A Trip to China


Book Description

A Trip to China is an intermediate Chinese language textbook designed for students who have studied one year of college Chinese. Offering a strong foundation in grammar and vocabulary, it is written from the perspective of a foreign exchange student who has just arrived in China for the first time. This thoroughly revised edition not only provides students essential lessons for advancing their Chinese language skills, but also introduces important aspects of contemporary Chinese society and culture. The textbook incorporates suggestions from years of student and teacher feedback, and includes new lessons as well as updated vocabulary glosses, grammar explanations, and exercises. An improved format juxtaposes text and vocabulary on adjacent pages and combines grammar notes and exercises into one easy-to-use volume. Intermediate-level Chinese language textbook Revised edition Single-volume, user-friendly format New lessons and updated vocabulary, grammar explanations, and exercises Introduces students to important aspects of contemporary Chinese society and culture




My First Trip to China


Book Description

Thirty leading China experts—ranging from Perry Link, Andrew Nathan and Jonathan Mirsky to W. J. F. Jenner, Lois Wheeler Snow and Morton Abramowitz—recount their first visits to China, recalling their initial observations and impressions. Most first traveled to China when it was still closed to the world, or was just beginning to open. Their subsequent opinions, writings and policies have shaped the Western relationship with China for more than a generation. This is essential reading for those who want to understand the evolution of Western attitudes toward modern China. At the same time, this collection provides a vivid, personal window onto a fascinating period in Chinese history. “To collect the stories of first encounters with China was a brilliant idea. Not only do we get the benefit of many fascinating insights (and hindsights) from a range of foreigners and overseas Chinese, but these deftly edited views from the outside make up one great story: the history of Communist China. More than a history of one damned thing happening after another, however, this is a history of perceptions, lies, myths and revelations, as much about China as her rulers wish it to be seen, as about those who chose to see China, more and sometimes less clearly, over the last half century.” —Ian Buruma, author of Bad Elements “The opening of China to the world, and then of the world to China, is one of modern history’s most consequential stories. That story is told in a fresh, innovative fashion in this insightful collection of personal experiences related by a distinguished collection of historians, diplomats, journalists, political writers and others who ventured behind the Bamboo Curtain early on. Leading the way are disillusioned leftists stunned by the horrors of the Cultural Revolution and Mao’s Great Leap Forward that they discover. They gradually give way to knowing observers of a tumultuous society determined to become once again a world power. Their accounts form an impressionistic vision of epochal change taking place on the gallop.” —Jim Hoagland, contributing editor, The Washington Post “This is a wistful and absorbing volume, and a fitting remembrance for all of us who once thought that China was going to be easy to study.” —Jonathan Spence, author of The Search for Modern China




Intermediate reader of modern Chinese: Vocabulary, sentence patterns, exercises


Book Description

This textbook, prepared for American students who have already completed two semesters of Chinese, does not "talk down" to the student, and its contemporary subject matter will provoke classroom discussion. Successfully encouraging speaking as well as reading practice, the work progresses from correspondence and dialogue to short essays. Lessons 1 through 10 focus on college life in the United States, 11 through 15 concern political and social issues in contemporary China, and 16 through 20 present biographies of three well-known figures in Chinese intellectual history and analyses of the Chinese Democracy Movement and the Tiananmen Square incident. Lessons 21 and 22 deal with Chinese translations of foreign place names and the Gulf War and are designed to accustom students to reading Chinese newspapers. The lessons in this text offer sufficient material for a two-semester course with five contact hours per week. For the text and vocabulary traditional and simplified characters are juxtaposed. The exercises of each lesson are included in the vocabulary volume. An index to the glossary is included. Audio and video materials are available for use with this text. For further information, contact the Chinese Linguistics Project, 231 Palmer Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. 08544. (609-258-4269). This textbook, prepared for American students who have already completed two semesters of Chinese, does not "talk down" to the student, and its contemporary subject matter will provoke classroom discussion. Successfully encouraging speaking as well as reading practice, the work progresses from correspondence and dialogue to short essays. Lessons 1 through 10 focus on college life in the United States, 11 through 15 concern political and social issues in contemporary China, and 16 through 20 present biographies of three well-known figures in Chinese intellectual history and analyses of the Chinese Democracy Movement and the Tiananmen Square incident. Lessons 21 and 22 deal with Chinese translations of foreign place names and the Gulf War and are designed to accustom students to reading Chinese newspapers. The lessons in this text offer sufficient material for a two-semester course with five contact hours per week. For the text and vocabulary traditional and simplified characters are juxtaposed. The exercises of each lesson are included in the vocabulary volume. An index to the glossary is included. Audio and video materials are available for use with this text. For further information, contact the Chinese Linguistics Project, 231 Palmer Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. 08544. (609-258-4269). This textbook, prepared for American students who have already completed two semesters of Chinese, does not "talk down" to the student, and its contemporary subject matter will provoke classroom discussion. Successfully encouraging speaking as well as reading practice, the work progresses from correspondence and dialogue to short essays. Lessons 1 through 10 focus on college life in the United States, 11 through 15 concern political and social issues in contemporary China, and 16 through 20 present biographies of three well-known figures in Chinese intellectual history and analyses of the Chinese Democracy Movement and the Tiananmen Square incident. Lessons 21 and 22 deal with Chinese translations of foreign place names and the Gulf War and are designed to accustom students to reading Chinese newspapers. The lessons in this text offer sufficient material for a two-semester course with five contact hours per week. For the text and vocabulary traditional and simplified characters are juxtaposed. The exercises of each lesson are included in the vocabulary volume. An index to the glossary is included. Audio and video materials are available for use with this text. For further information, contact the Chinese Linguistics Project, 231 Palmer Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. 08544. (609-258-4269).




China Road


Book Description

Route 312 is the Chinese Route 66. It flows three thousand miles from east to west, passing through the factory towns of the coastal areas, through the rural heart of China, then up into the Gobi Desert, where it merges with the Old Silk Road. The highway witnesses every part of the social and economic revolution that is turning China upside down. In this utterly surprising and deeply personal book, acclaimed National Public Radio reporter Rob Gifford, a fluent Mandarin speaker, takes the dramatic journey along Route 312 from its start in the boomtown of Shanghai to its end on the border with Kazakhstan. Gifford reveals the rich mosaic of modern Chinese life in all its contradictions, as he poses the crucial questions that all of us are asking about China: Will it really be the next global superpower? Is it as solid and as powerful as it looks from the outside? And who are the ordinary Chinese people, to whom the twenty-first century is supposed to belong? Gifford is not alone on his journey. The largest migration in human history is taking place along highways such as Route 312, as tens of millions of people leave their homes in search of work. He sees signs of the booming urban economy everywhere, but he also uncovers many of the country’s frailties, and some of the deep-seated problems that could derail China’s rise. The whole compelling adventure is told through the cast of colorful characters Gifford meets: garrulous talk-show hosts and ambitious yuppies, impoverished peasants and tragic prostitutes, cell-phone salesmen, AIDS patients, and Tibetan monks. He rides with members of a Shanghai jeep club, hitchhikes across the Gobi desert, and sings karaoke with migrant workers at truck stops along the way. As he recounts his travels along Route 312, Rob Gifford gives a face to what has historically, for Westerners, been a faceless country and breathes life into a nation that is so often reduced to economic statistics. Finally, he sounds a warning that all is not well in the Chinese heartlands, that serious problems lie ahead, and that the future of the West has become inextricably linked with the fate of 1.3 billion Chinese people. “Informative, delightful, and powerfully moving . . . Rob Gifford’s acute powers of observation, his sense of humor and adventure, and his determination to explore the wrenching dilemmas of China’s explosive development open readers’ eyes and reward their minds.” –Robert A. Kapp, president, U.S.-China Business Council, 1994-2004




China Ghosts


Book Description

Aching to expand from a couple to a family, Jeff Gammage—a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer—and his wife, Christine, embarked upon a journey that would carry them across a shifting landscape of emotion and through miles of red tape and bureaucratic protocol. On the other side of the world—in the smog-choked city of Changsha in Hunan Province—a silent, stoic little girl was waiting for them: Jin Yu, their new daughter. Now they would have to learn how to fully embrace a life altered beyond recognition by new concerns and responsibilities—and by a love unlike any they'd ever felt before. Alive with insight and feeling, China Ghosts is an eye-opening depiction of the foreign adoption process and a remarkable glimpse into a different culture. Most important, it is a poignant, heartfelt, and intensely intimate chronicle of the making of a family.




A Village with My Name


Book Description

An “immensely readable” journey through modern Chinese history told through the experiences of the author’s extended family (Christian Science Monitor). When journalist Scott Tong moved to Shanghai, his assignment was to start the first full-time China bureau for “Marketplace,” the daily business and economics program on public radio stations across the US. But for Tong the move became much more: an opportunity to reconnect with members of his extended family who’d remained there after his parents fled the communists six decades prior. Uncovering their stories gave him a new way to understand modern China’s defining moments and its long, interrupted quest to go global. A Village with My Name offers a unique perspective on China’s transitions through the eyes of regular people who witnessed such epochal events as the toppling of the Qing monarchy, Japan’s occupation during WWII, exile of political prisoners to forced labor camps, mass death and famine during the Great Leap Forward, market reforms under Deng Xiaoping, and the dawn of the One Child Policy. Tong focuses on five members of his family, who each offer a specific window on a changing country: a rare American-educated girl born in the closing days of the Qing Dynasty, a pioneer exchange student, a toddler abandoned in wartime who later rides the wave of China’s global export boom, a young professional climbing the ladder at a multinational company, and an orphan (the author’s daughter) adopted in the middle of a baby-selling scandal fueled by foreign money. Through their stories, Tong shows us China anew, visiting former prison labor camps on the Tibetan plateau and rural outposts along the Yangtze, exploring the Shanghai of the 1930s, and touring factories across the mainland—providing a compelling and deeply personal take on how China became what it is today. “Vivid and readable . . . The book’s focus on ordinary people makes it refreshingly accessible.” —Financial Times “Tong tells his story with humor, a little snark, [and] lots of love . . . Highly recommended, especially for those interested in Chinese history and family journeys.” —Library Journal (starred review)




China - DK Eyewitness Travel Guide


Book Description

Discover all that China has to offer including the Silk Road, seeing the pandas in Chengdu, experiencing traditional Chinese gardens and visiting China's most iconic cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Includes illustrations and floor plans of key landmarks, street-by-street guides, information on popular sights, and a traveler's guide with tips on hotels, restaurants, local customs, transportation, medical services, museums, and entertainment.




Qing Travelers to the Far West


Book Description

This fundamentally new interpretation of the Qing reveals how Sino-Western engagements transformed traditions, institutions, and networks of communications.




Did Marco Polo Go To China?


Book Description

We all ?know? that Marco Polo went to China, served Ghengis Khan for many years, and returned to Italy with the recipes for pasta and ice cream. But Frances Wood, head of the Chinese Department at the British Library, argues that Marco Polo not only never went to China, he probably never even made it past the Black Sea, where his family conducted business as merchants.Marco Polo's travels from Venice to the exotic and distant East, and his epic book describing his extraordinary adventures, A Description of the World, ranks among the most famous and influential books ever published. In this fascinating piece of historical detection, marking the 700th anniversary of Polo's journey, Frances Wood questions whether Marco Polo ever reached the country he so vividly described. Why, in his romantic and seemingly detailed account, is there no mention of such fundamentals of Chinese life as tea, foot-binding, or even the Great Wall? Did he really bring back pasta and ice cream to Italy? And why, given China's extensive and even obsessive record-keeping, is there no mention of Marco Polo anywhere in the archives?Sure to spark controversy, Did Marco Polo Go to China? tries to solve these and other inconsistencies by carefully examining the Polo family history, Marco Polo's activities as a merchant, the preparation of his book, and the imperial Chinese records. The result is a lucid and readable look at medieval European and Chinese history, and the characters and events that shaped this extraordinary and enduring myth.




China


Book Description

This beautiful guide makes the vast enigma of China accessible to every visitor. Continuing the series' winning formula, this new edition combines in-depth, up-to-date descriptions with dazzling photographs, detailed maps, cutaway illustrations of renowned structures, and a wealth of useful travel tips organized by cities and areas.