A new synthesis of the work of two studies: the first (Folk Religion in an Urban Setting) investigates the religious organization at village level and the second (Urban Chinese) shows practices from most of the various levels of possible Chinese practices as expected in a mixed community of urban dwellers. Reviews data and attempts to interpret it in terms of changes in traditional religious practices currently appearing and their implications for the future . With two figures.
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST A New York Times Notable Book of 2022 What does it take to reinvent a language? After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world’s most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, as the world underwent a massive technological transformation that threatened to leave them behind. In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu argues that China’s most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: the century-long fight to make the formidable Chinese language accessible to the modern world of global trade and digital technology. Kingdom of Characters follows the bold innovators who reinvented the Chinese language, among them an exiled reformer who risked a death sentence to advocate for Mandarin as a national language, a Chinese-Muslim poet who laid the groundwork for Chairman Mao's phonetic writing system, and a computer engineer who devised input codes for Chinese characters on the lid of a teacup from the floor of a jail cell. Without their advances, China might never have become the dominating force we know today. With larger-than-life characters and an unexpected perspective on the major events of China’s tumultuous twentieth century, Tsu reveals how language is both a technology to be perfected and a subtle, yet potent, power to be exercised and expanded.
Research on past knowledge, practices, personnel and institutions of Chinese health care has focussed on printed text for many decades. The Berlin collections of handwritten Chinese volumes on health and healing from the past 400 years provide a hitherto unprecedented access to a wide range of data. They extend the reach of medical historiography beyond the literature written by and for a small social elite to the reality of health care as practiced by private households, lay healers, pharmacists, professional doctors, magicians, itinerant healers and others. The nearly 900 volumes surveyed here for the first time demonstrate the heterogeneity of Chinese traditional healing. They evidence the continuation of millennia-old therapeutic approaches long discarded by the elite, and they show continuous adaptation to more recent trends.
The recipient of the Kluge Prize for lifetime achievement in the humanities and the Tang Prize for "revolutionary research" in Sinology, Ying-shih Yü is a premier scholar of Chinese studies. Chinese History and Culture volumes 1 and 2 bring his extraordinary oeuvre to English-speaking readers. Spanning two thousand years of social, intellectual, and political change, the essays in these volumes investigate two central questions through all aspects of Chinese life: what core values sustained this ancient civilization through centuries of upheaval, and in what ways did these values survive in modern times? From Yü Ying-shih's perspective, the Dao, or the Way, constitutes the inner core of Chinese civilization. His work explores the unique dynamics between Chinese intellectuals' discourse on the Dao, or moral principles for a symbolized ideal world order, and their criticism of contemporary reality throughout Chinese history. Volume 1 of Chinese History and Culture explores how the Dao was reformulated, expanded, defended, and preserved by Chinese intellectuals up to the seventeenth century, guiding them through history's darkest turns. Essays incorporate the evolving conception of the soul and the afterlife in pre- and post-Buddhist China, the significance of eating practices and social etiquette, the move toward greater individualism, the rise of the Neo-Daoist movement, the spread of Confucian ethics, and the growth of merchant culture and capitalism. A true panorama of Chinese culture's continuities and transition, Yü Ying-shih's two-volume Chinese History and Culture gives readers of all backgrounds a unique education in the meaning of Chinese civilization.
This volume examines the role of dynastic rulers, the imperial system, and the ruling literati in the promotion and shaping of Chinese thought and culture. It includes ten papers chosen for publication from a conference held in Taiwan in September 1992: “Determining Orthodoxy: Imperial Roles” by Jack L. Dull; “Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s Portrayal of the First Ch’in Emperor” by Stephan Durrant; “The Literary Emperor: The Case of Han Wu-ti” by David R. Knechtges; “Empress Wu and Feminist Sentiments in T’ang China” by Chen Jo-shui; “Academies: Official Sponsorship and Suppression” by Thomas H. C. Lee; “Imperial Power and The Reestablishment of Monastic Order in the Northern Sung” by Huang Chi-chiang; “Imperial Rulership in Cultural History: Chu Hsi’s Interpretation” by Huang Chun-chieh; “The Emperor and the Star Spirits: A Mythological Reading of the Shui-hu chuan” by Frederick P. Brandeur; “Ku Yen-wu’s Image and Ideal of the Emperor: A Cultural Giant and Political Dwarf” by Ku Wei-ying; and “Imperial Power and the Appointment of Provincial Governors in Ch’ing China” by R. Kent Guy. It will be of interest to students of Chinese culture including literature, art, religion, philosophy, and politics.
In the early 1990s artist Xu Bing stamped two pigs with respectively nonsensical Latin words and fake Chinese characters and allowed them to mate in an art gallery. The performance of ‘two creatures, devoid of human consciousness, yet carrying on their bodies the marks of human civilization’, engaging in the ‘most primal form of social intercourse’ confronted the public with the tension between nature and civilization. The work also addresses the tension between China and the West and therefore perfectly fits the core message of this book. Contemporary art in China takes place in a post-socialist (post-Mao) context, and at the same time a post-traditional one, searching for balance between aesthetic legacy and modernization. It also tries to find its position in the post-colonial globalized arena. This book explores the tension between individual artistic freedom and a dominant discourse of central Chinese government, between China’s cultural legacy and modernization, and between China and a global art world still dominated by a Western canon. As a case study it focuses on the artists who participated in the Venice Biennale in 1993, which was the first time contemporary art from mainland China was structurally invited to participate in a global art context. Jeanne Boden has a PhD in Oriental Languages and Cultures. Her research focuses on Eurocentrism, Sinocentrism and contemporary Chinese art. (jeanneboden.com) Cover picture: Xu Bing, A Case Study of Transference, 1993-94
Asian Traditions and Modernization studies various aspects of change in Singapore and explores the ways in which tradition has shaped and moderated the process of modernization. Employing a multi-faceted approach that covers history, religion, science, ethnic relations and language, the book looks in depth at a country which has witnessed rapid modernization and yet at the same time desires to preserve cultural values. Because tradition and modernization are relative and open-ended concepts, traditional values can be modern in their orientation and conversely, modern societies can be traditional in their practices. The focal concern of the book is how these terms can be best and fully understood. This reissue features a new preface by the author.
A guide to bilingual education for Asians contains chapters on bilingual and multicultural education characteristics; the learner; Asian and Asian American learners; bilingual program designs, methodology, and classroom activities; instructional materials and resources for Asian bilingual education programs; and teacher competencies, staff development, and certification. Appendixes, which make up 75% of the document include materials on: compiling Asian bilingual curriculum development materials; the question of literacy and its application in Chinese bilingual education; a taxonomy of bilingualism-biculturalism; a Philippine experiment in multicultural social studies; an example of a multicultural alternative curriculum; bridging the Asian language and culture gap; students from Korea; an Asian-American profile; learning styles of Chinese children; the early history of Asians in America; Korean-Americans; Asians as Americans; the Japanese American in the Los Angeles community; Koreans in America, 1903-1945; organized gangs taking refuge in the United States; cultural marginality and multiculturalism as they relate to bilingual-bicultural education; problems in current bilingual-bicultural education; new approaches to bilingual-bicultural education; an outline for a guided study course; a list of competencies for university programs that train personnel for bilingual education programs; inservice bilingual teacher training; state bilingual teacher certification requirements; and behavioral outcomes for bilingual program students. (MSE)
