Author: Daniel Fiddler
Publisher: America Star Books
ISBN: 1683944119
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 190
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Book Description
My mother was born and raised in China by her American missionary parents. Throughout my childhood growing up in Michigan, my mother and my grandfather told my brother and me stories about their life in the Orient. My grandfather was a superb storyteller and I was always fascinated by his descriptions of the Chinses people and their culture. Later I would live in both Korea and Japan, adding to my interest in the Far East. Each of these fictional short stories is anchored in Chinese and Japanese history and, in some part, on my firsthand experiences and those of my mother and grandparents.
Author: Various
Publisher: Abela Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1907256105
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 177
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Book Description
ASIA is rich in folklore, legends, and fairy tales. In your hands lies a collection of tales whose epicentre lies somewhere in ancient Persia. The 25 tales in Oriental Folklore and Legend originate from countries along the fabled Silk Route [Arabia, Persia, India, and Kalmykia] and, as one would expect, they are infused with elements of Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, and Zoroastrian culture. All were acquired from Asian storytellers. Because of this rich cultural mix, the tales abound with magicians, viziers, cobblers who become astrologers, adventures and quests by the score, and common men who best both Shahs and Kings showing that brains always win over brawn. So curl up with this snippet of ancient Central Asian folklore and absorb yourself in Sinbad and Aladdin-like folk tales from yesteryear. The Kalmyk tales are of especial interest, both because of their contents and their oblique history. The extended Scheherazade-like Relations of Ssidi Kur is a marchen-cycle from the people of Buddhist Kalmykia. The Kalmykians migrated from southern Siberia to the northwest shore of the Caspian Sea in the 1600's. Even so, they maintained strong historical connections to Tibet and Mongolia, mainly because Buddhism remains their national religion. During their "deportation" by the Russians [1943 - 1957], Kalmyk folk stories and tales kept alive the people's hope of nation-hood and eventual repatriation. Oriental Folklore and Legend was originally published in a series of Folklore and Legends volumes by W.W. Gibbings between 1891 and 1905. The author/editor was unnamed, but the initials C.J.T. given after the preface are apparently those of one Charles John Tibbitts. A percentage of the sales will be donated to educational scholarships for the underprivileged in Kalmykia.
Author: Yiping Zhang
Publisher: Gower Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 9787508508320
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 182
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Book Description
Author: Frances Wood
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520243408
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
This gorgeously illustrated oversized book brings the history and cultures of the Silk Road alive -- from its beginnings to the present day -- covering more than 5000 years.
Author: James A. Millward
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199782865
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 169
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Book Description
The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction is a new look at an ancient subject: the silk road that linked China, India, Persia and the Mediterranean across the expanses of Central Asia. James A. Millward highlights unusual but important biological, technological and cultural exchanges over the silk roads that stimulated development across Eurasia and underpin civilization in our modern, globalized world.
Author: Valerie Hansen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190218428
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
The Silk Road is as iconic in world history as the Colossus of Rhodes or the Suez Canal. But what was it, exactly? It conjures up a hazy image of a caravan of camels laden with silk on a dusty desert track, reaching from China to Rome. The reality was different--and far more interesting--as revealed in this new history. In The Silk Road, Valerie Hansen describes the remarkable archeological finds that revolutionize our understanding of these trade routes. For centuries, key records remained hidden--sometimes deliberately buried by bureaucrats for safe keeping. But the sands of the Taklamakan Desert have revealed fascinating material, sometimes preserved by illiterate locals who recycled official documents to make insoles for shoes or garments for the dead. Hansen explores seven oases along the road, from Xi'an to Samarkand, where merchants, envoys, pilgrims, and travelers mixed in cosmopolitan communities, tolerant of religions from Buddhism to Zoroastrianism. There was no single, continuous road, but a chain of markets that traded between east and west. China and the Roman Empire had very little direct trade. China's main partners were the peoples of modern-day Iran, whose tombs in China reveal much about their Zoroastrian beliefs. Silk was not the most important good on the road; paper, invented in China before Julius Caesar was born, had a bigger impact in Europe, while metals, spices, and glass were just as important as silk. Perhaps most significant of all was the road's transmission of ideas, technologies, and artistic motifs. The Silk Road is a fascinating story of archeological discovery, cultural transmission, and the intricate chains across Central Asia and China.
Author: Edward King
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781534792524
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 172
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Book Description
Echoes From the Orient by Edward King. This book is a reproduction of the original book published in 1880 and may have some imperfections such as marks or hand-written notes.
Author: Jostein Gaarder
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1466804270
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 544
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Book Description
One day Sophie comes home from school to find two questions in her mail: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" Before she knows it she is enrolled in a correspondence course with a mysterious philosopher. Thus begins Jostein Gaarder's unique novel, which is not only a mystery, but also a complete and entertaining history of philosophy.
Author: Hongmei Sun
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295743204
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230
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Book Description
Able to shape-shift and ride the clouds, wielding a magic cudgel and playing tricks, Sun Wukong (aka Monkey or the Monkey King) first attained superstar status as the protagonist of the sixteenth-century novel Journey to the West (Xiyou ji) and lives on in literature and popular culture internationally. In this far-ranging study Hongmei Sun discusses the thousand-year evolution of this figure in imperial China and multimedia adaptations in Republican, Maoist, and post-socialist China and the United States, including the film Princess Iron Fan (1941), Maoist revolutionary operas, online creative writings influenced by Hong Kong film A Chinese Odyssey (1995), and Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel American Born Chinese. At the intersection of Chinese studies, Asian American studies, film studies, and translation and adaptation studies, Transforming Monkey provides a renewed understanding of the Monkey King character as a rebel and trickster, and demonstrates his impact on the Chinese self-conception of national identity as he travels through time and across borders.
Author: Tan Twan Eng
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 1602860599
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
In the tradition of celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell. The recipient of extraordinary acclaim from critics and the bookselling community, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell and has garnered comparisons to celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene. Set during the tumult of World War II, on the lush Malayan island of Penang, The Gift of Rain tells a riveting and poignant tale about a young man caught in the tangle of wartime loyalties and deceits. In 1939, sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton-the half-Chinese, half-English youngest child of the head of one of Penang's great trading families-feels alienated from both the Chinese and British communities. He at last discovers a sense of belonging in his unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip proudly shows his new friend around his adored island, and in return Endo teaches him about Japanese language and culture and trains him in the art and discipline of aikido. But such knowledge comes at a terrible price. When the Japanese savagely invade Malaya, Philip realizes that his mentor and sensei-to whom he owes absolute loyalty-is a Japanese spy. Young Philip has been an unwitting traitor, and must now work in secret to save as many lives as possible, even as his own family is brought to its knees.
