Download or read book Exemplary Women of Early China written by Anne Behnke Kinney and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-18 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When should a woman disobey her father, contradict her husband, or shape the policy of a ruler? According to the Lienü zhuan, or Categorized Biographies of Women, it is not only appropriate but necessary for women to offer counsel when fathers, husbands, sons, and rulers stray from virtue. The earliest Chinese text devoted to the moral education of women, the Lienü zhuan was compiled by Liu Xiang (79–8 B.C.E.) at the end of the Han dynasty (202 B.C.E.–9 C.E.) and recounts the deeds of both virtuous and wicked women. Informed by early legends, fictionalized historical accounts, and formal speeches on statecraft, the text taught generations of Chinese women to cultivate filial piety and maternal kindness and undertake such practices as suicide and self-mutilation to preserve chastity and reform wayward men. The Lienü zhuan’s stories inspired artists for a millennium and found their way into local and dynastic histories. An innovative work for its time, the text remains a critical tool for mapping women’s social, political, and domestic roles at a formative time in China’s development.
Download or read book The Good Women of China written by Xinran and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2008-11-26 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Deng Xiaoping’s efforts to “open up” China took root in the late 1980s, Xinran recognized an invaluable opportunity. As an employee for the state radio system, she had long wanted to help improve the lives of Chinese women. But when she was given clearance to host a radio call-in show, she barely anticipated the enthusiasm it would quickly generate. Operating within the constraints imposed by government censors, “Words on the Night Breeze” sparked a tremendous outpouring, and the hours of tape on her answering machines were soon filled every night. Whether angry or muted, posing questions or simply relating experiences, these anonymous women bore witness to decades of civil strife, and of halting attempts at self-understanding in a painfully restrictive society. In this collection, by turns heartrending and inspiring, Xinran brings us the stories that affected her most, and offers a graphically detailed, altogether unprecedented work of oral history.
Download or read book Wild Swans written by Jung Chang and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-06-20 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history—a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten million copies sold around the world, now with a new introduction from the author. An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members: her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine; her mother’s struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents’ experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a “barefoot doctor,” a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving—and ultimately uplifting—detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history.
Download or read book Big Sister Little Sister Red Sister written by Jung Chang and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They were the most famous sisters in China. As the country battled through a hundred years of wars, revolutions and seismic transformations, the three Soong sisters from Shanghai were at the center of power, and each of them left an indelible mark on history. Red Sister, Ching-ling, married the 'Father of China', Sun Yat-sen, and rose to be Mao's vice-chair. Little Sister, May-ling, became Madame Chiang Kai-shek, first lady of pre-Communist Nationalist China and a major political figure in her own right. Big Sister, Ei-ling, became Chiang's unofficial main adviser - and made herself one of China's richest women. All three sisters enjoyed tremendous privilege and glory, but also endured constant mortal danger. They showed great courage and experienced passionate love, as well as despair and heartbreak. They remained close emotionally, even when they embraced opposing political camps and Ching-ling dedicated herself to destroying her two sisters' worlds. Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister is a gripping story of love, war, intrigue, bravery, glamour and betrayal, which takes us on a sweeping journey from Canton to Hawaii to New York, from exiles' quarters in Japan and Berlin to secret meeting rooms in Moscow, and from the compounds of the Communist elite in Beijing to the corridors of power in democratic Taiwan. In a group biography that is by turns intimate and epic, Jung Chang reveals the lives of three extraordinary women who helped shape twentieth-century China.
Download or read book Women and the Family in Chinese History written by Patricia Buckley Ebrey and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a collection of essays by one of the leading scholars of Chinese history, it explores features of the Chinese family, gender and kinship systems and places them in a historical context.
Download or read book Holding up Half the Sky written by Shirley Mow and published by The Feminist Press at CUNY. This book was released on 2004-04-01 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These 21 dynamic articles by Chinese women scholars explore the limitations on women's lives in premodern China, detail their involvement in the great political movements of the 20th century and examine how new laws have improved women's status, yet have left them open to exploitation as China enters the global economy. With statistics and reports otherwise unavailable, they give a refreshing outlook on China's women that is breathtaking both for the problems it confronts and for the spirit of struggle it embodies.
Download or read book Notable Women of China written by Barbara Bennett Peterson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The collaborative effort of nearly 100 China scholars from around the world, this unique one-volume reference provides 89 in-depth biographies of important Chinese women from the fifth century B.C.E to the early twentieth century.
Download or read book 100 Celebrated Chinese Women written by Zhuozhi Cai and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Wu Zhao written by N. Harry Rothschild and published by Pearson. This book was released on 2008 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story chronicles Wu Zhao's humble beginnings as the daughter of a provincial official and follows her path to the inner palace, where she improbably rose from a fifth-ranked concubine to emperor. Using Buddhist rhetoric, architecture, court rituals, and a network of "cruel officials" to cow her many opponents in court, Wu Zhao inaugurated a new dynasty in 690, the Zhou. She ruled as emperor for fifteen years, proving eminently competent in the art of governance, balancing factions in court, staving off the encroachment of Turks and Tibetans, and fostering the state's economic growth.
Download or read book Stories of the Sahara written by Sanmao, and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-11-14 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book that has captivated millions of Chinese readers, translated into English for the very first time. 'Hypnotic . . . A record of one person's fierce refusal to follow a path laid down for her by the rest of the world' Tash Aw, Paris Review Books of the Year Sanmao: author, adventurer, pioneer. Born in China in 1943, she moved from Chongqing to Taiwan, Spain to Germany, the Canary Islands to Central America, and, for several years in the 1970s, to the Sahara. Stories of the Sahara invites us into Sanmao's extraordinary life in the desert: her experiences of love and loss, freedom and peril, all told with a voice as spirited as it is timeless. At a period when China was beginning to look beyond its borders, Sanmao fired the imagination of millions and inspired a new generation. With an introduction by Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti, this is an essential collection from one of the twentieth century's most iconic figures. 'Every story conveys Sanmao's infectious capacity for wonder' Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti 'Has endured for generations of young Taiwanese and Chinese women' New York Times 'Ground-breaking' Geographical 'A remarkable and brave book. Sanmao was a freewheeling feminist who broke all the rules and did so with a gleeful, mischievous smile' David Eimer, South China Morning Post
Download or read book Famous Women of China written by Ernst Faber and published by . This book was released on 1890 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fifth Chinese Daughter written by Jade Snow Wong and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2019-11-21 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jade Snow Wong’s autobiography portrays her coming-of-age in San Francisco's Chinatown, offering a rich depiction of her immigrant family and her strict upbringing, as well as her rebellion against family and societal expectations for a Chinese woman. Originally published in 1950, Fifth Chinese Daughter was one of the most widely read works by an Asian American author in the twentieth century. The US State Department even sent its charismatic young author on a four-month speaking tour throughout Asia. Cited as an influence by prominent Chinese American writers such as Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston, Fifth Chinese Daughter is a foundational work in Asian American literature. It was written at a time when few portraits of Asian American life were available, and no similar works were as popular and broadly appealing. This new edition includes the original illustrations by Kathryn Uhl and features an introduction by Leslie Bow, who critically examines the changing reception and enduring legacy of the book and offers insight into Wong’s life as an artist and an ambassador of Chinese American culture.
Download or read book The Lost Daughter of Happiness written by Geling Yan and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2002 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of China's most acclaimed writers, this is an unflinching, erotic and exciting tale of forbidden love in the gold rush era of turn-of-the-century San Francisco. Geling Yan traces the lives of two individuals separated by prejudice and mistrust, but bound forever by their passion for one another. Fusang is a Chinese girl shanghaied from her village in China, brought to California and sold into the seedy underworld of prostitution. Soon she falls into an obsessive relationship with Chris, an 11-year-old boy. As years pass, numerous barriers are placed between the lovers - by Chris's wealthy family, and most menacingly by Fusang's murderous pimp, who bestrides Chinatown with a clutch of daggers at his waist.
Download or read book The Invisibility Cloak written by Ge Fei and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lightly surreal story of misfortune, menace, and high-end stereo equipment in the cutthroat, capitalistic world of modern China. An NYRB Classics Original The hero of The Invisibility Cloak lives in contemporary Beijing—where everyone is doing their best to hustle up the ladder of success while shouldering an ever-growing burden of consumer goods—and he’s a loser. Well into his forties, he’s divorced (and still doting on his ex), childless, and living with his sister (her husband wants him out) in an apartment at the edge of town with a crack in the wall the wind from the north blows through while he gets by, just, by making customized old-fashioned amplifiers for the occasional rich audio-obsessive. He has contempt for his clients and contempt for himself. The only things he really likes are Beethoven and vintage speakers. Then an old friend tips him off about a special job—a little risky but just don’t ask too many questions—and can it really be that this hopeless loser wins? This provocative and seriously funny exercise in the social fantastic by the brilliantly original Ge Fei, one of China’s finest living writers, is among the most original works of fiction to come out of China in recent years. It is sure to appeal to readers of Haruki Murakami and other fabulists of contemporary irreality.
Download or read book Emperor Wu Zhao and Her Pantheon of Devis Divinities and Dynastic Mothers written by N. Harry Rothschild and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wu Zhao (624–705), better known as Wu Zetian or Empress Wu, is the only woman to have ruled China as emperor over the course of its 5,000-year history. How did she—in a predominantly patriarchal and androcentric society—ascend the dragon throne? Exploring a mystery that has confounded scholars for centuries, this multifaceted history suggests that China's rich pantheon of female divinities and eminent women played an integral part in the construction of Wu Zhao's sovereignty. Wu Zhao deftly deployed language, symbol, and ideology to harness the cultural resonance, maternal force, divine energy, and historical weight of Buddhist devis, Confucian exemplars, Daoist immortals, and mythic goddesses, establishing legitimacy within and beyond the confines of Confucian ideology. Tapping into powerful subterranean reservoirs of female power, Wu Zhao built a pantheon of female divinities carefully calibrated to meet her needs at court. Her pageant was promoted in scripted rhetoric, reinforced through poetry, celebrated in theatrical productions, and inscribed on steles. Rendered with deft political acumen and aesthetic flair, these affiliations significantly enhanced Wu Zhao's authority and cast her as the human vessel through which the pantheon's divine energy flowed. Her strategy is a model of political brilliance and proof that medieval Chinese women enjoyed a more complex social status than previously known.
Download or read book Women the Family and Peasant Revolution in China written by Kay Ann Johnson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-02-15 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kay Ann Johnson provides much-needed information about women and gender equality under Communist leadership. She contends that, although the Chinese Communist Party has always ostensibly favored women's rights and family reform, it has rarely pushed for such reforms. In reality, its policies often have reinforced the traditional role of women to further the Party's predominant economic and military aims. Johnson's primary focus is on reforms of marriage and family because traditional marriage, family, and kinship practices have had the greatest influence in defining and shaping women's place in Chinese society. Conversant with current theory in political science, anthropology, and Marxist and feminist analysis, Johnson writes with clarity and discernment free of dogma. Her discussions of family reform ultimately provide insights into the Chinese government's concern with decreasing the national birth rate, which has become a top priority. Johnson's predictions of a coming crisis in population control are borne out by the recent increase in female infanticide and the government abortion campaign.
Download or read book Women Shall Not Rule written by Keith McMahon and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2013-06-06 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chinese emperors guaranteed male successors by taking multiple wives, in some cases hundreds and even thousands. Women Shall Not Rule offers a fascinating history of imperial wives and concubines, especially in light of the greatest challenges to polygamous harmony—rivalry between women and their attempts to engage in politics. Besides ambitious empresses and concubines, these vivid stories of the imperial polygamous family are also populated with prolific emperors, wanton women, libertine men, cunning eunuchs, and bizarre cases of intrigue and scandal among rival wives. Keith McMahon, a leading expert on the history of gender in China, draws upon decades of research to describe the values and ideals of imperial polygamy and the ways in which it worked and did not work in real life. His rich sources are both historical and fictional, including poetic accounts and sensational stories told in pornographic detail. Displaying rare historical breadth, his lively and fascinating study will be invaluable as a comprehensive and authoritative resource for all readers interested in the domestic life of royal palaces across the world.
