Fiction. Poetry. Asian American Studies. In the technicolor timewarp called Hell, Hong Kong, wannabe cowgirl La La is hellbent on realizing her dream to be a folk-singing sensation, even if it means surviving a dysfunctional relationship with her kidnapper, Ren, who is just hellbent. Ren thinks he'll win, but La La, dead or alive, always wins. "Moving between the explicit descriptions of the Marquis de Sade and the implicit ironies of Nabokov, these pieces are excruciatingly compelling, so infernal as they are related in languages variously pornographic and desperately, radically tender. Short's brilliant tragicomedy can be read as a metaphor for China's dynamic with American culture or the story of any determined enterprising youth whose eager 'bloody head' under a bumbling tyrant's 'boot is bent.' A bold, imaginative, timely work from a courageous and complex thinker." Heidi Lynn Staples "Heated & heartbreaking, CHINA COWBOY charms like wedding cans, flesh-filled, on tarmac. This car (perhaps an old, long Cadillac with longhorns glaring & charred) contains a man, Ren: a 'family man' or 'something commensurate.' La-La: our heroine. & the driver, guiding us expertly over the bluegrass, bodies & Time Warps of Hell, child abuse, power & Country Music is Kim Gek Lin Short." Rauan Klassnik "CHINA COWBOY is more hydra than hybrid, a slim monster sprouting new directions for form, narrative, culture, and identity. Meanwhile, everything it bites comes to vicious, gorgeous life." Christian TeBordo"

In the years before World War I, Montana cowboy Fred Barton was employed by Czar Nicholas II to help establish a horse ranch--the largest in the world--in Siberia to supply the Russian military. Barton later assembled a group of American rodeo stars and drove horses across Mongolia for the war-lords of northern China, creating a 250,000 acre ranch in Shanxi Province. Along the way, Barton became part of an unofficial U.S. intelligence network in the Far East, bred a new type of horse from Russian, Mongolian and American stock and promoted the lifestyle of the open range cowboy. Returning to America, he married one of the wealthiest widows in the Southwest and hobnobbed with Western film stars at a time when Hollywood was constructing the modern myth of the Old West, just as open range cowboy life was disappearing.

Published for devotees of the cowboy and the West, American Cowboy covers all aspects of the Western lifestyle, delivering the best in entertainment, personalities, travel, rodeo action, human interest, art, poetry, fashion, food, horsemanship, history, and every other facet of Western culture. With stunning photography and you-are-there reportage, American Cowboy immerses readers in the cowboy life and the magic that is the great American West.

The day Monica learns that her loveable, brilliant three-year-old son, Wills, has Autism, she takes him to buy an aquarium. It's the first in a string of impulsive trips to the pet store to buy animals as a distraction from the uncontrollable, crushing reality of Wills's diagnosis. But while Wills diligently tends to the growing menagerie, what he really wants is a puppy. And one Christmas, when Wills is six, Cowboy Carol Lawrence joins their family. Like all dynamic duos, Cowboy and Wills complement each other perfectly. Wills is cautious, fastidious, and irresistibly tender-hearted. Cowboy, a rambunctious golden retriever, is over-eager, affectionate, and impulsive. And from the moment Cowboy enters their lives, Monica sees her son step a little further into the world. Soon, the boy who could barely say hello to his classmates in kindergarten is sharing stories during morning circle. With Cowboy, he finds the courage to invite kids over for play dates, overcomes his debilitating fear of water to swim alongside her in the family pool, and, after years of gentle coaxing, Wills finally sleeps in his own bed with Cowboy's paws draped across his small chest. And when Cowboy turns out to need her new family as much as they need her, they discover just how much she has taught them -- about devotion, about loyalty, and about never giving up.

In the years before World War I, Montana cowboy Fred Barton was employed by Czar Nicholas II to help establish a horse ranch--the largest in the world--in Siberia to supply the Russian military. Barton later assembled a group of American rodeo stars and drove horses across Mongolia for the war-lords of northern China, creating a 250,000 acre ranch in Shanxi Province. Along the way, Barton became part of an unofficial U.S. intelligence network in the Far East, bred a new type of horse from Russian, Mongolian and American stock and promoted the lifestyle of the open range cowboy. Returning to America, he married one of the wealthiest widows in the Southwest and hobnobbed with Western film stars at a time when Hollywood was constructing the modern myth of the Old West, just as open range cowboy life was disappearing.

Trouble-makers or truth-sayers? : the peculiar status of foreign correspondents in China / Martin Fackler -- The political roots of China's environmental degradation / Judith Shapiro -- Fueling China's capitalist transformation : the human cost / Timothy B. Weston -- Qigong, Falun Gong, and the body politic in contemporary China / David Ownby -- Narratives to live by : the century of humiliation and Chinese national identity today / Peter Hays Gries -- The Internet : a force to transform Chinese society? / Xiao Qiang -- The politics of filmmaking and movie watching / Sylvia Li-chün Lin -- Fictional China / Howard Goldblatt -- Of rice and meat : real Chinese food / Susan D. Blum -- Herding the masses : public opinion and democracy in today's China / Tong Lam -- Sex tourism and lure of the ethnic erotic in Southwest China / Sandra Teresa Hyde -- Welcome to paradise! : a Sino-U.S. joint-venture project / Tim Oakes -- The new Chinese intellectual : globalized, disoriented, reoriented / Timothy Cheek -- Reporting China since the 1960s / John Gittings -- Afterword: China, the United States and the fragile planet / Lionel M. Jensen.

When the Reverend Halvor Ronning, his sister Thea, and fellow missionary Hannah Rorem set out in 1891 to found a Lutheran mission and school in the interior of China, they could not have foreseen the ways in which that decision would ripple across generations of the Ronning family. Halvor and Hannah would marry, and their son Chester, born in Hubei Province in 1894, would spend over half his life in China as a student, teacher, and a Canadian diplomat. Chester's daughter, Audrey, studied at Nanking University during the Chinese Civil War and later spent decades reporting on the People's Republic of China for the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and many other publications. "During the last century," Audrey Topping notes, "a member of our family was there for almost every event of importance." China Mission presents a personal history of her family's ties to their adopted home and the momentous events that radically changed one of the most powerful countries in the world. The Ronnings found Imperial China at the end of the nineteenth century to be a nation on the cusp of change, and they were swept up as both observers and participants in these dramatic events. During their years as missionaries, the Ronnings witnessed the Boxer Uprising in 1898, the subsequent Palace Coup and the Siege of Peking, the death of the last emperor, and the collapse of China's dynasty system. They also endured personal challenges -- famine, births, deaths, and the almost constant threat of attack -- that were countered with songs, celebrations, friendship, and a deep appreciation for the culture of which they had become a part. Later, Chester Ronning would return to China, as would his daughter Audrey, bringing their family's story to the end of the twentieth century. This extraordinary account, compiled from the diaries, letters, and photographs of three generations, offers modern readers a rare and remarkable look at a world long gone.