Mr. Pan


Book Description

Mr. Pan is no highly-placed official. Mr. Pan is the Mr. Smith of China—an ordinary man with extraordinary reach—and China, like America, depends as much on its Mr. Pans as on its powerful and world famous officials. Here, in a series of linked vignettes, you'll get a glimpse into a new way of life—Mr. Pan at work, Mr. Pan with his father, Mr. Pan with his docile wife, Pei-yu. It is a rare glimpse into a time and place, as only Emily Hahn's perceptive pen could produce. This is fiction as delightful and penetrating as any truth. Author of such celebrated and acclaimed works as The Soong Sisters, China to Me, and Fractured Emerald, Hahn has been called "a forgotten American literary treasure" (The New Yorker).










The Dragonheads


Book Description

The novel, The Dragonheads, features five adventurous, smart and fun sixth-graders who go on a quest to find the mysterious Magical Eggs and restore world harmony. They're from the land of Lamatia, which was ravaged by war when these orphans were six years old. Vidar, Ana, Zlatan, Tina and Yasen live in the Orange Home and School for Orphaned Children and play music in the Dragonheads band named after the Dragonhead flower. One winter day, the children came to the aid of an injured seagull. Five centuries earlier, this seagull was the King-guardian of the Twelve Magical Eggs whose beauty and power are responsible for the world's harmony. Since that time, the land has been ravaged by many fires, wars and earthquakes. Countless people and wild creatures, good and evil, have been searching for the Eggs all over Lamatia. The good ones want to re-establish the world's harmony, and the evil ones want to destroy the Eggs in order to create chaos on Earth. King Lucan chooses the Dragonheads to find the hidden Twelve Magical Eggs because of the children's goodness and desire to explore the world. In the first four months of their adventurous journey, the Dragonheads meet many good people, animals and mythical beings who are helping them to outsmart four evil Eggs hunters. Neda Miranda Blazevic conveys in her superb writing the excitement of a world traveler. I. Vidan, World Literature Today . an exceptional writer and professor . Villager, St. Paul Blazevic's expressive voice is remarkable. Jessica Wallendal, The Mac Weekly, St. Paul




Slapping the Table in Amazement


Book Description

Slapping the Table in Amazement is the unabridged English translation of the famous story collection Pai’an jingqi by Ling Mengchu (1580–1644), originally published in 1628. The forty lively stories gathered here present a broad picture of traditional Chinese society and include characters from all social levels. We learn of their joys and sorrows, their views about life and death, and their visions of the underworld and the supernatural. Ling was a connoisseur of popular literature and a seminal figure in the development of Chinese literature in the vernacular, which paved the way for the late-imperial Chinese novel. Slapping the Table in Amazement includes translations of verse and prologue stories as well as marginal and interlinear comments.




The Palgrave Handbook of Managing Family Business Groups


Book Description

Family business groups (FBGs) are ubiquitous, influential, and play a major role in national economies. While much of the current research around this topic has so far focused on emerging economies, more knowledge is needed on family business groups in developed economies; specifically, how they innovate, strategize, govern, and grow. Offering a comprehensive and global perspective on family business groups, this Handbook comprises international contributions from leading experts. Split into five sections, it covers strategy and business transformation; innovation strategies; management and governance; and new avenues for research on FBGs including the issues of sustainability and cultural alignment. An important resource for students and researchers of family business, strategy and management, this Handbook signals the emergence of the family business group phenomenon and solidifies research in this evolving area of study.




What Remains


Book Description

The Taiping Rebellion was one of the costliest civil wars in human history. Many millions of people lost their lives. Yet while the Rebellion has been intensely studied by scholars in China and elsewhere, we still know little of how individuals coped with these cataclysmic events. Drawing upon a rich array of primary sources, What Remains explores the issues that preoccupied Chinese and Western survivors. Individuals, families, and communities grappled with fundamental questions of loyalty and loss as they struggled to rebuild shattered cities, bury the dead, and make sense of the horrors that they had witnessed. Driven by compelling accounts of raw emotion and deep injury, What Remains opens a window to a world described by survivors themselves. This book transforms our understanding of China's 19th century and recontextualizes suffering and loss in China during the 20th century.




Persuade People with Your Writing


Book Description

The ability to persuade people to agree with you can be crucial to your working life. This book will help you apply the psychology of persuasion to your writing. Persuasion expert Karen Mannering guides you through all aspects of business writing, from adverts to business plans, emails to Twitter Feeds, and letters to reports to produce sharper and more productive copy through the power of persuasion.




Shanghai Grand


Book Description

On the eve of WWII, the foreign-controlled port of Shanghai was the rendezvous for the twentieth century's most outlandish adventurers, all under the watchful eye of the fabulously wealthy Sir Victor Sassoon. Emily "Mickey" Hahn was a legendary New Yorker journalist whose vivid writing played a crucial role in opening Western eyes to the realities of life in China. At the height of the Depression, Hahn arrived in Shanghai after a disappointing affair with an alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter, convinced she will never love again. After checking in to Sassoon's glamorous Cathay Hotel, Hahn is absorbed into the social swirl of the expats drawn to pre-war China, among them Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, Harold Acton, and a colourful gangster named Morris "Two-Gun" Cohen. But when she meets Zau Sinmay, a Chinese poet from an illustrious family, she discovers the real Shanghai through his eyes: the city of rich colonials, triple agents, opium-smokers, displaced Chinese peasants, and increasingly desperate White Russian and Jewish refugees—a place her innate curiosity will lead her to explore first hand. Danger lurks on the horizon, though, as the brutal Japanese occupation destroys the seductive world of pre-war Shanghai, paving the way for Mao Tse-tung's Communists rise to power.