Download or read book A Chinese Bestiary written by Richard E. Strassberg and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-03 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Chinese Bestiary presents a fascinating pageant of mythical creatures from a unique and enduring cosmography written in ancient China. The Guideways through Mountains and Seas, compiled between the fourth and first centuries b.c.e., contains descriptions of hundreds of fantastic denizens of mountains, rivers, islands, and seas, along with minerals, flora, and medicine. The text also represents a wide range of beliefs held by the ancient Chinese. Richard Strassberg brings the Guideways to life for modern readers by weaving together translations from the work itself with information from other texts and recent archaeological finds to create a lavishly illustrated guide to the imaginative world of early China. Unlike the bestiaries of the late medieval period in Europe, the Guideways was not interpreted allegorically; the strange creatures described in it were regarded as actual entities found throughout the landscape. The work was originally used as a sacred geography, as a guidebook for travelers, and as a book of omens. Today, it is regarded as the richest repository of ancient Chinese mythology and shamanistic wisdom. The Guideways may have been illustrated from the start, but the earliest surviving illustrations are woodblock engravings from a rare 1597 edition. Seventy-six of those plates are reproduced here for the first time, and they provide a fine example of the Chinese engraver's art during the late Ming dynasty. This beautiful volume, compiled by a well-known specialist in the field, provides a fascinating window on the thoughts and beliefs of an ancient people, and will delight specialists and general readers alike.
Download or read book A Chinese Bestiary written by Richard E. Strassberg and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Strassberg brings the Guideways to life for modern readers by weaving together translations from the work itself with information from other texts and recent archaeological finds to create a lavishly illustrated guide to the imaginative world of early China.".
Download or read book Bestiary written by K-Ming Chang and published by One World. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • Three generations of Taiwanese American women are haunted by the myths of their homeland in this spellbinding, visceral debut about one family’s queer desires, violent impulses, and buried secrets. “Gorgeous and gorgeously grotesque . . . Every line of this sensuous, magical-realist marvel is utterly alive.”—O: The Oprah Magazine FINALIST FOR THE LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD • LONGLISTED FOR THE VCU CABELL FIRST NOVELIST AWARD • LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY O: The Oprah Magazine • NPR • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews One evening, Mother tells Daughter a story about a tiger spirit who lived in a woman’s body. She was called Hu Gu Po, and she hungered to eat children, especially their toes. Soon afterward, Daughter awakes with a tiger tail. And more mysterious events follow: Holes in the backyard spit up letters penned by her grandmother; a visiting aunt arrives with snakes in her belly; a brother tests the possibility of flight. All the while, Daughter is falling for Ben, a neighborhood girl with strange powers of her own. As the two young lovers translate the grandmother’s letters, Daughter begins to understand that each woman in her family embodies a myth—and that she will have to bring her family’s secrets to light in order to change their destiny. With a poetic voice of crackling electricity, K-Ming Chang is an explosive young writer who combines the wit and fabulism of Helen Oyeyemi with the subversive storytelling of Maxine Hong Kingston. Tracing one family’s history from Taiwan to America, from Arkansas to California, Bestiary is a novel of migration, queer lineages, and girlhood. Praise for Bestiary “[A] vivid, fabulist debut . . . the prose is full of imagery. Chang’s wild story of a family’s tenuous grasp on belonging in the U.S. stands out with a deep commitment to exploring discomfort with the body and its transformations.”—Publishers Weekly
Download or read book Mao s Bestiary written by Liz P. Y. Chee and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-29 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Controversy over the medicinal uses of wild animals in China has erupted around the ethics and efficacy of animal-based drugs, the devastating effect of animal farming on wildlife conservation, and the propensity of these practices to foster zoonotic diseases. In Mao's Bestiary, Liz P. Y. Chee traces the history of the use of medicinal animals in modern China. While animal parts and tissue have been used in Chinese medicine for centuries, Chee demonstrates that the early Communist state expanded and systematized their production and use to compensate for drug shortages, generate foreign investment in high-end animal medicines, and facilitate an ideological shift toward legitimating folk medicines. Among other topics, Chee investigates the craze for chicken blood therapy during the Cultural Revolution, the origins of deer antler farming under Mao and bear bile farming under Deng, and the crucial influence of the Soviet Union and North Korea on Chinese zootherapies. In the process, Chee shows Chinese medicine to be a realm of change rather than a timeless tradition, a hopeful conclusion given current efforts to reform its use of animals.
Download or read book Strange Beasts of China written by Yan Ge and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Editors' Choice and Notable Book of 2021 "Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror of 2021"—The Washington Post From one of the most exciting voices in contemporary Chinese literature, an uncanny and playful novel that blurs the line between human and beast… In the fictional Chinese city of Yong’an, an amateur cryptozoologist is commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. These creatures live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness—save their greenish skin, serrated earlobes, and strange birthmarks. Aided by her elusive former professor and his enigmatic assistant, our narrator sets off to document each beast, and is slowly drawn deeper into a mystery that threatens her very sense of self. Part detective story, part metaphysical enquiry, Strange Beasts of China engages existential questions of identity, humanity, love and morality with whimsy and stylistic verve.
Download or read book Fantastic Creatures of the Mountains and Seas written by Anonymous and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gorgeously illustrated contemporary edition of an ancient Chinese text—for fans of fantastic beasts everywhere Fantastic Creatures of the Mountains and Seas is a new translation for contemporary readers of a classic Chinese text that is at once the geography of an ancient world, a bestiary of mythical creatures, and a book of cultural and medicinal lore. Illustrated throughout with more than 180 two-color drawings that are so sinuous they move on the page, it is a work for lovers of fantasy and mythology, ancient knowledge, fabulous beasts, and inspired art. The beings catalogued within these pages come from the regions of the known world, from the mountains and seas, the Great Wastelands, and the Lands Within the Seas that became China. They include spirits and deities and all sorts of strange creatures—dragons and phoenixes, hybrid beasts, some with human features, some hideous or with a call like wood splitting, or that portend drought or flood or bounty; others whose flesh cures disease or fends off nightmares, or whose pelt guarantees many progeny. Drawn from The Classic of Mountains and Seas, Fantastic Creatures is the work of two members of China's millennial generation, a young scholar and writer once known as the youngest "Genius of Chinese Cultural Studies" and an inspired illustrator trained in China and the United States, who together managed to communicate with the soul of a 4,000-year-old beast and have brought forth its strange beauty. Their work has been rendered into English by the foremost translator of modern Chinese literature in the West.
Download or read book Chinese Mythology written by Anne Birrell and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 1999-04-26 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Chinese Mythology, Anne Birrell provides English translations of some 300 representative myth narratives selected from over 100 classical texts, many of which have never before been translated into any Western language. Organizing the narratives according to themes and motifs common to world mythology, Birrell addresses issues of source, dating, attribution, textural variants, multiforms, and context. Drawing on exhaustive work in comparative mythology, she surveys the development of Chinese myth studies, summarizes the contribution of Chinese and Japanese scholars to the study of Chinese myth since the 1920s, and examines special aspects of traditional approaches to Chinese myth. The result is an unprecedented guide to the study of Chinese myth for specialists and nonspecialists alike.
Download or read book The Classic of Mountains and Seas written by and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This major source of Chinese mythology (third century BC to second century AD) contains a treasure trove of rare data and colorful fiction about the mythical figures, rituals, medicine, natural history, and ethnic peoples of the ancient world. The Classic of Mountains and Seas explores 204 mythical figures such as the gods Foremost, Fond Care, and Yellow, and goddesses Queen Mother of the West and Girl Lovely, as well as many other figures unknown outside this text. This eclectic Classic also contains crucial information on early medicine (with cures for impotence and infertility), omens to avert catastrophe, and rites of sacrifice, and familiar and unidentified plants and animals. It offers a guided tour of the known world in antiquity, moving outwards from the famous mountains of central China to the lands “beyond the seas.” Translated with an introduction and notes by Anne Birrell.
Download or read book Dragons Gods Spirits from Chinese Mythology written by Tao Tao Liu Sanders and published by Hachette Children's Books Australia. This book was released on 1981 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Book of Beasts written by Elizabeth Morrison and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2019 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A celebration of the visual contributions of the bestiary--one of the most popular types of illuminated books during the Middle Ages--and an exploration of its lasting legacy. Brimming with lively animals both real and fantastic, the bestiary was one of the great illuminated manuscript traditions of the Middle Ages. Encompassing imaginary creatures such as the unicorn, siren, and griffin; exotic beasts including the tiger, elephant, and ape; as well as animals native to Europe like the beaver, dog, and hedgehog, the bestiary is a vibrant testimony to the medieval understanding of animals and their role in the world. So iconic were the stories and images of the bestiary that its beasts essentially escaped from the pages, appearing in a wide variety of manuscripts and other objects, including tapestries, ivories, metalwork, and sculpture. With over 270 color illustrations and contributions by twenty-five leading scholars, this gorgeous volume explores the bestiary and its widespread influence on medieval art and culture as well as on modern and contemporary artists like Pablo Picasso and Damien Hirst. Published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center May 14 to August 18, 2019.
Download or read book Illustrated Myths Legends of China written by Huang Dehai and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2020-01-14 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illustrated Myths & Legends of China is a profusely illustrated collection of 32 carefully chosen tales of Chinese myth and legend. With more than 100 illustrations drawn over two thousand years of all aspects of Chinese art—including painting, pottery and porcelain, jade, bronzes and tomb decoration—Illustrated Myths & Legends of China is a vividly written collection of tales of the universe's emergence from chaos, the creation of the world in which the first Chinese people appeared and a depiction of how the many strands of myth and legend have influenced Chinese culture. An impressive array of heroic figures and rich storytelling are at the center of these tales including: Pangu opening heaven to save the earth from chaos. Nuwa creating man and repairing the vault of heaven. Fuxi fixing the calendar by observing the heavens. Shennong creating agriculture. Cangjie inventing writing thus creating the basis for Chinese culture. Fragments of these myths and legends are found in Chinese paintings, wood artifacts, relief carvings, and lacquer art which are illustrated in this book along with informative text. Anyone interested in Chinese culture, mythology, history or art will find this collection a must-have volume for their bookshelf.
Download or read book THE EPICS OF CHINA written by Rinchindorji and published by American Academic Press. This book was released on 2020-02-05 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Epics of China introduces selected epic traditions of China, providing information about them, insights into their literary traditions, and theories concerning their origins, historical development, cultural context, structure, bards, and audiences. The book deals with both historical epics and contemporary “living” epic traditions. Examples are drawn from several of China’s fifty-five official ethnic minority peoples, focusing on epics from various historical or present-day Mongol subgroups of North China, most notably Tibetan and Kirgiz, as well as epics from peoples of Southwest China, such as the Zhuang, Yi, Miao, Dong, and Dai. Several chapters deal, too, with the early Turkic epics that once circulated in parts of northern China and Central Asia. On the whole, the book’s chapters are grouped into three sections: early epics, small and medium-length epics, and the great heroic epics Jangar and Manas. Epics from the North are mainly heroic narratives focusing on the exploits of martial heroes. They feature story lines centered on bride-kidnapping, trials undergone by the suitor, and encounters with multi-headed demons (Mongol mangus), one-eyed giants, and female demons of the underworld. Southern epics focus on tales of how early deities created the sky, earth, water and land forms, and living beings, often listing specific plants, animals, and local tribes. Some of these epics involve female creator figures, and many play out in a dynamic process that moves through phases of initial creation, destruction by fire, a second creation, a destructive flood, and the ultimate re-creation of the world as we now know it. There are also heroic epics from southern China, most notably from the Yi, Dai, and Miao.
Download or read book An Eclectic Bestiary written by Birgit Spengler and published by transcript Verlag. This book was released on 2019-06-30 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays, poetry, and visual art collected here consider the more-than-human cultures of our multispecies world. At a time when humanity's impact has put our planet's ecosystems into great jeopardy, the book explores literary, sonic, and visual imaginaries that feature encounters between and across a variety of living creatures: beetles and bisons, people and pigeons, trees and spiderwebs, vegetables and violets, orchards and octopi, vampires and tricksters. Offering a wide range of critical and creative contributions to Human Animal Studies, Critical Plant Studies and the Nonhuman Turn, the volume seeks to foster new ways of imagining a more »response-able« coexistence on our shared Earth.
Download or read book Of Mountains and Seas written by Xingjian Gao and published by Chinese University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of Mountains and Seas is a fictional play that weaves together legendary characters from the classic Chinese text, Shanhaijing. The well-known mythical characters are presented as ordinary individuals who, despite their divine powers, struggle with the misadventures and emotional consequences of life. The gods appear innocent and childish, comically mixing up traditional social roles and behavior. Gao Xingjian infuses his play with his trademark unconventionality and esthetic flair, indulging in a considerable amount of inventive and open staging that allows directors to add their own creative stamp. The spectacular, eccentric characters make this play a colorful dramatic experience.
Download or read book The Urban Bestiary written by Lyanda Lynn Haupt and published by Little, Brown Spark. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of Crow Planet, a compelling journey into the secret lives of the wild animals at our back door. In The Urban Bestiary, acclaimed nature writer Lyanda Lynn Haupt journeys into the heart of the everyday wild, where coyotes, raccoons, chickens, hawks, and humans live in closer proximity than ever before. Haupt's observations bring compelling new questions to light: Whose "home" is this? Where does the wild end and the city begin? And what difference does it make to us as humans living our everyday lives? In this wholly original blend of science, story, myth, and memoir, Haupt draws us into the secret world of the wild creatures that dwell among us in our urban neighborhoods, whether we are aware of them or not. With beautiful illustrations and practical sidebars on everything from animal tracking to opossum removal, The Urban Bestiary is a lyrical book that awakens wonder, delight, and respect for the urban wild, and our place within it.
Download or read book Tales of the Teahouse Retold written by Katherine Liang Chew and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2002 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tales of the Teahouse Retold is based on the author's original translation of Feng Shen Yan Yi, an important volume of Chinese mythology first published during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). It is the story of the overthrow the Shang Dynasty (circa 1766-1122 BC) and the founding of the Chou Dynasty (1122-249 BC). Combining historical facts, folklore, mythology, and legends, these tales describe a time when gods and men, beasts and monsters, and spirits and specters mingled with each other in peace and war. The saga begins when King Zhou of Shang offends the Snail Goddess, who sends three specters to bewitch the king in retribution. The kingdom falls into chaos and civil war ensues, with gods and other supernatural beings taking sides. In the end, many of the slain heroes are invested as gods. For centuries, the tale was told in successive story-telling sessions as teahouse entertainment. The author has faithfully kept to the original style and ambience in retelling these tales. Tales of the Teahouse Retold will be of interest to fans of oriental mythology, philosophy, and literature. It is suitable for recreational reading as well as supplemental reading for students of Chinese history and culture.
Download or read book Collecting China written by Vimalin Rujivacharakul and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2011 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collecting China is a unique collection of essays that brings together theories of materiality and what collecting has meant to various peoples over time. Collecting China grew out of a simple question: how does a thing become Chinese? Fifteen essays explore this question from different angles, ranging from close examination of world-renowned private collections to critical reinterpretations of historical writings.
