Chinese Seals

Chinese Seals

Author: Weizu Sun

Publisher: LONG RIVER PRESS

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 9781592650132

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Historical guide to Chinese seals, or "chops," and their various uses in business, art, and government.


Word as Image

Word as Image

Author: Jason C. Kuo

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13:

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A catalogue and accompaniment to an exhibition at the China House Gallery, New York City, October to December 1992, which focused on Chinese seal as works of art related to calligraphy, rather than to their role in authenticating paintings. The pieces range from the 3rd (at least) century B.C. to the 1950s. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Port


The Chinese Chop Pack

The Chinese Chop Pack

Author: Robin Tzannes

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Published: 2003-02

Total Pages: 84

ISBN-13: 9780811835831

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Chinese chops are an age-old name-signing method for art, official documents, and letters. This kit brings together everything you need to personalize your own creations in this traditional style. The high-quality wooden box holds eight beautifully carved chops for words such as "harmony", "wisdom", and "longevity", and an ink pad. Also inlcuded is an 80-page book that traces the history and significance behind Chinese chops.


Chinese Seals

Chinese Seals

Author: Kecheng Niu

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 104

ISBN-13:

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In ancient China, Emperors used seals to proclaim their decrees to their people, officials used seals to exercise their power, merchants used seals to demonstrate their credibility, land-lords used seals to protect their small properties. Gradually, seals became the representative and evidence of personal identity, and even today Chinese are still using seals.


Forgery and Impersonation in Imperial China

Forgery and Impersonation in Imperial China

Author: Mark McNicholas

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2016-03-29

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 0295806230

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Across eighteenth-century China a wide range of common people forged government documents or pretended to be officials or other agents of the state. This examination of case records and law codes traces the legal meanings and social and political contexts of small-time swindles that were punished as grave political transgressions.


The Marshes of Mount Liang: The broken seals

The Marshes of Mount Liang: The broken seals

Author: Nai'an Shi

Publisher: Chinese University Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 460

ISBN-13: 9789622016026

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When Marshal Hong breaks the seals which generations of Taoist Masters have placed on the temple doors to hold back 108 incarcerated Demon Princes, powerful forces of disorder are released. One after another, brave men fall out with officialdom and are obliged to join the brotherhood of the rivers and lakes-the mixed company of heroes and vagabonds who live by their wits and their fighting skills. The story of The Broken Seals branches this way and that, following first one hero, then another, as their paths converge and part, until finally 108 brave-but not entirely admirable-men are united at the outlaws' stronghold in the Marshes of Mount Liang. The story takes us through the vast landscape of imperial China. We hear of epic duels, gargantuan feasts, and cunning ambushes, and we witness injustice, betrayal, murder and revenge. We are told also of the beauty of the moon during Mid-Autumn Festival or of the snow, crisp underfoot on a stormy night in the country. This volume consists of the first twenty-two chapters of the full 120-chapter version of the classic Chinese novel by Shi Nai'an and Luo Guanzhong. It is the first English translation based on this version and including much of the verse. It offers the English reader something of the liveliness and humour of a work which has delighted generations of Chinese readers.


Shanzhai

Shanzhai

Author: Byung-Chul Han

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2017-10-06

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 0262534363

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Tracing the thread of “decreation” in Chinese thought, from constantly changing classical masterpieces to fake cell phones that are better than the original. Shanzhai is a Chinese neologism that means “fake,” originally coined to describe knock-off cell phones marketed under such names as Nokir and Samsing. These cell phones were not crude forgeries but multifunctional, stylish, and as good as or better than the originals. Shanzhai has since spread into other parts of Chinese life, with shanzhai books, shanzhai politicians, shanzhai stars. There is a shanzhai Harry Potter: Harry Potter and the Porcelain Doll, in which Harry takes on his nemesis Yandomort. In the West, this would be seen as piracy, or even desecration, but in Chinese culture, originals are continually transformed—deconstructed. In this volume in the Untimely Meditations series, Byung-Chul Han traces the thread of deconstruction, or “decreation,” in Chinese thought, from ancient masterpieces that invite inscription and transcription to Maoism—“a kind a shanzhai Marxism,” Han writes. Han discusses the Chinese concepts of quan, or law, which literally means the weight that slides back and forth on a scale, radically different from Western notions of absoluteness; zhen ji, or original, determined not by an act of creation but by unending process; xian zhan, or seals of leisure, affixed by collectors and part of the picture's composition; fuzhi, or copy, a replica of equal value to the original; and shanzhai. The Far East, Han writes, is not familiar with such “pre-deconstructive” factors as original or identity. Far Eastern thought begins with deconstruction.