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A Chinese Bestiary
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Book Synopsis A Chinese Bestiary by : Richard E. Strassberg
Download or read book A Chinese Bestiary written by Richard E. Strassberg and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2018-03-05 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.
Book Synopsis Fantastic Creatures of the Mountains and Seas by : Anonymous
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 Bestiary written by K-Ming Chang and published by One World. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 272 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 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 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.
Book Synopsis A Chinese Bestiary by : Richard E. Strassberg
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 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.
Book Synopsis The Classic of Mountains and Seas by :
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.
Book Synopsis Book of Beasts by : Elizabeth Morrison
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.
Book Synopsis Chinese Mythology by : Anthony Christie
Download or read book Chinese Mythology written by Anthony Christie and published by Reed Mitchel Beazley. This book was released on 1996 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the myths and gods of ancient China and their sources.
Download or read book Dragons and Dynasties written by Ke Yuan and published by Puffin Books. This book was released on 1993 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to Chinese mythology. Colourful, sometimes grotesque and imaginative, Chinese mythology is just as moving and compelling as anything to be found in the better-known Egyptian, Greek and Teutonic traditions. In this book, Yuan Ke has culled from ancient sources, rearranged in chronological order and retold the variant versions of the creation of the world, the origins of men, women and animals and the era of the five endlessly warring emperor-gods.
Book Synopsis Illustrated Myths & Legends of China by : Huang Dehai
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 271 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.
Book Synopsis The Modern Bestiary by : Joanna Bagniewska
Download or read book The Modern Bestiary written by Joanna Bagniewska and published by Smithsonian Institution. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A quirky collection of Earth’s most compelling animals who give mythical creatures a run for their money The Modern Bestiary: A Curated Collection of Wondrous Wildlife mirrors the medieval tradition of an encyclopedia of incredible beasts, only this charming book with ornamental illustrations features 100 real animals who are stranger than fiction. Organized by the elements Earth, Water, and Air, the book introduces both unfamiliar creatures, like deep-sea harp sponges who catch prey in their barbs and digest them whole, as well as ones that have made headlines, such as cicadas who emerge from the ground in noisy broods every thirteen or seventeen years. Step right up and meet these delightful, unbelievable, and deliciously horrific animals, including: The endearing: same-sex albatross mothers who raise chicks together tarantulas who keep frogs as pets zebra finches who sing to their eggs to warn them of hot weather The ruthless: flukes who manipulate their host into getting eaten by a final host horned lizards who squirt blood through their eyes to distract predators southern grasshopper mice who harness scorpion venom as a painkiller And the just plain weird: antechinuses who mate themselves to death pearlfish who live, fight, and mate in sea cucumber butts immortal jellyfish who reverse their aging process when stressed Funny, entertaining, and illuminating, The Modern Bestiary is a book for anyone who wants to become more familiar with the natural world and all its astounding creatures.
Book Synopsis The Book of the Hakutaku by : Zack Davisson
Download or read book The Book of the Hakutaku written by Zack Davisson and published by . This book was released on 2018-09 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Collecting China by : Vimalin Rujivacharakul
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.
Download or read book A Bestiary written by Lily K. Hoang and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compilation of essays on the author's observations of life described by Wayne Koestenbaum as "a work of great subtlety, precision, intelligence, daring, and emotive keenness" -- Page [4] cover.
Book Synopsis The Book of Mythical Beasts and Magical Creatures by : DK
Download or read book The Book of Mythical Beasts and Magical Creatures written by DK and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meet your favourite monsters, fairies, heroes, and tricksters from all around the world! Enter the enchanting world of mythical creatures and explore the history behind them in this beautifully-illustrated Greek mythology book for children aged 5-9. You’ll meet an incredible cast of mind-boggling fictional animals from all around the world. Say hello to Bigfoot in the forests of North America and learn about the Native American traditions that inspired its story. Voyage to Japan to meet kitsune, supernatural nine-tailed foxes that can turn into humans. Then jump onboard an ancient storm-battered ship to learn why mermaids were the last thing a sailor wanted to see! Learn about the societies that spawned these legendary creatures, from Ancient Greece to the indigenous tribes of Australia, and find out what the beasts tell us about the people who created them. With magic and mystery in every page, your child can discover: - Facts behind the myths - Insights into cultures from around the world and their creation stories - Stunning full-colour illustrations by Pham Quang Phuc Mythical Beasts and Magical Creatures tells you everything you need to know about supernatural animals great and small. Perfect for fans of Harry Potter and other fantasy tales, this mythology book for children is the only kids’ guide to magical creatures that explores the history behind the mythology in both an engaging and educational way. A must-have volume for children aged 5-9 with an interes in fantasy tale, Mythical Beasts and Magical Creatures is filled with supernatural stories that brings the history of mythology and magical creatures to life, and explores the societies that birthed these legendary creatures found in narratives from Ancient Greek mythology, Australian and Native American folktales. From narwhal tusks inspiring the legend of unicorns, to dinosaur bones creating rumours of dragons, there is an interesting story behind every magical beast. This beautifully-illustrated fantasy book for kids is wonderful for children who like to delve into enchanting stories and magical creatures.
