"This is a novel born out of the intersection of two eras. The first is a story of the Cultural Revolution, a time of fanaticism, repressed instincts, and tragic fates, similar to the European Middle Ages. The second is a story of today, a time of subverted ethics, fickle sensuality, and every kind of phenomena, even more like the Europe of today. A westerner would have to live four hundred years to experience the vast differences of the two eras, but a Chinese would only need forty years for the experience." Yu Hua's
Brothers, a sprawling, foul-mouthed, comic-historical epic, and the best-selling novel in China's history, is available in English.
[more inside]
posted by escabeche
on Oct 18, 2009 -
25 comments
[Ezra Pound] worked on and for poetry as others might work on a major scientific discovery or a drawn-out military mission. Thus, as Sieburth reminds us in his introduction to The Pisan Cantos, when, on May 3, 1945, Pound was arrested at his home in the hills above Rapallo, he immediately put a small Chinese dictionary and a copy of the Confucian classics in his pocket. Working as he then was on his Confucian translations, he knew that, wherever the military police were taking him, he would need these books.
From
Pound Ascendant by Marjorie Perloff. Ezra Pound's ability as a translator of Chinese poetry has long been disparaged by sinologists, such as George A. Kennedy in
Fenollosa, Pound and the Chinese Character. Other academics have sought to defend him. Two examples are Zhaoming Qian's
Ezra Pound's encounter with Wang Wei: toward the "ideogrammic method" of the Cantos and Stephen Tapscott's
In Praise of Bad Translations: Ezra Pound and the Cultural Work of Translation (pdf). Eric Hayot draws the contours of this long-running debate and explores its significance in
Critical Dreams: Orientalism, Modernism, and the Meaning of Pound's China. Pound's
Cathay in full and a public domain
audiobook version (iTunes link).
posted by Kattullus
on Apr 30, 2009 -
16 comments
Zhang Peng’s elaborate photographs have been called both "beautiful" and "disgusting". You can see some of them
here and
here.
posted by chiraena
on Mar 22, 2009 -
39 comments
In Mamas Kitchen was born in the experience of living in New York where a
bodega exists within blocks of a
Jewish deli which is around the corner from an
Italian salumeria which shares space with
Chinatown which abuts
Soho's gourmet stores. While this speaks of the legendary variety available in New York, it also tells of similarity, for in every bodega, every salumeria is someone shopping for the food that sustains physical life with a
recipe that nourishes our hearts.
posted by netbros
on Dec 15, 2008 -
11 comments
Have Food Will Travel: Pearl River Delta is a travelogue teaser video from
Leonard Shek, a second generation Chinese American from San Francisco. Shek traveled to the Guangdong Province as part of the SF Chinese Culture Center's
In Search of Roots program. While the main purpose of the trips is for Chinese Americans to explore where their parents or grandparents came from, Shek wanted to explore the origins of the food he grew up with.
posted by spec80
on Jul 9, 2008 -
2 comments
Chinese Poems is a simple, no frills site with over 200 classical Chinese poems, mostly from the Tang period. The poems are presented in traditional and simplified chinese characters, pinyin and English translation, both literal and literary. Here's Du Mu's
Drinking Alone:
Outside the window, wind and snow blow straight,
I clutch the stove and open a flask of wine.
Just like a fishing boat in the rain,
Sail down, asleep on the autumn river.
Among other poets featured are
Li Bai (a.k.a. Li Po),
Du Fu and
Wang Wei. As a bonus, here's the entire text of Ezra Pound's
Cathay, most of whom are from Li Bai originals.
posted by Kattullus
on May 19, 2008 -
15 comments
"As American as Apple Pie" is an oft-repeated remark on the innate "Americaness" of the dish - but when was the last time you actually had apple pie? When was the last time you had General Tso's Chicken?
Jennifer 8. Lee gives an interesting talk on the
cultural phenomenon of Chinese Food.
posted by plexi
on Apr 17, 2008 -
91 comments
"Today there is no eggroll..." As posted at
jewschool, your best source for hip heeb hype,
Asian restaurants across [Israel]detante went on a one-day spring roll strike on Tuesday in protest over government plans to rid kitchens of foreign chefs, and said sushi and noodles would be the next items off the menu. [more inside]
posted by ericbop
on Feb 13, 2008 -
87 comments
I researched and put an infopiece together
after recently learning of bile bears here on Metafilter. Even as an animal professional, I was unaware of the existence of bile bears. Now I know:
Bile Bears are live
moon bears that are turned into living crated "bile kegs," the bear's bile being extracted by means of a surgically implanted tube and used to treat conditions as varied as gallstones, kidney disorder, and (of course) impotence. After the long-suffering bear dies, the creature's body parts are then sold off individually for further monetary gain.
Indeed, it is an appalling practice, but worse I learned
the practice is spreading, and
in fact demand for bear products is now affecting the bear population of North America, as
North American bears are being illegally hunted and harvested for their parts to be used
domestically and abroadin the preparation of
traditional Chinese medicine.
posted by mongonikol
on Nov 30, 2006 -
43 comments
The Afghan Elvis (with
YouTube clip),
the Soviet Elvis (
played by Tom Hanks),
the French Elvis (now seeking
Belgian citizenship),
the Mexican Elvis,
the Swedish Elvis,
the Filipino Elvis,
the Chinese Elvis,
the Sikh Elvis,
the Japanese Elvis who became a Prime Minister, and other
foreign Elvii.
posted by jonp72
on Aug 21, 2006 -
20 comments
Google Images Censored in China A picture says 1000 words, and Google.cn is censoring them all. Check out the side-by-side screens of a search for "tiananmen+square" in Google.com and Google.cn images. Looks like a nice place, with little historical significance. You can try the search
yourself. The text on the bottom left is the censorship disclaimer. Very different than our
results. A far cry from Google's
claim that they do not censor results. Nice to know that they stand up to the government here but not abroad.
A good
spoof of the whole thing.
posted by FeldBum
on Jan 30, 2006 -
57 comments
Chinese food around the world. Ethnic Chinese immigrants worldwide took their cuisine with them. New Yorkers are familiar with
Cuban-Chinese restaurants, owned by ethnic Chinese from Cuba who served steam tables of ropa vieja and chuletas right next to the pork fried rice and wonton soup. In Jamaica & Trinidad, Chinese immigrants pioneered jerk chicken lo mein and bok choy & callaloo stirfries.
Or how in Peru, Chinese Peruvians developed their country's restaurant industry and created a national dish,
lomo saltado along the way.
But then there's the Indian-Chinese food popularized by the descendants of ethnic Hakkas who moved to Mumbai in the 18th century. Personally, I'm partial to some
lollipop chicken or
gobi manchurian with a nice, cold Kingfisher.
posted by huskerdont
on Sep 22, 2005 -
57 comments
