Book Description

This is the first complete study of China's most popular eighteenth-century poet in any Western language. The work consists of a detailed biography, a study of Yuan's revolutionary reinterpretation of Chinese literary theory, and an analysis of his many contributions to the more original genres of Qing-dynasty (1644-1911) poetry such as narrative, historical, didactic, eccentric, and nature verse. The study is concluded by a generous and representative sampling of Yuan's poetry in translation, the first to do justice to the wide variety and richness of his oeuvre. Although many shorter poems are selected, this is the first translation to include his outstanding longer poetry.
Harmony Garden will completely revise current attitudes in the west concerning classical Chines literature during the eighteenth century, a period that was long viewed as one of decline, but now appears to equal the golden ages of antiquity. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

BEEN THERE
DR BRENNAN, HAVE TRIED TO CONTACT YOU...I TOO SERVED WITH THE MARINES, 2/3...I TOO BECAME AN OB/GYN...I TOO HAD A BEST FRIEND, AN ALO WHO SUBSEQUENTLY AUGERED IN...UNLIKE YOU, WASNEVER IN THE HEAT OF BATTLE...HOW DID I LEARN OF YOUR BOOK?...ONE OF THE TAMPABAY BUCS COACHES SAID ON THE AIR HE WAS GOING TO READ IT ON THE WAY TO THE WEST COAST...OUR NATION STANDS PROUD OF YOU, AND I SALUTE YOU RICHARD CRANE ... Read more

Reviews (3)

An intelligent alternative to the likes of Amy Tan
"Tracing it Home" could be criticized for the many things it is not, but for what it IS, it is wonderful. Lynn Pan is one of the best, if not THE best writer around on subjects of Old Shanghai and the Chinese Diaspora. She is a Writer, however, and not a historian or a journalist. She tells a story, and tells it engagingly and beautifully.

"Tracing it Home" is a vastly superior alternative to the sloppy, melodramatic and orientalized literature from other Overseas Chinese women writers like Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan. Their works, yes, appeal to western readers, but only because they present the stylized characature of Chinese history and culture that western readers imagine, rather than the complicated reality. That is because these Chinese Americans know China only through the lens of immigrant idealized mythology and American misperceptions, rather than their own experience.

Lynn is a world different from those poseurs, because she knows and understands China, as it was and as it is. She gives context to the historical cruelties that most ABC writers eroticize. She grew up in Malaysia's dynamic Chinese population and in England and Hong Kong, but was born in and now lives in Shanghai.

The story of the Pan family is fascinating and elegantly presented. Lynn's builder grandfather was the Horatio Alger type that made Shanghai famous. The travails his success created for his offspring are remarkable yet common among Shanghai families. Lynn Pan knows this, and avoids the wallowing in self-importance that makes most "I survived China" memoirs tedius (ie "Red Azalea", "Life and Death in Shanghai").

Lynn is an elegant, evocative writer, and perhaps the greatest pleasure of "Tracing it Home" is its purveyance of Shanghai as a place, and her grandfather's large role in shaping the city's geography. The post-modern white box of a 1940s mansion that he built and where Lynn was born is just down the block from my current home, and I can see the Picardie, which he built, out my window. Small pleasures, slices of personal history, are contained in this big little story.

Disappointing
When Lynn Pan tells the stories of her family's past, the work isriveting, but too often she inserts herself in the story. Not only does itfracture time in a confusing way (unlike the way Chang-Rae Lee fracturestime to a purpose), but it interupts the through line, making it difficultto remember where we are in the overall story. There are too many excellentbooks about modern China (Shanghai, Chiang KaiShek, the CulturalRevolution, etc.) to recommend this one.

Disappointing
When Lynn Pan tells the stories of her family's past, the work isriveting, but too often she inserts herself in the story. Not only does itfracture time in a confusing way (unlike the way Chang-Rae Lee fracturestime to a purpose), but it interupts the through line, making it difficultto remember where we are in the overall story. There are too many excellentbooks about modern China (Shanghai, Chiang KaiShek, the CulturalRevolution, etc.) to recommend this one. ... Read more

Book Description

Meet Eugene Weisberger, 76-year-old adventurer, and read his inspiring short stories. At 68, Gene had his first of many cancer bouts. He wondered if he would ever travel again. His oncologist assured him "traveling never effects growth of cancer cells" and "make the best use of your time."

This collection of short stories is about the adventures of a world traveler who would not give up an active exciting life for a dreaded disease. It is the study of a man's indomitable spirit, a love of life and, against all odds, to quote Joseph Campbell, would not cease to " follow his bliss".

Sometimes in a wheelchair, (Wheeling Around The Nile) often with a cane and under narcotics for pain, (Five Days In Hell) Gene continued to see the world and its beauty, (Misty Peggy's Cove) and people and their struggles(China's 1.2 Billion).

Gene is an inspiration to many of his on-line readership of hundreds who look forward to his adventure stories (Life and Death In the Serengeti) in out-of-the-way places. (Exciting Spitzbergen) One trip he and his wife never took was to Antarctica (because of a setback in his cancer battle). He still dreams of traveling there and some day will.

When he announces his next destination, his family no longer says, "what, you're going where!" but rather "Send a post card or buy a souvenir."

Book Description

Sima Qian's vast Records of the Historian is the first comprehensive history of China and has exerted an immense influence both upon our understanding of the Chinese past and also upon the style and structure of subsequent Chinese historiography. In addition to his contribution as a historian, Sima Qian is a highly significant literary figure whose writings are among the most elegant and powerful from the ancient world.

Durrant's study approaches Sima Qian's work from a literary perspective and demonstrates the relationship between Sima's narrative of the past and his narrative of his own life. That life was a fascinating and complex one. Enjoined by his father to complete a comprehensive history of China, Sima Qian subsequently offended the great Emperor Wu and was sentenced to castration. Rather than take the "noble path" of suicide, he suffered this traumatic punishment and lived on to fulfill his father's injunction--but not without emotional scars, scars that influenced his portrayal of the Chinese past. In fact, the great Han historian's account of the Chinese past, this study argues, is as much his story as it is history. ... Read more

Book Description

Through the accounts of a prominent Chinese villager and his family, the author examines the years leading up to China's Cultural Revolution and its impact on intellectual society. The new material for the second edition shows how this family, and the village in which they live, change as the post-Deng Xiaoping era unfolds in the countryside. The impersonal forces of economic and social planning on the part of Beijing are given a human face and allow the reader to understand their impact on an individual level. ... Read more

Reviews (11)

A remarkable and inspiring memoir
Mr He Liyi has written a remarkable book. His account of toiling as a political prisoner and suffering all the excesses of China's Maoist period are as stirring as any survivor's story. He is the Robinson Crusoe of Chinese Communism; cast away in a society that persecuted him for no rational reason-yet he survived. Through intelligence, optimism, guile and pluck he constructed the tools of his survival and his family's survival.
But what make's his account so full of life as literature is his ability to translate into English his Bai minority culture and the Han majority culture of Yunnan province. Lao He ("Old He" as I heard him respectfully called) learned English and so wrote his memoir in English. There is no assimilating translation full of Western clichés that distort and keep an author's mind distant from the reader. This is an immediate, passionate, sad and inspiring story of a man who struggled, survived and triumphed. And its funny. His `great discovery' that kept his family from starving involved stealing from community crapper. In love as a young man he is taken away, branded "An enemy of the people" and doesn't see his sweetheart again for years, until remarkable circumstances bring them together again to save the life of his child.
I stumbled across Lao He on the Internet and sent him an e-mail. His gracious reply was all it took for my son and I to change our China travel plans to cross China on a train to see Yunnan Province and visit Lao He in Dali. After 10,000 miles of travel we got off the local bus a couple of days early at 6 am and wandered into Dali. We were standing in the middle of the street orientating our map and my son said "Maybe we'll see Mr He Liyi. Maybe that's him." The man he pointed at was young, "No he's an old man." An old man walked around the corner. "He probably looks more like that man."
"Are you William and Bazyl?"
He is as remarkable as his book. Anyone who loves literature should read his work, anyone who loves travel should visit Yunnan Province and sip tea in his café.

A Humble and Kind Man
I was travelling around Yunnan reading my guidebook and came across an entry for a small cafe run by a local author. I wandered into the cafe and met with the author. He was very kind. He offered me a drink and we sat and talked about his cafe and his book. I was fascinated at the posters on the walls and the reviews for his book so I had to buy a copy and find out myself.

I have deep admiration for Mr. He. He suffered so much and yet perservered. I can't find any palpable animosity in his writing toward those who mistreated him. It's just amazing how humble and kind this man is.

If you are interested in Chinese culture, communism, or the Cultural Revolution, you should check out Mr. China's Son. I hardly read but this book really got me on many levels.

A Village Peasant Tells His Story
I think I vaguely remember seeing this book at some point in the States, before I moved to China.But if I had not walked into the author's coffee shop in Dali (Yunnan Province), I probably would not have read this book.

This book is unique in several respects. First of all, it is written in English by a man who is not a native speaker, using the English he learned in University.That is quite an achievement, given the fact that he was a village peasant who did not have much money, and spent most of his life working in the fields.Another very useful feature of this book is the fact that He Liyi was detained as part of the Anti-Rightist campaign, rather than the Cultural Revolution.He was all but untouched by the Cultural Revolution, but the Anti-Rightist campaign affected him profoundly.I have long been interested in the connection between the two events, because disdain of and even abhorrence for the Cultural Revolution is established orthodoxy in China now, but I am not sure China has ever quite come to terms with the Anti-Rightist campaign.

His detention seems to have broken his spirit. He relays a relationship with three women in this book.The first was the girlfriend he almost married, the second was the "ignorant" village girl he did marry, and soon divorced, and the third was the peasant woman who ultimately became his wife.The first woman disappears early in the book, but the other two figure almost throughout.Only one could be his wife, but the other remained his friend, and the warmth of their friendship underlines the pathos of a life lived in the crucible of a world gone mad.

I was mad at him for marrying his first wife.Then I was mad at him for divorcing her.Then I was mad at him for refusing to take her back.My sense of pathos was brought full circle when he finally married a peasant woman and basically became her servant.Slowly the realization hit me that he really had been "emasculated" by the trauma he had suffered.I have certainly read stories of people who went through greater suffering than he did during his time of confinement.But it is not so much what he suffered, but the complete humiliation of his position, and what it did to his spirit.

Mr. China's Son is a good writer.He writes in a simple, personable style that is fun to read, and very absorbing.The book is full of "Chinglish" expressions, which can be a bit misleading if you don't know a little bit of Chinese.For example, he talks about the point when their son becomes a "big school" student.He gets this expression from the literal translation of the characters.The Chinese word for "university" is daxue.The first character means "big," and the second character means "school."So in a literal sense, the term "big-school" is an accurate translation, but a bit misleading.For native speakers of Mandarin, this term does not produce a picture in the mind's eye of a big school.Rather, it induces a picture of a university, because it is, in fact, the Chinese word for university.The equivalent word in English which produces the same picture for native speakers is, of course, the word "university."So using the term "big-school" makes them sound a little bit like country bumpkins, which they were, but not for that reason.

Still, I do like the Chinglish expressions. They add an interesting dimension to the book, which would be missing if they had been edited out.And the folksy style of Mr. China's writing produces a work which is unique in the English language.It actually becomes a contribution to the language, because he has found interesting ways to phrase things that native speakers may not have thought about, but which are perfectly "legal" in the grammatical sense of the term.

This book is published in the United States, and I don't think it is generally available in China.While I was in Dali, I recommended it to a young Chinese lady, and told her how to get to the coffee shop.She went there, but they would not sell her a copy.They did not actually say that she could not buy it because she was Chinese, but they told her that the book was published in the United States.In other words, it is published for foreigners, not Chinese people. My suspicion is that they are being allowed to sell the book out of their store, as long as they only sell it to foreigners.I don't know that for sure; I am just guessing, but I suspect that this is the case.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in that dark period of China's history.But I want to stress that this book is not just another "complaint" about the evils of the Cultural Revolution.It is a window into the nature of village life in China.Some of it of course, deals with the particulars with the Bai minority culture.But much of it is just a simple story about what it is like to live as a village peasant in China. Read it.It will give you a unique view of the lifestyle of folks who are usually disinclined to write about themselves.

A small man in stature, humble but with a presence to behold
This book conveys so many emotions, from all of this one is left almost numb. But having met the man, He LiYi, I can say that this book is a mirror of the man in real life. All that comes out in this book is so exact, in his mannerisms and gentle voice. He is so unassuming and modest, and does not appear to be capable of such strength and determination. This book lets you see that we are all capable of making a difference if only small. I had no knowledge of this book untill I visited his cafe in Dali, I purchased the book directly from him and now pass it to all who are interested. A truly powerful book full of what these people, the Bai, have had to endure at the hands of the ever present "Mr China".

A story that takes you through a LOT!
I thoroughly enjoy reading about Chinese life.I learn quite a bit about a life away from home!I prefer these types of books that whisk me to different parts of the world, chronologically, socially, and culturally. The lives that other people experience elsewhere are fascinating, and onecan become engulfed in the stories. I feel as if the author sat down andTOLD me all about his life, something I didn't know about.Like I had aninteresting friend over for lunch.This was a superb book to the end! ... Read more

Book Description

Both playful and serious, this audacious riff on ethnic andsexual identity by HawaiianHakka ChineseAmerican writer CarolynLei-lanilau revolves around the persona she calls Ono Ono Girl, an iconthat interweaves and transcends Lucille Ball, Little Lulu, Tina Turner,and Spottie Dottie. Challenging assumptions about genre and gender, andacting out the notion that language is a function of the body, theseessays are transforming soundbites of Ono Ono Girl inventing herself. Just when you thought American literature was canonized and commodifiedbeyond saving, Carolyn Lei-lanilaus intertextual, irreverent work, OnoOno Girls Hula, brings language and philosophy back to the table. Herbook is a miracle delivery: a rebirth of poetry, Third World Spam, andlove wrapped around the hybrid vigor of Hawaiian, Hakka, French, Latin,and English. Soulful, powerful, and wise.Russell Leong, editor ofAmerasia Journal

A book enjoyable equally for its fun as for itsprofundity, Carolyn Lei-lanilaus Ono Ono Girls Hula is irresistiblemust reading for feminists, anthropologists, contemporary culturebuffs, and anyone who wants a refreshing take on some of our morevexing current disputes. Down-to-earth and poetic, serious andhilarious at once, her unconventional voice invites the reader tounderstand the paradoxes of identitysexual and ethnicin new ways.RobinLakoff, author of Talking Power ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Pseudo-Hawaiian Mask, Post-Colonialist Face
I wanted to give this book 0 stars, you know?Anyway, what got me was the character of the Native Hawaiian policeman whose only human quality was his sexual availability, and whose only character trait was his bad temper...and this made-up character was said by the author to typify Native Hawaiians!They used to call that kind of generality Racism.This book by someone who is not Native Hawaiian but uses Hawaiian language like a tourist is not what I expected and I didn't appreciate it.Thank you.--Pele Ah Chu

A loco moco brew of mongrel identity politics, more or less.
Ono Ono Girl's Hula ia a "loco moc" brew of mongrel identity politics, more or less, emanating as much from the grounds of cultural political struggle in contemporary Hawai'i as much as from the verbal fluxof the diasporic Pacific Rim and the ethnic opportunism of California.Ilike it a lot, at times crazed and infuriated as I read the schizo-text ofherstory; Carolyn Lau (who was a great Chinese poet in days past) is notHaunani Kay Trask and moments in the text when she aspires towardsprimordial ideological bullying are way off the mark.But when she letsthe language flow and mix, she becomes one shameless hussy of mongrelpostcolonialty, and it is worth it, dear reader, to go along for the poeticand sexual ride into the ono ono girl's blissy blessed hula. ... Read more

Book Description

"A stunningly good book-entrancing, exciting, beautifully written, full of aperus that stimulate, tantalize, and fulfill. Perhaps it is enough to say that I like it even better than any of Tuan's already published books." -David Lowenthal, author of The Past Is a Foreign Country

Who Am I? reveals the bittersweet success story of a Chinese-American who came to this country as a twenty-year-old graduate student and stayed to become one of America's best-known writers on cultural geography, landscape, nature, and environment. His autobiography is unique. No other tells a comparable story of a Chinese immigrant whose life in the American academic world mixes recognition, accolades, and even affection-all signs of success-with a deep sense of personal failure.

At one level this is a chronicle of brilliant achievement, at another the story of descent from the "world stage" to privacy. Tuan's story progresses from a childhood in which his father hobnobbed with such Chinese leaders as Chou En-lai to an adulthood spent in a number of U.S. universities. His success in writing on themes of great interest to the general public curiously isolated him from his scholarly base in geography.

At a more serious level, Tuan's bitterness lies in his belief in his own moral failings, his lack of courage-including the courage to be open about his homosexuality-resulting, as he writes, "in a life that is seamed in ambivalence-achingly empty at the core, despairingly alone, yet often content, occasionally even happy," as when he catches glimpses of heaven in his exploration of the beautiful and the good. ... Read more

Book Description

In this remarkable memoir, Tung Pok Chin casts light on the largely hidden experience of those Chinese who immigrated to this country with false documents during the Exclusion era. Although scholars have pieced together their history, first-person accounts are rare and fragmented; many of the so-called "Paper Sons" lived out their lives in silent fear of discovery. Chin's story speaks for the many Chinese who worked in urban laundries and restaurants, but it also introduces an unusually articulate man's perspective on becoming a Chinese American.

Chin's story begins in the early 1930s, when he followed the example of his father and countless other Chinese who bought documents that falsely identified them as children of Chinese Americans. Arriving in Boston and later moving to New York City, he worked and lived in laundries. Chin was determined to fit into American life and dedicated himself to learning English. But he also became an active member of key organizations—a church, the Chinese Hand Laundrymen's Alliance, and Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association—that anchored him in the community. A self-reflective and expressive man, Chin wrote poetry commenting on life in China and the hardships of being an immigrant in the United States. His work was regularly published in the China Daily News and brought him to the attention of the FBI, then intent on ferreting out communists and illegal immigrants. His vigorous narrative speaks to the day-to-day anxieties of living as a Paper Son as well as the more universal immigrant experiences of raising a family in modest circumstances and bridging cultures.

Historian K. Scott Wong introduces Chin's memoir, discussing the limitations on immigration from China and what is known about Exclusion-era Chinese American communities. Set in historical context, Tung Pok Chin's unique story offers an engaging account of a twentieth-century Paper Son. ... Read more