses on exterior aesthetics, with limited research on dashboard interface design.

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Page Count

104

Publisher

Scientific Research Publishing, Inc. USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

1649979177

ISBN 13

9781649979179

The Book of Swindles

Selections from a Late Ming Collection

By: Yingyu Zhang

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The Book of Swindles

Selections from a Late Ming Collection

By: Yingyu Zhang

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

267

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231545649

ISBN 13

9780231545648

More Swindles from the Late Ming

Sex, Scams, and Sorcery

By: Yingyu Zhang

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More Swindles from the Late Ming

Sex, Scams, and Sorcery

By: Yingyu Zhang

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

159

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231559380

ISBN 13

9780231559386

Book's by Yingyu Zhang

The Book of Swindles

The Book of Swindles

More Swindles from the Late Ming

More Swindles from the Late Ming

Cyberpunk Style Design: Theoretical Analysis and Practical Exploration

Cyberpunk Style Design: Theoretical Analysis and Practical Exploration

The Book of Swindles

The Book of Swindles

More Swindles from the Late Ming

More Swindles from the Late Ming

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