Red Star Over Edgar Snow
Edgar Snow’s birthday is sometime this week but they can’t agree on which day it is. The 1972 obituary in the omniscient NY Times had it as July 19, 1905, as do...
Category: Books
Between Nanjing and Chongqing
I posted a piece on Asia Media (July 10 2008) which reviews Steve MacKinnon’s new book, Wuhan, 1938: War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China (Univer...
It's the shoes
For people who have read Sherman Cochran it is not news that Chinese merchants developed brand names and consumers developed brand loyalty. Cochran mostly focus...
Foreign influence on China's revolution
I found this picture on Southeast Asia Visions1 It is from Siam and China by Besso, Salvatore (1914) I was a bit confused about what it was showing. Surely Marc...
Chinese Description of Dutch Suicide Tactics
Another quick quote from Small Sea Travel Diaries, the English translation of Yu Yonghe’s journal and essays from his trip to Taiwan in the 17th century b...
A Moment of Humility
I just finished reading Small Sea Travel Diaries which is an English translation of Yu Yonghe’s journal and essays from his trip to Taiwan in the 17th cen...
Needling Needham
The Needham Question is hot, hot, hot! Thanks to Simon Winchester’s The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked t...
Columbia University Press Book Sale
Some great bargains at the Columbia University Press White Sale with lots of offerings in Asian history and literature.
China's Robinson Crusoe
I’ve been reading Wolf Totem and having a lot of fun doing so. The book, based on Jiang Rong’s time as a sent-down youth in Inner Mongolia. was a hu...
Authors/Books/China/Culture/Current Events/Literature/Maoist era (1949-1976)/Post-Mao/Teaching/Translation
New Chinese Literature
The New York Times has published three reviews of new Chinese works in translation: Wang Anyi’s The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong (pen na...
poor peasants
In Modern China class we will be talking about Communists and their analysis of China’s social classes. What is a poor peasant? I will give them the stand...
Help me pick some books
Book order forms for the Fall are on my desk again, and again I am going to ask for any advice people might feel like sending my way. The two Asia courses I am ...
Smoking in China
A good book answers your questions. A really good book answers questions you had not thought of yet. Apparently Tim Brook’s Vermeer’s Hat is a reall...
How to get rich in Chinese business
This is from the Hawai’i Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture1 It is a wonderful reading to use in classes, as our hero Dou Yi manages to make dough in p...