2 comments about The Great Voyages of Zheng He.

1. This is an excellent children's book with wonderfully illustrated pictures. It is basic without much detailed information, but makes a great introduction to Admiral Zheng He. I am an Elementary school teacher and would use this book with grades 6 and up. It does have some difficult vocabulary, but the pictures more than make up for it!



2. Over priced. Contains a few nice pictures, but very little information of any use. Don't buy.

No comments about Lam Chi Phat: The Chronicle of an Overseas Chinese Family.

No comments about BEIJINGER IN NEW YORK.

1 comments about Eminent Monk: Buddhist Ideals in Medieval Chinese Hagiography (Studies in East Asian Buddhism).

1. This study of medieval Chinese monks is solid and well written. The author has gone through all the basic sources and divided medieval monastic life into three main categories: asceticism, thaumaturgy, and scholarship. He probes each of these in detail, revealing complexities and contradictions in monastic identity. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in medieval Chinese Buddhism.

No comments about The I. G. in Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907 (Belknap Press).

1 comments about Forest Recollections: Wandering Monks in Twentieth-Century Thailand.

1. As a Westerner who has done a lot of meditation in Thailand over the last 18 years, I've been curious to know the history of meditation in Thailand. I've also wondered about the Tudong or wondering monks whom I've occasionally seen here. This book explains it all. It is also very inspirational for serious meditators and might even inspire people who are curious about meditation.

   As far as I can tell (having spent about a year in Thai monasteries), Kamala is right on the button in everything she writes. My only complaint about the book is that the footnotes are in the back instead of at the bottom of the page.

   This book should deserves a wide audience.

4 comments about Women Poets of China (New Directions Paperbook, 528).

1. An exciting selection of poems by known and previously unknown women poets. Ling Chung's scholarship and sensitivity gave the late great Kenneth Rexroth the insight and inspiration to outdo himself here. Buy two copies and give one to a friend.



2. This collection was a huge surprise. Unlike the steryo type of what women in China was like, subservient to husbands they are forced to marry, with little thoughts and feelings for themselves.

   These women poets starting from 1644-1911, shout out thier love of thier partners, discuss drinking, sex, lust, romance, infactutation and even loving other women.

   The metaphors are soft and light at the first reading, yet if you look deeper you realise some of the subjects are far from the softness the poetry is conveyed in.

   A good histrical text on Chinese Women and a good read. As the previous reviewer said, buy two and give one to a friend.




3. Probably my favorite of the asian poetry books that I've read. Thanks for the compilation, Kenneth.



4. The editors made a good try to translate the poems, but the result makes me laugh!
   
   They can translate the meanings but they can't keep the feelings, formats, sounds, favors, and metaphors.
   
   This book can fool people who can't read Chinese. Chinese is my first language, this book can't fool me!
   
   If you are a professor or teacher, please stop showing off your "good taste" by forcing your student to read this piece of stupid translation. You need to learn Chinese to read real Chinese poem.

3 comments about Empires Beyond the Great Wall: The Heritage of Genghis Khan.

1. Opens up an array of artworks known to few in the West (or the East, for that matter), since North-Asian tribal cultures have long been rather stigmatized. Lovingly photographed, with quite breathtaking color reproduction. Informative text. A truly exciting introduction to the arts and archaeological finds of the Asian steppes and "frontier" areas.



2. Thank you for such a wonderfully insightful, beautiful book! It has enhanced my knowledge tremendously of the time period, and is a wonderful addition to my library. I found it to be intelligently written, engaging to the reader, written with a great deal of passion and knowledge. I would recommend this book to anyone who has a love of the arts. Hopefully, the show this was based on might tour again in the future as I would love the opportunity to view these extraordinary pieces described in the book first hand. Thank you again.



3. Although this catalog does not all of the best pieces from the exhibit (most notably absent are the yurts and archery equipment), it does have a good selection of maps ans supporting text for the items that are included. Broken down by time period rather than by object (which for the Nomads of Eurasia and Son of Heaven catalogs proved to be a more useful format) it is nonetheless valuable for its coverage of pieces that have not shown up in any other museum exhibit.

No comments about Ancient Melodies.

5 comments about The Girl from Purple Mountain: Love, Honor, War, and One Family's Journey from China to America.

1. Winberg Chai' mother, Ruth Mei-en Tsao Chai, died unexpectedly. He then found out that his mother had secretly arranged to be buried alone, instead of in the share plots that his father had purchased years ago. Winbery then felt that, as Ruth's first-born son, he has the obligation to explore the family history to reconstruct his mother's life and to seek the answer of his mother's fateful decision. This book is about Winberg's family history and memoir. He finished this book with the help of his daughter, May-Lee Chai. I read some book reviews before I picked up this book at the library. I disagreed that this book is full of "fictionalized events." I think this book provides very good discussion about family history and its roots. It is an enjoyable reading. I like it.



2. I had real reservations about this book. A woman who would go out of her way to make sure she was not buried next to her husband seemed to me to be less than worthy of my time. I didn't like her. I want to read about someone with whom I can form some identity. I looked at this book several times at the bookstore and passed it up. Then a friend handed it to me and told me to read it.

   I have always said that some of the best books I have read have come as an interruption to what I was "supposed" to be reading. This book is one of them. The introduction on the dust jacket describes a woman who makes a secret arrangement to be buried alone in a mausoleum. The book seeks to understand and explain this unusual behavior. But I didn't want to understand. I am tired of caring why strange people do strange things. Such an act seemed unheroic. But something completely unexpected happened to me as I read this book. I was prepared to hear an elaborate excuse by the writer for why her grandmother did what she did. I had concluded that I could never identify with such a person. But I was completely unprepared for the extent to which I identified with the writer herself.

   We are worlds apart. Literally. She grew up in America. I was born in Tokyo, and I grew up in the northern part of Japan. My parents were American missionaries, who went to Japan as volunteers after World War II. My grandparents came from Norway. I do not look Japanese. Not at all. Throughout my childhood, I was always a foreigner. Gaijin. Nevertheless, I am a child of Asia.

   When my parents took me to America at the age of 13, I had serious misgivings about that new country. We moved to a small town in Minnesota, about as far removed as it is possible to be (both culturally and geographically) from the place that had been my home. I forgot Japanese. But through all the years I have lived in America, I have never forgotten the strange feeling I had when I came to that small Midwestern town and tried to fit into a world where I knew nothing about anything, even though I was a native speaker of English.

   This book is about a woman who hated her father, and the ripple effect that this bitterness had over three generations. But it is written by a woman who loved her father, and with whom, in spite of clear generational differences, she was able to collaborate on a book about, of all things, relationships.

   The book is written by May-lee with her father, Winberg. It is about Ruth and Charles-her grandparents, his parents. Charles adores his wife, but he is forever the unfortunate recipient of the unresolved rage she feels for her father. In that sense, Charles is a pathetic figure. He really can't do anything right. But, Ruth, of course, is more pathetic. She epitomizes in every way the Biblical injunction, "Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled (Hebrews 12:15)." The whole book reverberates with the effect this root of bitterness has on the whole family.

   But there is a unique redemptive quality to this book that took me quite by surprise. You see, in writing the story of her grandmother, especially in writing this story with her father, May-lee "redeems" her grandmother, because she displays all the qualities that I can now imagine Ruth probably had and would have displayed if she had not been so eaten up with hatred for her father. The cover of the book shows a picture of Ruth and Charles at the time of their marriage. But I wasn't paying attention. Somehow I had it that this was a picture of the father-daughter team that wrote the book. So, as I was reading this book, I thought the pretty lady on the cover was the author. For me, Ruth became May-lee, and Charles became Winberg. At least for awhile. Then I caught on. But the initial impression never left. In a very real sense, May-lee became what her grandmother, unbound, would have been. And there is tremendous power in the way she gently prods her father to recover his past. It's all very unusual-you see, even though the book is not really supposed to be about May-lee herself, she becomes, in writing the book, the heroine of the story.

   This is a book with heart. Read it. Then give it to someone else. Make this world a better place by reading, and encouraging others to read what will surely be one of the most life-enriching books you have encountered.




3. This book is not a page turner. However, there was just enough there that I wanted to read it to the end. Get some closure, perhaps.

   I understand some of the criticism directed at this book. There are parts of it where the authors are simply making up events, but at least they outright tell you so; e.g., "Here is how I imagine my grandmother's suitor." I didn't find this irritating or annoying. Just awkward, for a biographical piece.

   I was disappointed that there wasn't more to the "mystery." No climactic ending - for better or worse. In the end, this woman who had already left her husband twice, left him one final time because she could not overcome her bitterness and jealousies. She started as a modern Chinese woman full of spirit and energy, but ended up being someone old and spiteful. Someone who would hold a 30-40 year grudge. Someone who would disown her own son. How sad.




4. There isn't much mystery to the plot, nor it explicitly explained why Ruth changed her burial decision. However, it's packed with Chinese culture, details of what life was like in China, the political movements, etc.. I recommend this book strongly to any one who would like to learn more of the Chinese culture/history, specially to the ABCs (America born Chinese).



5. I loved this book. It is a moving portrait of an incredible woman living through great challenges and changes, as told by her granddaughter drawing on family stories, historical documents and her own memory. It is also a son's story of his childhood and his own memories of his formidable mother. The debate about whether this book is fiction or memoir is moot and unproductive. What is memoir if not a narrative we tell ourselves about our own lives?