Cultures - China

Marlowe & Company. Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 1998. First Edition. Hardcover. 1569247420 . Ex-library book with usual ex-lib type markings. Pages are clean & tight. Last page has been taped at spine. Jacket has light scuffing & light edge/corner wear. ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 322 pages; "In the late 1940's, the Chen family gathered for a dusk-time ritual at their hillside home in Berkeley, California to "watch the sun go home" to their native China. Having fled persecution in Chungking during the Sino-Japanese war (1937-45) , the Chens settled briefly in Peking, then escaped to the U. S. During the intensifying civil war. Repatriated and classified as "national bourgeois", they were yet to endure the violence of the Cultural Revolution - separation, imprisonment, internal exile, and "re-education" in the "cadre schools" designed for ideological criminals. Chen Chen was labeled a counter-revolutionary, and after making disparaging remarks about Mao's wife, suffered beating, starvation and solitary confinement with her three-month-old baby. For the next seven years, she was barred from being a musician and writer and assigned to agricultural work. Come Watch the Sun Go Home powerfully evokes the viciousness and absurdity of a society in thrall to totalitarian hysteria and the manifold ironies awaiting Chen upon her "rehabilitation" and return to professional life. While taking part in an educational exchange in the United States in 1989, the author learned of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Chen's condemnation of the regime was broadcast on national television, and she has yet to return to China and her children. This defiant woman's story tells of a life spent in two worlds, one lived in the East and the other in the West; one of prosperity and privilege, one of poverty amid the vicissitudes of history. [635] . more information

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Peking: Foreign Languages Press. Near Fine in Very Good dust jacket. 1978. Third Edition. Hardcover. Originally published in 1958. Near fine hardcover with light edgewear & corner bumping, very clean, light soiling outer edge of pages. Interior pages clean & tight, beautiful illustrations by Liu Tan-Chai. DJ has minor edgewear & scuffing, light soiling, a few tiny tears & one longer tear (about 2 1/2") on front. Not clipped, no price on jacket. "This famous autobiographical novel exercised a most striking influence on China's youth after it first appeared in 1931. It is a searing exposure of a large disintegrating feudal household in China's turbulent 1920's; of love affairs and broken marriages; of stupid cruelties and hyprcritical conventions. , and of an awakening younger generation that fights back, breaking away from the old and decadent. " ; 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall . more information

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Viking/Penguin. Fine with no dust jacket. 1994. First Edition. Softcover. Uncorrected Proof, published prior to the first edition. Softcover in near fine, very light wear to edges/corners, very light soiling to back and outer edge of pages, light creasing to covers/corners. 268 pages. From Publishers Weekly: "This superbly told saga of family loyalties and disaffections reads more like a novel than an actual chronicle of Chan Sam, a Chinese peasant who left his family in 1913 to seek his fortune in the "Gold Mountain" of western Canada. There, though always planning to return to them, he set up a second family with the beautiful, headstrong concubine he brought with him from China. The story is narrated in the third person by his granddaughter, a Canadian economist, who creates an unsentimental portrait of both families: of Huangbo, the patient "home-wife" who raised their son and the two children the concubine, May-ying, left behind, and survived the Japanese occupation of China and the rule of Mao Tse-tung; of May-ying, whose earnings as a waitress in west coast teahouses often supported the struggling Chan Sam, his family in China and her own two Canadian-born children. And we learn of the fate of all the children, especially May-ying's daughter Hing, the author's mother. Although Chan Sam never fulfilled his dream of returning to his home-family, after his death, Hing and the author made the pilgrimage to China to embrace the relatives they had never known. "; 000159; 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall . more information

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Houghton Mifflin. Very Good+. 1986. First Edition. Softcover. 0395418372 . Very nice, clean, tight condition. Pages are clean and unmarked. Cover has some scuffing and very light corner wear. Profusely illustrated. ; 4to 11" - 13" tall; " ..... This beautifully written and well-organized book may be enjoyed in its entirety. The author explores 11 areas of Chinese life: remembering (emperors) , believing, marrying, meditating, eating, living, working, correcting, understanding (the body and the universe) , creating (fine arts) and trading. Lovely and recent color photographs embellish each chapter, whether they show a family eating a simple meal or the traditional customs of a remote region. Pencil and charcoal drawings from past centuries show a variety of scenes also. The chapters are well-defined in scope and manageable in length. Clearly and in a straightforward style, Clayre blends the realities of modern China with a great deal of information about its past. The author acknowledges his debt to the Chinese authorities for granting freedom of movement throughout China and for the assistance of the Chinese news services. He has been careful not to offend his hosts; consequently, the tone of the book reflects a definite party line, and the brutal subjugation of the people to the current political ruling body is not emphasized. .." [919] . more information

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William Morrow. Fine in Near Fine dust jacket. 1989. First Edition. Hardcover. 0688097227 . HC/DJ - near fine, 1st edition 1989. Excellent condition, clean and tight, jacket has very light edgewear, no tears. Written by a pair of French journalists, this is the first major inquiry into the Tewu , the Chinese secret service, and its leader, Kang Sheng (1898-1975). [925]; 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall . more information

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D. Van Nostrand Company. Very Good. 1967. First Edition. Softcover. Clean and tight, light wear and a little scuffing to covers. Pages unmarked. 138 pages. B/w illus. "The author brings to this study his intimate knowledge of china as he searches out the fundamental features & the historical development that preceeded the present triumph of Communism...." (*shipping will be reduced on this lighter book) [osl-185]; 8vo . more information

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London: George Allen & Unwin. Fine in Very Good+ dust jacket. 1979. First Edition. Hardcover. 0048950246 . HC is clean with slight soiling outer edge of pages, interior clean & tight. DJ has light soiling/scuffing, no tears, not price clipped. 219 pages. Translated from Chinese by Nancy Ing and Howard Goldblatt. Collection of eight short stories by the dissident author, who 'went home' to China in 1966, full of patriotic enthusiasm for the revolution. Seven years later she left, disillusioned at the all-pervasive political control and repression of the cultural revolution. After resettling in Canada, she began to work her experience into skillful, perceptive and moving accounts of the lives of ordinary people during those times. ; 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" Tall . more information

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Elsevier / Nelson Books. Near Fine in Very Good dust jacket. 1979. First Edition. Hardcover. 0525666222 . Hardcover clean & tight, very small remainder mark bottom edge of pages. Bumping to spine ends. Jacket has light edgewear and few small tears, light watermark stain/light wrinkling to rear of jacket. B/w photos. "Young Joe, like many Chinese-Americans, has long wanted to visit the homeland of his parents, experience the New China for himself, and search out the sites of his father's boyhood memories. As last the chance has come, and he flies to Hong Kong, takes the train to the border of the People's Republic of China, and crosses the bridge to meet his origins....; 8vo . more information

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Penguin Books. Fair; Under 20 on bf, 6.50 to 15, this one rather beat up.. 1988. Softcover. 0140123407 . Pages are clean however the first section of book has a stain (watermark? ) & light wrinkling which affects upper corner of first section of pages. Pages are otherwise unmarked. Cover has moderately heavy edge/corner wear, creasing & one edge tear to front. [235]; 8vo . more information

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University of Chicago Press. Near Fine. 1985. First Edition. Softcover. 0226895491 . Excellent Condition. Only light cover wear, clean, no markings. 408 pages. Synopsis: Through interviews with city residents, the authors provide a unique survey of urban life in the last decade of Mao Zedong's rule. They conclude that changes in society produced under communism were truly revolutionary and that, in the decade under scrutiny, the Chinese avoided ostensibly universal evils of urbanism with considerable success. [454-noto]; 8vo . more information

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