Bøger om Kina

ZZ is an anomaly in a world of power and money. His name is Zhang Zhan, which connotes 'stretching' and 'spreading of wings', and his parents are fiercely ambitious minor party officials, climbing the lower rungs of what they see as a golden ladder to influence and success. ZZ is their only son and what they need was a perfect son, an aspiring and formidable prop, driven to climb the ladder himself and become a powerful official. But ZZ doesn't care. He is the misfit who rejects it all. They didn't ask about his thoughts, or care about his feelings and he will not set foot on that ladder, nor steady it for his parents. Instead, all he wants to do is tear it apart and burn it to ashes. He knows it has to be done and also knows it will never happen. There are ladders everywhere and people clamoring to climb them.This is a novel of Chinese classes, the rich and also the impoverished who dream of what ZZ, in his funny blue hat knitted by his grandmother, has thrown out like garbage. It takes the form of a search for him conducted by the mother of one of ZZ's former classmates, but she finds much more than the boy...

This book explores first-hand Dunhuang manuscripts from a period of over 700 years, from 220 to 960, and as such makes a major contribution to passing on and promoting ancient Chinese culture. Perfectly combining four ingredients: an accessible writing style; a comprehensive set of typical examples and pictures; sound field research and culturally stimulating approaches; and authentically archaeological and philological results, this thorough and engaging book appeals to all the readers undertaking Dunhuang studies.

In one of the only works drawing on interviews with both Uyghurs and Han in Xinjiang, China, and postcolonial perspectives on ethnicity, nation, and race, this book explores how forms of banal racism underpin ideas of self and other, assimilation and modernisation, in this restive region. Significant international attention has condemned the CCP¿s use of forced internment in ¿re-education¿ camps, as well as its campaign of cultural assimilation. In this wider context, this book focuses upon the ways in which ethnic difference is writ through the banalities of everyday life: who one trusts, what one eats, where one shops, even what time one¿s clocks are set to (Xinjiang being perhaps one of the only places where different ethnic groups live by different time-zones).Alongside chapters focusing upon the coercive ¿re-education¿ campaign, and the devastating Ürümchi Riots in 2009, this book also unpacks how discourses of Chinese nationalism romanticise empire and promote racialised ways of thinking about Chineseness, how cultural assimilation (¿Sinicisation¿) is being justified through the rhetoric of ¿modernisation¿, how Islamic sites and Uyghur culture are being secularised and commodified for tourist consumption. We also explore Uyghur and Han perspectives, including of each other, giving insight into the diversity of opinions within both groups.Based on many years of living and working in China, and fieldwork and interviews specifically in Xinjiang, this book will be valuable to a variety of readers interested in the region and Uyghur and Han identity, ethnic/national identities in contemporary China, and racisms in non-western contexts.

Drawing from a rich body of archival documents, case studies and interviews, this book explores the ways in which graphic designers in China sought to establish graphic design as a profession and discipline from the 1980s to the present day. Yun Wang traces the impact of cultural, economic and social conditions on China's developing design industry in a period of rapid transformation, focusing on Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen as industry centres. From the influence of the newly implemented reform and opening up policy in 1978, to membership of the World Trade Organization in 2001, and international events such as the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Wang maps the increased demand for design talent and the evolution of a creative industry. This book provides a critical and extensively researched narrative of how graphic design developed locally and regionally, through practice, in education and within the publishing landscape, and pays particular attention to the ways in which designers in different cities in the People's Republic of China intersected with international networks.Including material from interviews with over 50 designers and other stakeholders, archival research into graphic work, design journals and exhibition catalogues, and 100 illustrations and photographs throughout, this book provides an in-depth exploration of graphic design developments in recent decades. It also features personal and institutional accounts, in addition to the author's unique insight and reflections on the growing design industry in contemporary China.

In this detailed and engrossing travelogue, James Huston Edgar takes the reader on a journey through the heart of China's Mantze region, exploring its customs, traditions, and way of life. With rich descriptions of the landscape, people, and culture, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in China and its history.This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Experience the drama and devastation of the Boxer Rebellion through the eyes of celebrated French writer Pierre Loti. Myrta Leonora Jones's elegant translation captures the poetry and power of Loti's firsthand account of the siege of Peking. This book is a testament to the human struggle for freedom and highlights the precarious relationship between China and the Western world in the early 20th century.This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This book offers a first-hand account of the Boxer Rebellion in China in the early 20th century. Robert Coltman provides insights into the political and social climate in China at the time, as well as the experiences of foreign imperialists and Christian missionaries. This book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the history of China and imperialism.This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This book offers a selection of translations and commentaries on key texts in the Confucian canon, including the Analects, the Doctrine of the Mean, and the Great Learning. With contributions from prominent scholars such as James Legge and James Confucius, it provides readers with a comprehensive introduction to the Confucian tradition. Students of Chinese philosophy or literature will find this volume an invaluable resource.This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

"In the last four decades, China's economy and living standards have completely transformed. Wang Feng charts the origins, forces, and consequences of this meteoric rise in prosperity, shifting our perspective toward rural populations as drivers of global change, and anticipating possible headwinds for future growth"--

A CHOICE OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC TITLERestores China's place in forest history The disappearance of China's naturally occurring forests is one of the most significant environmental shifts in the country's history, one often blamed on imperial demand for lumber. China's early modern forest history is typically viewed as a centuries-long process of environmental decline, culminating in a nineteenth-century social and ecological crisis. Pushing back against this narrative of deforestation, Ian Miller charts the rise of timber plantations between about 1000 and 1700, when natural forests were replaced with anthropogenic ones. Miller demonstrates that this form of forest management generally rested on private ownership under relatively distant state oversight and taxation. He further draws on in-depth case studies of shipbuilding and imperial logging to argue that this novel landscape was not created through simple extractive pressures, but by attempts to incorporate institutional and ecological complexity into a unified imperial state.Miller uses the emergence of anthropogenic forests in south China to rethink both temporal and spatial frameworks for Chinese history and the nature of Chinese empire. Because dominant European forestry models do not neatly overlap with the non-Western world, China's history is often left out of global conversations about them; Miller's work rectifies this omission and suggests that in some ways, China's forest system may have worked better than the more familiar European institutions.The open access publication of this book was made possible by a grant from the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation.

Assesses the broad impact of China's influential leader The Xi Jinping Effect explores the relationship between the People's Republic of China's current "paramount leader"?arguably the most powerful figure since Mao Zedong (1893?1976)?and multiple areas of political and social transformation. It illuminates not just policy arenas in which his leadership of China has had an outsized impact but also areas where his initiatives have faltered due to unintended consequences, international pushback, or the divergence of local priorities from those of the central government. Collectively, the book's chapters document the ways in which Xi's neo-totalitarianism has dismantled Reform Era legacies, while reconfiguring governance and rewiring China's global connections. Contributions by anthropologists, historians, sociologists, and political scientists consider such issues as Xi's anticorruption campaign and obsession with ideological governance, state surveillance, the status of ethnic minorities and migrants, income inequality, and China's relations with Taiwan and Southeast Asia.Open access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295752822

Brings a borderlands perspective to the history of China From the eighth to thirteenth centuries along China's rugged southern periphery, trade in tribute articles and an interregional horse market thrived. These ties dramatically affected imperial China's relations with the emerging kingdoms in its borderlands. Local chiefs before the tenth century had considered the control of such contacts an important aspect of their political authority. Rulers and high officials at the Chinese court valued commerce in the region, where rare commodities could be obtained and vassal kingdoms showed less belligerence than did northern ones. Trade routes along this Southwest Silk Road traverse the homelands of numerous non-Han peoples.This book investigates the principalities, chiefdoms, and market nodes that emerged and flourished in the network of routes that passed through what James A. Anderson calls the "Dong world," a collection of Tai-speaking polities in upland valleys. The process of state formation that arose through trade coincided with the differentiation of peoples who were later labeled as distinct ethnicities. Exploration of this formative period at the nexus of the Chinese empire, the Dali kingdom, and the Vietnamese kingdom reveals a nuanced picture of the Chinese province of Yunnan and its southern neighbors preceding Mongol efforts to impose a new administrative order in the region. These communities shared a regional identity and a lively history of interaction well before northern occupiers classified its inhabitants as "national minorities" of China.

How animal conservation became a defense against cultural erasure China today positions itself as a model of state-led environmentalism. On the country's arid rangelands, grassland conservation policies have targeted pastoralists and their animals, blamed for causing desertification. State environmentalism?in the form of grazing bans, enclosure, and resettlement?has transformed the lives of many ethnic minority herders in China's western borderlands.However, this book shows how such policies have been contested and negotiated on the ground, in the context of the state's intensifying nation-building project. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Alasha, in the far west of China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Thomas White describes how ethnic Mongols have foregrounded the local breed of Bactrian camel, mobilizing ideas of heritage and resource conservation to defend pastoralism.In exploring how the greening of the Chinese state affects the entangled lives of humans and animals at the margins of the nation-state, this study is both a political biography of the Bactrian camel and an innovative work of political ecology addressing critical questions of rural livelihoods, conservation, and state power.

From ancient gameboards to Honor of Kings , games as cultural agents Games as global and connected phenomena have been examined in the rising scholarly field of game studies, but relatively little has been published on the history of games and gaming in China. Weiqi (a.k.a. Go), one of the world's oldest board games, originated in China; a variety of Chinese card, dice, board, sport, and performance games have been developed over the millennia; and China is quickly becoming a major player in the contemporary digital game industry. In exploring games and practices of play across social and historical contexts, this volume examines representations of gender, class, materiality, and imaginations of the nation in Chinese and Sinophone contexts, while addressing ways in which games inhabit, represent, disrupt, or transform cultural and social practices. Both analog and computer games are represented in analyses that draw connections between the traditional and the modern and between local or regional and higher-order economic, cultural, and political structures. Among the topics explored are rock carvings of board games, weiqi cultures, scholars' and courtesans' games, gambling, games based on literature, video-game politics, and appropriation of Chinese culture in video games.The open access publication of this book was made possible by a grant from the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation.

Based on seventy-five oral history interviews, Dreaming the New Woman uncovers the voices of Chinese women who attended Protestant missionary schools for girls in China in the early twentieth century. By focusing on the experience of women who attended these schools, Jennifer Bond provides fresh perspectives on the role of Christianity in the emergence of the Chinese New Woman. The book explores how girls negotiated overlapping school, patriotic, Christian, gendered, and Communist identities during China's turbulent twentieth century of wars and revolutions.