The Chinese Language

The Chinese Language
Author: John DeFrancis
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 348
Release: 1986-03-01
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9780824810689

"DeFrancis's book is first rate. It entertains. It teaches. It demystifies. It counteracts popular ignorance as well as sophisticated (cocktail party) ignorance. Who could ask for anything more? There is no other book like it. ... It is one of a kind, a first, and I would not only buy it but I would recommend it to friends and colleagues, many of whom are visiting China now and are adding 'two-week-expert' ignorance to the two kinds that existed before. This is a book for everyone." --Joshua A. Fishman, research professor of social sciences, Yeshiva University, New York "Professor De Francis has produced a work of great effectiveness that should appeal to a wide-ranging audience. It is at once instructive and entertaining. While being delighted by the flair of his novel approach, the reader will also be led to ponder on some of the most fundamental problems concerning the relations between written languages and spoken languages. Specifically, he will be served a variety of information on the languages of East Asia, not as dry pedantic facts, but as appealing tidbits that whet the intellectual appetite. The expert will find much to reflect on in this book, for Professor DeFrancis takes nothing for granted." --William S.Y. Wang, professor of linguistics, University of California at Berkeley

Strange Beasts of China

Strange Beasts of China
Author: Yan Ge
Publisher: Melville House
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-07-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1612199100

A New York Times Editors' Choice and Notable Book of 2021 "Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror of 2021"—The Washington Post From one of the most exciting voices in contemporary Chinese literature, an uncanny and playful novel that blurs the line between human and beast… In the fictional Chinese city of Yong’an, an amateur cryptozoologist is commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. These creatures live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness—save their greenish skin, serrated earlobes, and strange birthmarks. Aided by her elusive former professor and his enigmatic assistant, our narrator sets off to document each beast, and is slowly drawn deeper into a mystery that threatens her very sense of self. Part detective story, part metaphysical enquiry, Strange Beasts of China engages existential questions of identity, humanity, love and morality with whimsy and stylistic verve.

Understanding Chinese Fantasy Genres

Understanding Chinese Fantasy Genres
Author: Jeremy Bai
Publisher: Jeremy Bai
Total Pages: 125
Release: 2020-12-16
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

Do you love Chinese fantasy? Do you want to understand it better? Maybe you're a longtime fan who would like a handy reference guide. Maybe you're new to the genre and don't have the time to watch hours of videos to catch up. Or maybe you're an aspiring writer hoping to create authentic cultivation or xianxia content. Regardless, this is the book for you. Here's why. I took some of the most popular videos in my Chinese Fantasy Novel FAQ YouTube series and put them into written form. 25 chapters, each packed with vital language and cultural information. I've also added examples from existing Chinese fantasy novel translations to make things more interesting, relevant, and understandable. Get it now! If you want to know exactly what content is inside, check out this complete chapter list: Chapter 1: The Industry and the Genres Chapter 2: Clans and Sects Chapter 3: Alcohol and “Wine” Chapter 4: Harems and Polygamy Chapter 5: Sworn Brotherhood Chapter 6: Courting Death Chapter 7: “Beat You to Death” Chapter 8: Forms of Address Among Family Members Chapter 9: Forms of Address in Sects and Other Organizations Chapter 10: “I, Your Father” Chapter 11: Confusion About Stars and Planets Chapter 12: Differences between Daoist Magics, Divine Abilities, and Magical Techniques Chapter 13: "Devils" and "Demons" Chapter 14: Clones Chapter 15: Spirit Stones Chapter 16: Qi Deviation, Fire Deviation, and Cultivation Deviation, etc.? Chapter 17: Nascent Souls Chapter 18: Breakthroughs and Bottlenecks Chapter 19: Why Immortals aren't "Immortal" Chapter 20: What is Cultivation? Chapter 21: The Ruthlessness and Brutality of the Cultivation World Chapter 22: What is the Jianghu? Chapter 23: Unheroic Heroes? Chapter 24: Unrealistic Sizes and Distances Chapter 25: Why Immortal Cultivators often don’t “act their age” Appendix 1: List of Chinese terms with pinyin Appendix 2: References

China Imagined

China Imagined
Author: Gregory B. Lee
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2018
Genre: History
ISBN: 1787380165

If 'China', as Lee argues, is a product of Westernisation, then the West is itself in a process of becoming China. How did China become China? And where is it leading us? We talk as if it had always existed: eternal China with its 5,000 years of uninterrupted history. But the name 'China' was first used by 16th-century Europeans, and its Chinese equivalent, Zhongguo, only gained currency in the mid-1800s. 'China Imagined' is a thoughtful exploration of the idea of China, from the naming and mapping of its territory and peoples to the creation and rise of the modern nation-state.

Fantasy Islands

Fantasy Islands
Author: Julie Sze
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2015-01-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520262484

"The rise of China and its status as a leading global factory--combined with an increasing worldwide desire for inexpensive toys, clothes, and food--are altering the way people live and consume. At the same time, the world appears wary of the real costs of this desire: toys drenched in lead paint, dangerous medicines, and tainted pet food. Examining sites in China, including the plan for a new eco-city called Dongtan on the island of Chongming, suburbanization projects, and the Shanghai World Expo, JulieSze interrogates Chinese, European, and American 'eco-desire' and the eco-technological fantasies that underlie contemporary development of global cities and mega-suburbs. In doing so, she challenges readers to rethink how cities must undergo alterationsto become true 'eco-cities.' Sze frames her analysis of these case studies in the context of the problems of global economic change and climate crisis, and she explores the flows, fears, and fantasies of Pacific Rim politics that shaped plans for Dongtan. She looks at the flow of pollution from Asia to the United States (ten billion pounds of airborne pollutants annually). Simultaneously, she considers the flow of financial and political capital for eco-city and ecological development between elite powerstructures in the UK and China, and charts how climate change discussions align with US fears of China's ascendancy and the related demise of the American Century. Ultimately, Fantasy Islands examines how fears and fantasies about China and historical and political power change the American imagination."--Provided by publisher.

Great Dragon Fantasy, The: A Lacanian Analysis Of Contemporary Chinese Thought

Great Dragon Fantasy, The: A Lacanian Analysis Of Contemporary Chinese Thought
Author: Guanjun Wu
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2014-05-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9814417939

China has undergone a unique path of development in the post-Maoist era. Especially, the last decade witnessed China's rapid rise to economic wealth and superpower status vis-à-vis the severe developmental predicaments of the West (financial crises, socio-political turbulences, etc.). This book analyzes how the leading Chinese thinkers understand China's prosperity and rapid development today, and whether there is any hidden mechanism that has been playing a crucial role of forming contemporary Chinese thinkers' shared passionate endeavor of resuscitating classical Chinese ideas, and thus shows how the fervor for discovering “essential characteristics” of Chinese thought reveals a hidden psychological mechanism.

A Floating Chinaman

A Floating Chinaman
Author: Hua Hsu
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2016-06-07
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 067496926X

Who gets to speak for China? During the interwar years, when American condescension toward “barbarous” China yielded to a fascination with all things Chinese, a circle of writers sparked an unprecedented public conversation about American-Chinese relations. Hua Hsu tells the story of how they became ensnared in bitter rivalries over which one could claim the title of America’s leading China expert. The rapturous reception that greeted The Good Earth—Pearl Buck’s novel about a Chinese peasant family—spawned a literary market for sympathetic writings about China. Stories of enterprising Americans making their way in a land with “four hundred million customers,” as Carl Crow said, found an eager audience as well. But on the margins—in Chinatowns, on Ellis Island, and inside FBI surveillance memos—a different conversation about the possibilities of a shared future was taking place. A Floating Chinaman takes its title from a lost manuscript by H. T. Tsiang, an eccentric Chinese immigrant writer who self-published a series of visionary novels during this time. Tsiang discovered the American literary market to be far less accommodating to his more skeptical view of U.S.-China relations. His “floating Chinaman,” unmoored and in-between, imagines a critical vantage point from which to understand the new ideas of China circulating between the world wars—and today, as well.

Kraken

Kraken
Author: China Miéville
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
Total Pages: 529
Release: 2010
Genre: Cults
ISBN: 034549749X

A contemporary fantasy set in present-day London finds people flocking to a British Museum exhibit of a giant squid that is stolen by magical criminals, a crime that propels young curator Billy into a supernatural underworld.

Under Heaven

Under Heaven
Author: Guy Gavriel Kay
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 514
Release: 2010-04-27
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 110118700X

Award-winning author Guy Gavriel Kay evokes the dazzling Tang Dynasty of 8th-century China in an masterful story of honor and power. It begins simply. Shen Tai, son of an illustrious general serving the Emperor of Kitai, has spent two years honoring the memory of his late father by burying the bones of the dead from both armies at the site of one of his father's last great battles. In recognition of his labors and his filial piety, an unlikely source has sent him a dangerous gift: 250 Sardian horses. You give a man one of the famed Sardian horses to reward him greatly. You give him four or five to exalt him above his fellows, propel him towards rank, and earn him jealousy, possibly mortal jealousy. Two hundred and fifty is an unthinkable gift, a gift to overwhelm an emperor. Wisely, the gift comes with the stipulation that Tai must claim the horses in person. Otherwise he would probably be dead already...

Imperial Lady

Imperial Lady
Author: Andre Norton
Publisher: Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2018-02-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781680680171

The daughter of a general banished from the Imperial presence accepts her fate as a political tool and turns a marriage of convenience to an aging barbarian chief into a crusade to bring honor to her family and avert a catastrophic war. Her name was Lady Silver Snow, and she lived in a distant land long ago, the hand of fate brought her to the sumptuous court of the Son of Heaven, Emperor of China, to be his concubine. But it was her own intelligent and passionate spirit that led her beyond those sheltered walls and into the "barbarian" grasslands - to be a queen! Andre Norton and Susan Shwartz blend Chinese history and folklore to create a stirring, romantic, and unforgettable tale.