Chinese Life

Here is a fascinating compact history of Chinese political, economic, and cultural life, ranging from the origins of civilization in China to the beginning of the 21st century. Historian Paul Ropp combines vivid story-telling with astute analysis to shed light on some of the larger questions of Chinese history. Offering a global perspective, the book tells how China's nomadic neighbors to the north and west influenced much of the political, military, and even cultural history of China.

Critically acclaimed author Gish Jen is a National Book Critics Circle Award nominee and the person John Updike proclaimed as the young novelist most likely to become his successor. In The Love Wife, Jen poignantly explores the explosive dynamics of a mixed-race modern family.

On a December morning in 1982, the courtyard of a Beijing siheyuan - a lively quadrangle of homes - begins to stir. Auntie Xue’s son Jiyue is getting married today, and she is determined to make the day a triumph. Despite Jiyue’s woeful ignorance in matters of the heart - and the body. Despite a chef in training tasked with the onerous responsibility of preparing the banquet.

Max helps his friend Lily and her family celebrate the Chinese New Year. Flowers, oranges, and special candy are all part of the fun!

In this first-ever translation of Lu Yao’s Life, we meet Gao Jialin, a stubborn, idealistic, and ambitious young man from a small country village whose life is upended when corrupt local politics cost him his beloved job as a schoolteacher, prompting him to reject rural life and try to make it in the big city. Against the vivid, gritty backdrop of 1980s China, Lu Yao traces the proud and passionate Gao Jialin’s difficult path to professional, romantic, and personal fulfillment - or at least hard-won acceptance.

A Chinese proverb says, "Falling leaves return to their roots." In Chinese Cinderella, Adeline Yen Mah returns to her roots to tell the story of her painful childhood and her ultimate triumph and courage in the face of despair. Adeline's affluent, powerful family considers her bad luck after her mother dies giving birth to her. Life does not get any easier when her father remarries. She and her siblings are subjected to the disdain of her stepmother, while her stepbrother and stepsister are spoiled.

Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) led the Republic of China for almost fifty years, starting in 1926. He was the architect of a new republican China, a hero of the Second World War, and a faithful ally of the United States. Simultaneously a Christian and a Confucian, Chiang dreamed of universal equality yet was a perfidious and cunning dictator responsible for the deaths of over 1.5 million innocent people. This critical biography is based on Chiang Kai-shek's unpublished diaries, his extensive personal files from the Russian archives, and the Russian files of his relatives, associates, and foes.

In his own time (701-762), Li Bai's poems - shaped by Daoist thought and characterized by their passion, romance, and lust for life - were never given their proper due by the official literary gatekeepers. Nonetheless, his lines rang out on the lips of court entertainers, tavern singers, soldiers, and writers throughout the Tang dynasty. The Banished Immortal is an extraordinary portrait of a poet who both transcended his time and was shaped by it and whose ability to live, love, and mourn without reservation produced some of the most enduring verses.

Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned, Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Half-Chinese and half-American, Violet grapples with her place in the worlds of East and West - until she is able to merge her two halves, empowering her to become a shrewd courtesan who excels in the business of seduction and illusion, though she still struggles to understand who she is.

人的一生中总会经历磨难，甚至有时会给自己的身体带来残疾。失落和失望总是存在，只是，黯然之后，心是否也会因此残缺……人的一生中總會經歷磨難，甚至有時會給自己的身體帶來殘疾。失落和失望總是存在，只是，黯然之後，心是否也會因此殘缺…… 

Con este libro aprenderás a entender qué dicen los números sobre ti, cómo contrarrestar las energías negativas, cómo atraer la abundancia y la prosperidad y cómo prepararte para los cambios que vendrán en el futuro. ¿Estás listo para aplicar estos miles de años de sabiduría china a tu vida?

If you've learned about the history of Chinese people in America, it was probably about their work on the railroads in the 1800s. But more likely, you may not have learned about it at all. This may make it feel like Chinese immigration is a newer part of this country, but some scholars believe the first immigrant arrived from China 499 CE—one thousand years before Columbus did!

People were dying! Malaria is a deadly mosquito-borne disease that causes fevers, chills and often death. In 1969, the People’s Republic of China created a task force to find a cure. Working in the 1970s, Chinese scientist Tu Youyou reviewed the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) scrolls for ideas on where to start her research. She found 640 traditional treatments, and methodically started extracting compounds and testing them against malaria. Would any of them work? Follow the struggles of Nobel Prize scientist Tu Youyou as she works to find a cure to malaria.

Few know that Master You played minor roles for half a lifetime before taking on the role of Ji Gong after age 50. Few know that at 85 years old, Master You still actively performs on stage. Even fewer know that at the incredible age of 80, Master You sold his home to start a performing arts troupe, all to promote art and enlighten people. The story of Master You Benchang is worth young people today learning about and being inspired by. His ideology has profound significance for countless contemporary listeners.

Asta Fung is sixteen and sulky. Her parents have moved the whole family to take over the Yau Sum takeaway in another town so Grandpa Charlie can be closer to the big hospital. She's had to give up her dog, her friends, her familiar teenage life. All too soon, she has to give up Grandpa Charlie too. What was the point? When the builder's son, Josh, hands her a bundle of love letters he found under the floorboards, Asta realises they were hidden there by Grandpa Charlie as a young man.

The emperor sought to make his own daughter empress, but this violates the Mandate of Heaven! The empress endured humiliation for eleven years only to be deposed, unthinkable! It's lamentable that countless heroes of the realm were defeated by a frail woman! War is imminent, yet you say I triggered it? How can you be so heartless! The unity and division of the realm, how could it be influenced by a powerless woman like me? Beauty of a Lifetime (Parts I & II) takes you into the complex struggle within the imperial harem.

The emperor sought to make his own daughter empress, but this violates the Mandate of Heaven! The empress endured humiliation for eleven years only to be deposed, unthinkable! It's lamentable that countless heroes of the realm were defeated by a frail woman! War is imminent, yet you say I triggered it? How can you be so heartless! The unity and division of the realm, how could it be influenced by a powerless woman like me? Beauty of a Lifetime (Parts I & II) takes you into the complex struggle within the imperial harem.

Seventh grader Freya June Sun has always believed in the Chinese superstitions spoon-fed to her since birth—but ever since her dad’s death a year ago, she’s become obsessed, believing that her father is sending her messages through signs from the beyond. Like how, on her way to an orchestra concert where she’s dreading her viola solo, a pair of lucky red birds appear, a sure indication that Dad wants Freya to stick with the instrument and make him proud.

Everybody wants a long, full life of vitality. But beyond the basics of good diet and exercise, what can you do to achieve it? For more then 2,000 years, Chinese energy medicine has refined the use of meditation to build the body's qi, or life force. Now, a celebrated doctor of Chinese medicine and authority in the field of Taoist longevity medicine presents an indispensable resource for living a long and richer life: Meditations to Live to be 100.

An unusual call from Chinese merchant Ling Tang began an on-going set of circumstances for young Biff Brewster. He was planning a trip to Rangoon in Burma to visit his Uncle Charlie. It seemed such a trip for Biff would be a good way to spend the remainder of his summer vacation from school. It was a pleasant thought for beginning something very different to look forward to. However, “different” isn’t a strong enough description of what was going to happen.