Chinese | Chinese
Mar.22.2013
I've had nothing but health problems over the past five weeks. First, an itchy rash on the legs—a bad reaction to food, I'm told. Then the flu and a cold, which left behind a raspy cough as a souvenir that I'm still enjoying. Eyestrain caused headaches and, strangely enough, created a blue line...
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Nov.03.2012
The Chinese man who sued his wife for being 'ugly' and won the case can be seen as a study beyond beauty.
Jian Feng did not know about the lack of pulchritude in his wife. When she delivered an “incredibly ugly” baby, he figured out that this is what she looked like. She had, in fact, undergone...
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Aug.28.2012
I have finished Murder in the High Himalaya: Loyalty, Tragedy and Escape from Tibet by Jonathan Green, but I don’t know where to start.Maybe I should start with current headlines? Two Tibetan teens self-immolate in protest of Chinese control (http://goo.gl/7mRPd). That makes fifty-one...
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May.14.2012
When my last adult nonfiction came out to great reviews, try as WW Norton my publisher might, we could not land a review in the coveted NYTimes. So when my humble bilingual book came out to little fanfare, I thought nothing of it. This morning, roaming around the pages of Amazon, I...
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Jan.16.2012
The Making of a CHINA Photography Book
Behind the publishing scenes with photographer Tom Carter, author of CHINA: Portrait of a People
Part 1: Inauguration and Introduction
It has been nearly 4 years now since my photography book CHINA: Portrait of a People was first published in Hong Kong, and 1....
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Oct.16.2011
There are no statues or plaques to commemorate them, just a few illusive names like China Cove, China Camp remain of their tenure in California. Few of my friends who live in the Monterey Bay Region know that Salinas would not be the agricultural hub (nor Castroville, Watsonville, Pajaro and...
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Sep.16.2011
Like most other teenage girls, I went through a goth phase as a natural blonde the black hair dye brought out my pallid skin to an even more tepid white. And sure, I read every Christopher Pike, Anne Rice and assorted vampire book available. Every book available. But never did I...
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Jul.05.2011
All the hoopla surrounding last week's anniversary of Hong Kong's Handover got me thinking about the many Hong Kong vs. China dichotomies. Which led me to a broader old China vs. new China reverie.
Take Wade-Giles. It's not a British taipan, but rather a system of Mandarin romanization popular from...
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Jun.11.2011
Li Po, painted by the artist Liang Kai (13th C)
My stepmother, a spunky woman, lived well into her late eighties. During the last years of her life she complained about her weakened memory and was concerned that she would lose her mind before her body. "Read poetry." I suggested...
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Apr.21.2011
This must qualify as a rather unusual way to mourn: by cloning Shakespeare. Ten face-lifts, ten months, US$153,000 will give Chinese author Zhang Yiyi the look he desires. He is using money from the royalties on his last book. But why look like the Bard? He says, “Life is a process of...
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