Chinese version of a classic tale
934318
good purchase, nice and easy to read font, the book is not abridged and the translation is quite good.
394639
The Butterfly Lovers is one of famous Chinese stories. Almost every Chinese knows about this tragic story either by movie, drama, music, or book.  In this book, Ms. Fan Dai, the author has really introduced this  famous "Romeo and Julliet" type of story into Western world.  Every detail that describes the Chinese culture, behavior, and society is  so real and clear.  The feeling is so great that you only have to read it  and cry without any visual support, background music or sound effect to  re-enforce the scene.  No matter how many times I go through the story, I  still enjoy every second of it.
4673232
After I read the English version of this book and loved it, I wanted to share the experience with my wife. She is currently a U.S. citizen, but emigrated to this country when we were married in China. While she can speak English very well, her ability to read English is not up to the level of being able to enjoy the English version of this book. So I found this Chinese translation and bought it for her. As she read it, I would question her about what she had read, thus learning that the quality of the translation was very good. Too bad some of the instruction pages for products I have bought that were translated from Chinese were not as comprehensible!("Insert of the part A to the B along and in again"....I'm sure you have had similar experiences!)So, while I myself cannot read Chinese, I can faithfully report that this translation follows the original book very well. Anyone wishing to read an EXCELLENT story, but needs a Chinese version of it, would do well to order this!
4551188
This review is of the Chinese - English edition.  My 18-month-old, who lives in a Chinese-speaking household, adores the English version of Hop on Pop.  We must read it again and again, approximately one million times a day.  So we thought she might enjoy it in Chinese.

I knew we were in trouble when "Up Pup, Pup is up" was translated as "shang xiao gou, Xiao gou tiao shang."  It's perfectly fine Chinese, but it has no Seussian style.  And it evokes howls of protest.

If you're going to buy the Chinese version, check the seller reviews to find one where customers complain about receiving Chinese books.  When I ordered, at least one seller had in his item description "This book is in English."
1915940
This is one of the best Chinese Readers I've found. A decent story that can really immerse you in the language. Some ways of expressing situations are a bit odd and cumbersome. I've read it with my tutor and they agree that some expressions are not natural, but I think perhaps that was on purpose as its a level 1 beginner book. I can't wait to read the next in the series.
2907862
Elegant stays fairly close to the historical facts, such facts as can be distinguished from the many legends, in telling the life of the great poet and Taoist Li Po. Li tells the story in this novel to a young boy, Wang Lung. The story is fun, and is the same sort of mixture of truth and myth that Li himself probably would have used had he really written an autobiography. There are numerous intriguing and believable details about the daily lives of people at various social levels, from the Imperial Court to poverty, in T'ang China.
The main weakenss in the book for me was that only Li Po really emerges as a character. The others who show up, either in the story of Li recounting his life while going into exile or in the story of Li's life, are poorly developed. Elegant works several poems by Li into the text, but I would have liked to see more.
It is worth noting that I have seen several translations of many of the poems here.  I can't comment on the accuracy of Elegant's versions, but they are generally delightful, more enjoyable than other translations into English of the same poem.
I recommend it on the whole, for the charm of the story and of the poems translated in it, but I can't do so with great enthusiasm. A better novel with some similar material is 'Bridge of Birds' by Hughart.
3010486
I saw that film when I was a kid in the theater at chinatown. The theater's name was Sun Sing. The story journey to the west is not understood to me at that time. As I got older, I got the message. Wish the movie was in cantonese though. There are lots of version of the journey to the west.
1895338
I love the Three Kingdoms. However, having read Brewitt-Taylors masterful exposition, this translation seems lacking, in my opinion.

First, I must confess, I hate the modern Pinyin system of romanization. I cannot abide in a system where letters do not have the proper values. I mean, an entire generation of Americans (and God help the ignorant French!) will pronounce names like Cao Cao as "Cow Cow", or the Qin dynasty as the "Kwin" dynasty. The Brewitt-Taylor translation uses the old Wade system, and while it can be hard on the eyes, the reader gets a sense of at least the rough pronunciation (Cao Cao is rendered Ts'ao Ts'ao, Qin is rendered Ch'in, etc).

Also, Brewitt-Taylors translation is nice to listen to. "Empires wax and wane, states cleave asunder and coalesce"; the sound itself is beautiful, and yet still renders the sense clearly. The Roberts translation certainly succeeds in the latter, but the beauty is lost. However, Brewitt-Taylor requires a very great vocabulary, whereas Roberts is more tame in this regards. Still, this was a book for scholars, and the translation should at least reflect that.

Again, if you have no familiarization with the events of this tale, the complete rainstorm of names is daunting indeed. Always keep in mind the three separate forces (Cao Cao of Wei, Liu Bei of Shu and the Sun family of Wu) as well as a few of the other players (Zhang Jiao of the Yellow Scarves, Dong Zhuo, Lu Bu, Yuan Shao. Liu Biao and Liu Zhang) and you'll do fine. The book itself, in my opinion, is the greatest book ever told, succeeding in being at once a work of strategy, psychology, government, warfare, and human emotion, and there is nothing like it in the lexicon of Western literature. Enjoy!
1278696
My Wife is native Chinese and encouraged me to buy this movie.  She's told me for a long time about the series of movies she'd watched, growing up in China, about the classic Chinese story "Journey to the West."  This particular movie is based on one piece of that story, about the Monkey King having an evil double and causing lots of trouble for everyone.

Unfortunately, the movie is only in Chinese.  If there are English subtitles, I couldn't find them in the all-Chinese language menu selection even with my wife's help.

The action is actually quite good and the music was also enjoyable, but I happen to like just about any Asian-style music.  It's not for everyone.

My wife's opinion was that this was not the best Chinese-produced version movie from the "Journey to the West" she'd ever seen, and was not happy with it.  So I guess my review would be; if you are fluent in Mandarin, or enjoy watching a movie in a language you don't understand, without English sub-titles, then this is for you.
4420315
If you're familiar with any Chinese folklore, its probably this story. But you probably know it as Journey to the West.  Its not only been released in numerous editions as a novel, its also been adapted for film, stage play, and Im sure there must be a video game of it out there.

If you're thinking, Chinese folklore? Sounds boring. Think again. This is a superhero story. Monkey, also known as the Monkey-King and Great Sage Equal to Heaven, is an immortal who has all manner of supernatural powers. He can fly. He can make copies of himself. He can transform himselfeither disguising himself as another being or appearing as an inanimate object. He has an iron truncheon that can be the size of a sewing needle or a mile long and which is indestructible. Wielding said staff, he can defeat armies or deities.

In fact, the flaw in this story isn't a lack of adventure or thrill. On the contrary, its one adventure after the next. If anything, the flaw is Superman Syndrome. Thats what I call it when the hero is so ridiculously overpowered that even when hes fighting gods, dragons, or whole armies theres still no doubt about the outcome.

Of course, the Monkey does eventually meet his match in the form of the Buddha. The Buddha defeats Monkey not in combat, but in a bet.  That event shifts the direction of the story. In the early chapters, Monkey is goes about heaven and earth arrogantly wreaking havoc. Hes not altogether detestable. He does have his redeeming traits, but hes insufferably arrogant and mischievous. After hes imprisoned following his run-in with the Buddha, a monk is assigned to go to India to bring back scriptures (hence, a journey to the west) to China. Monkey is assigned to be the monks guardian and along with two others that they pick up along the way (Pigsy and Sandy) the monk is escorted on his journey. The party faces one challenge after the next, and the trip is long and arduous. Some of the challenges require brute force but in many cases they are battles of wits. So while Monkey may be overpowered, he does experience personal growth over the course of the story.

The story is told over 30 chapters, each set up with a cliffhanger. I enjoyed this translation by Arthur Waley. It is end-noted, which is useful given the historic and cultural nuances that may not be clear to readers.

It should be noted that this is unambiguously a Buddhist tale. There is a bias against Taoists and other non-Buddhist religions evident throughout the story. Its not just the fact that the Buddha easily defeats Monkey when no other deity or group of deities can, theres a steady stream of anti-Taoist sentiment. So, Taoists and Chinese Folk Religion practitioners be warned, I guess.

I would recommend this book for fiction readers, particularly if you have an interest in the superhero genre or Chinese literature.
1126213
I can't say enough good things about this film. Being a fan of the original Mulan legend, I was happy to see one that wasn't done as a romance and gave enough depth to the characters. I'd recommend this to anyone familiar with the Chinese legend who wants to know more than the Disney version.
3925485
I am now 61 years old, when I was a young man, my parents took me to a Chinese Theatre in L.A., Ca Chinatown to see the Chinese Version of One Armed Swordsman meets Zatoichi. The beginning is dramatically and tremendously different, the end part is the same except Zatoichi is more wounded and the One Armed Swordsman walks away seriously wounded.
I have tried to get an original Chinese version and ended up with three Japanese version mainly because of misleading or vague advertising.
In the Chinese version Wang intervenes and stands over the boy to protects him, the battle scenes between the Chinese and Japanese version are like day and night. In the Japanese version, Wang looks like an amature stuntman wannabe, it was terrible. In the Chinese version, protestecting the boy was masterful and tremendous. It is for this reason I wanted the Chinese version but there is some kind of business block preventing its disclosure and impossible to get!
3037959
This book comprises a selection of chapters translated and annotated from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, an 800,000 word 14th century novel set in a turbulent period of Chinese history more than a thousand years earlier. Part historical, part mythological, it is one of the classics of Chinese Literature. And like most literary classics, not exactly a quick or easy read.

While the author's introduction and comments do much to place the story in context, the first chapters of the book, summing up the events leading up to the actual Battle of Chibi, or Red Cliffs, is such a litany of minor events and characters that it almost reads like a telephone book. A bit of a cold shower to start off with, but once you get into it, or past it, it all comes nicely together, picking up pace and gaining color to reveal a fascinating, epic world of intrigue, strategy and treachery akin to that of Game of Thrones.
1506988
THE BOOK OF LIEH-TZU : A Classic of the Tao.  Translated by A. C. Graham.  192 pp.  New York : Columbia University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-231-07237-6 (pbk.)
A. C. Graham tells us, in his informative Introduction to the present book, that Taoism, which attained maturity in the 3rd century B.C., is "the greatest  philosophical tradition of China after Confucianism."  Modern scholars are inclined to think that its three key texts were composed in the following order : 1. the Chuang-tzu; 2. the Tao Te Ching (or the  Lao-tzu); 3. the Lieh-tzu.  The latter, which is the least well-known in the West, is "a collection of stories, sayings and brief essays grouped in eight chapters, each loosely organized around a single theme" (p. 1) :
1. Heaven's Gifts (reconciliation with death); 2. The Yellow Emperor (the Taoist principle of action); 3. King Mu of Chou (the idea that life is a dream); 4. Confucius (the futility of the Confucian faith in knowledge); 5. The Questions of T'ang (the universe is infinite in space and time); 6. Endeavour and Destiny; 7. Yang Chu (a chapter on Hedonism "so unlike the rest ... that it must be the work of another  hand"); 8. Explaining Conjunctions (the effect of chance conjunctions of events).
Just why the Lieh-tzu isn't so well known I don't know, since it can  at times be every bit as sublime as the Lao-tzu, and every bit as joyous and funny as the Chuang-tzu, while the true spirit of Tao is present throughout (except perhaps in the spurious seventh chapter).  Since it's also, in some ways, a more approachable text, it would make a good entry point for newcomers to philosophical Taoism.
Graham is one of the West's greatest sinologists and his translation reads very well indeed.  I often get the feeling from Graham, however, that he is prevented from fully appreciating the sublimity and what to me is the self-evident truth of philosophical Taoism because he remains trapped in a Western mindset that blinds him to these.
On the one hand he is prepared to concede that "Taoism coincides with the scientific world-view at just those points where the latter most disturbs Westerners rooted in the Christian tradition - the littleness of man in a vast universe; the inhuman Tao which all things follow, without purpose and indifferent to human [desires]; the transience of life; the impossibility of knowing what comes after death; unending change in which the possibility of progress is not even conceived; the relativity of values; [etc.]" (p,13).
On the other hand Graham tells us that : "The Taoist ... cannot be a 'philosopher' in the Western sense, establishing his case by rational argument; he can only guide us in the direction of the Way by aphorisms, poetry, and parable.  The talents he needs are those of an artist and not of a thinker" (p. 11).
What Graham fails to note is that NO philosopher has ever "established his case by rational argument" because, as is proved every day, rational argument leads only to further rational argument and can never lead to truth.  The Taoist would see Graham's "rational argument" as a futile and _excessive_ use of reason, in contrast to his more _reasonable_ use of reason, but to suggest, as Graham does, that because of this the Taoist is not a real "thinker" seems simply a piece of Western ethnocentrism, though Graham's blind spot prevents him from realizing this.
Graham's Introduction, apart from misleading the reader on this  essential point, is a fine piece of writing, and his translation is up to his usual high standards.  Those who are new to Taoism will probably find it far easier to read and considerably more illuminating than much of what passes for 'philosophy' in the modern world, while those who already know their Chuang-tzu and Lao-tzu will no doubt find it quite enjoyable too.  As the third important classic of philosophical Taoism, it becomes a valuable text we would be unwise to overlook.
4928644
This is a classic story, retold here in somewhat stilted language.

47 Ronin is based on an historical event in feudal Japan and the story is part of the culture and mythology. Because I was going to visit Japan, I was interested in reading books set there. 47 Ronin fit the bill and I enjoyed reading it while also being able to visit some of the temples and castles and grounds mentioned in the book. The book helped me visualize 18th century Japan.

But the prose and story telling is somewhat stilted and awkward. If you want to understand this event, then this book will help bring it to life. The foreword also includes some interesting historical context that helps separate the reality from the mythology. But if you're looking for an exciting tale of adventure and revenge, there are many other books available that would be more gripping.
832442
I read the Chinese (original) version by Qian Zhongshu many times, but not the English translation yet. So I would be more than willing to rate the book a 5 star, it's not a review about the English version of it.

Neither my Chinese nor English language skill could be adaquate to comment on the translation of such a masterpiece in Chinese modern literature though.

So I will just say this: while reading this book, if you suddenly start laughing till tears come out, then, I guess, you really come to understand large part of the Chinese people, as well as the society.

It won't be easy for foreign readers, you need some background, history, etc to reach that stage. But if your interest in Chinese people goes beyond "cheap labour that flood WalMart with competing products", this book opens a path towards the heart of those (our) people and their (our) society. Not a quick and easy path, but a lasting one.
2582895
Canonized unwittingly as St. Josaphat, a corruption of "bodhisattva," the Buddha, condemned as an idol worshiped by his duped followers, had his story transmitted after long centuries within the hagiography translated to convert the Japanese in the 1600s. So runs one of many twists in the tale translated by Peggy McCracken and introduced by Donald S. Lopez as a 2014 Penguin Classic. Gui de Cambrai around 1220-25 adapted the story into French verse; McCracken renders it efficiently into modern English. Gui takes the core elements of the Buddha legend: the prediction that the prince will be a saint or a king; the ensuing protection by his father the king to keep him from the sights of the world, until a series of chariot rides reveal mortality, sickness, age, and death to the coddled lad; and temptations by seductive women who seek to dissuade the prince from his destiny and enlightenment as he vows to depart the palace for a life of asceticism, after having first fathered an heir in his turn.

What the medieval teller adds, Lopez in his perhaps too brief introduction and McCracken in her edition (which has surprisingly brief footnotes as compared with many Penguins) show, is an elaborate disputation between Greeks (ahistorically if entertainingly including Plato's brother and a nephew of Aristotle for good measure), Chaldeans, and pagans. They integrate many fine stories in succession cobbled together from ancient lore, and this transmission as with the larger storyline contains inherent interest for how this comes down to the early eleventh century in Old French. We get clever glimpses into the culture, as when perverse sex earns condemnation in a comparison to chess. Those engaging in "a shameful game" allow themselves "to be mated from the corner." The hectoring narrator goes on: "The clerics were first to adopt it, and they taught the game to knights. The deed is base--anyone who would leave the clearing for the woods is like a base peasant." (100-101) Finally, the teller shakes free of the vice he despises, and the story later elaborates into a set-piece about the Crusades, with the characters off to a holy war. Another addition is the use of the disputation between the body and the soul, a medieval trope, to fit neatly into the frame-tale's theme of renunciation for sacrifice, and the leaving of one's family to seek a higher path.

This tale was one of many which told the Buddha's story with nobody suspecting this until the 1600s. While a chronicler of Marco Polo's journey caught on to a resemblance, modern scholars in the 19th century, investigating the sources for the misunderstood origins of Shakyamuni, or Prince Siddhartha, finally figured out the elaborate and entangled transmission gone haywire much later. Lopez, as a noted scholar of Buddhist reception in the West (see Prisoners of Shangri-La on Tibet and The Scientific Buddha for attempts to reconcile the historical Buddha with post-Darwinian science, both reviewed by me), is well-suited to convey these crossed messages. Joined by medievalist Peggy McCracken, the two seek to explain the origins of the tales told throughout the Middle Ages, as the Buddha's story was embedded into narratives and biographies which asserted often the superiority of non-Buddhist ideas. See my review of their In Search of the Christian Buddha (also reviewed July 28, 2014) for much more on these other tales, before and after Gui's own story. In the Penguin, if surprisingly short as to notes and editorial material, the tale nonetheless moves along rather smoothly, for a medieval one where digressions and details are welcomed by listeners, and it's good to have it in English at last.