Chinese: Books & eBooks

Li Zhi's iconoclastic interpretations of history, religion, literature, and social relations have fascinated Chinese intellectuals for centuries. His approach synthesized Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist ethics and incorporated the Neo-Confucian idealism of such thinkers as Wang Yangming (1472-1529). The result was a series of heretical writings that caught fire among Li Zhi's contemporaries, despite an imperial ban on their publication, and intrigued Chinese audiences long after his death. Translated for the first time into English, Li Zhi's bold challenge to established doctrines will captivate anyone curious about the origins of such subtly transgressive works as the sixteenth-century play The Peony Pavilion or the eighteenth-century novel Dream of the Red Chamber. In A Book to Burn and a Book to Keep (Hidden), Li Zhi confronts accepted ideas about gender, questions the true identity of history's heroes and villains, and offers his own readings of Confucius, Laozi, and the Buddha. Fond of vivid sentiment and sharp expression, Li Zhi made no distinction between high and low literary genres in his literary analysis. He refused to support sanctioned ideas about morality and wrote stinging social critiques. Li Zhi praised scholars who risked everything to expose extortion and misrule. In this sophisticated translation, English-speaking readers encounter the best of this heterodox intellectual's vital contribution to Chinese thought and culture.

This collection of short stories, anecdotes, and poems was likely compiled during the 13th century. Tales of romantic love--including courtship, marriage, and illicit affairs--unify the collection and make it an essential primary source for literary and social history, since official Chinese history sources did not usually discuss family conflict or sexual matters. This volume, the first complete translation of The Drunken Man's Talk (Xinbian zuiweng tanlu) in any language, includes an introduction that explores the literary significance of the work as well as annotations explaining the symbolism and allusions found in the stories.

This book is a collection of 13 empirical studies examining the acquisition and processing of Chinese as a second language. On the acquisition front, these studies explore the acquisition of structures such as the perfective marker le, wh-questions, bei- constructions, and bare nouns, and examine the factors that may affect acquisition such as learnersOCO background, anxiety, and instruction. Processing studies cover topics such as the identification of Chinese tones, the recognition of charact..."

In this brisk and accessible history, sinologist Thomas O. Höllmann explains the development of the Chinese writing system and its importance in literature, religion, art, and other aspects of culture. Spanning the earliest epigraphs and oracle bones to writing and texting on computers and mobile phones today, Chinese Script is a wide-ranging and versatile introduction to the complexity and beauty of written text and calligraphy in the Chinese world. Höllmann delves into the origins of Chinese script and its social and political meanings across millennia of history. He recounts the social history of the writing system; written and printed texts; and the use of writing materials such as paper, silk, ink, brush, and printing techniques. The book sheds light on the changing role of literacy and education; the politics of orthographic reform; and the relationship of Chinese writing to non-Han Chinese languages and cultures. Höllmann explains the inherent complexity of Chinese script, demonstrating why written Chinese expresses meaning differently than oral language and the subtleties of the relationship between spoken word and written text. He explores calligraphy as an art, the early letter press, and other ways of visually representing Chinese languages. Chinese Script also provides handy illustrations of the concepts discussed, showing how ideographs function and ways to decipher them visually.

From the former New York Times Asia correspondent and author of China's Second Continent, an incisive investigation of China's ideological development as it becomes an ever more aggressive player in regional and global diplomacy. For many years after its reform and opening in 1978, China maintained an attitude of false modesty about its ambitions. That role, reports Howard French, has been set aside. China has asserted its place among the global heavyweights, revealing its plans for pan-Asian dominance by building its navy, increasing territorial claims to areas like the South China Sea, and diplomatically bullying smaller players. Underlying this attitude is a strain of thinking that casts China's present-day actions in decidedly historical terms, as the path to restoring the dynastic glory of the past. If we understand how that historical identity relates to current actions, in ways ideological, philosophical, and even legal, we can learn to forecast just what kind of global power China stands to become--and to interact wisely with a future peer.      Steeped in deeply researched history as well as on-the-ground reporting, this is French at his revelatory best.

Describes the experiences of a group of boys from China who were sent to New England's finest schools to learn the ways of the West and return home to help modernize the Empire at the end of the nineteenth century

The memory technique pioneered in this book removes the major obstacle to learning modern Mandarin Chinese: how to remember the meanings of more than 2,000 of the most common simplified Chinese characters (those in use in mainland China)--enough to read more than 96 percent of the characters in any Chinese text. Like the previous edition, this essential guide teaches how to learn new character definitions at a breakneck pace, how to build up new characters using characters already learned, and how to fix meanings and characters forever in the mind. Now boasting an all-new, clearer layout, this version has been updated to include stroke-order diagrams for drawing every character, all meanings and pronunciations for each character, revision of many narratives for increased clarity, and inclusion of a number of new characters. Though neither a study guide to the Chinese language, a history of the development of Chinese characters, nor a Chinese phrase guide, the book provides an indispensable system for the rapid memorization of the meanings of Chinese characters. It also provides access to free downloads of flashcards and review material.