"How to Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology introduces students to the wide world of Chinese theater through excerpts from and context about 14 plays. Special attention is paid to how those plays are realized on stage. These examples cover the entire history of the most important genres up to the maturity of Peking opera in the second half of the nineteenth century. Students will be exposed to many play texts and aspects of Chinese theater, including three types of expressive modes-music (music and singing), text (speaking/reciting/written text), and movements (acting)-historical, biographical, and sociopolitical backgrounds about Chinese drama and playwrights, staging and rituals, and close textual analyses. The book is designed to be used independently or in concert with How to Read Chinese Drama: A Language Text, but the guided anthology volume does not assume any knowledge of Chinese"--

This book is at once a guided primer on Chinese drama and an innovative textbook. It is a companion volume to How to Read Chinese Drama, designed for Chinese-language learners. How to Read Chinese Drama in Chinese provides a versatile introduction to iconic scenes from traditional Chinese plays for readers who want to experience Chinese drama in the original language. Each chapter features an excerpt from a well-known play, ranging across political intrigue, military adventure, heroic devotion, romantic passion, and raucous humor. A succinct and informative English-language introduction precedes each scene. Excerpts are accompanied by line-by-line modern Chinese translations; individual words and expressions are annotated in English with modern Chinese equivalent expressions supplied. Dramatic scenes are followed by exercises that deepen language proficiency and knowledge of traditional and modern Chinese culture. This book can be used as a textbook in the advanced modern Chinese or the classical Chinese classroom, as a companion in a Chinese literature course for advanced learners and native speakers, or as a springboard to deeper engagement with Chinese theater for specialists and interested general readers alike.

Reading the Right Text introduces six new plays from contemporary China, five of which are translated here into English for the first time. Chosen from a wide variety of well-received dramas of the period, each play represents the traditions and changes in a particular subgenre: regional theater, proletarian theater, women's theater, history plays, and experimental theater. Xiaomei Chen's wide-ranging and perceptive introduction locates the plays in the political and cultural history of modern China to demonstrate the interrelationship between theater, history, society, and everyday experience. She highlights the origin and development of the different sub-genres and outlines critical approaches from numerous fields, including gender studies, performance studies, subaltern studies, and comparative cultural studies. Quite apart from their importance as theater, these plays are crucial for a fully rounded understanding of the cultural dynamics involved in the transition from Maoist to post-Mao China, from socialist realist drama to the post-socialist response to a market economy and a society in flux.

Learning Chinese can be frustrating and difficult, partly because it's very different from European languages. Following a teacher, textbook or language course is not enough. They show you the characters, words and grammar you need to become proficient in Chinese, but they don't teach you how to learn them! Regardless of what program you're in (if any), you need to take responsibility for your own learning. If you don't, you will miss many important things that aren't included in the course you're taking. If you study on your own, you need to be even more aware of what you need to do, what you're doing at the moment and the difference between them. Here are some of the questions I have asked and have since been asked many times by students: How do I learn characters efficiently? How do I get the most out of my course or teacher? Which are the best learning tools and resources? How can I become fluent in Mandarin? How can I improve my pronunciation? How do I learn successfully on my own? How can I motivate myself to study more? How can I fit learning Chinese into a busy schedule? The answers I've found to these questions and many others form the core of this book. It took eight years of learning, researching, teaching and writing to figure these things out. Not everybody has the time to do that! I can't go back in time and help myself learn in a better way, but I can help you! This book is meant for normal students and independent language learners alike. While it covers all major areas of learning, you won't learn Chinese just by reading this book. It's like when someone on TV teaches you how to cook: you won't get to eat the delicious dish just by watching the program; you have to do the cooking yourself. That's true for this book as well. When you apply what you learn, it will boost your learning, making every hour you spend count for more, but you still have to do the learning yourself. This is what a few readers have said about the book: "The book had me nodding at a heap of things I'd learnt the hard way, wishing I knew them when I started, as well as highlighting areas that I'm currently missing in my study." - Geoff van der Meer, VP engineering "This publication is like a bible for anyone serious about Chinese proficiency. It's easy for anyone to read and written with scientific precision." - Zachary Danz, foreign teacher, children's theatre artist About me I started learning Chinese when I was 23 (that's more than eight years ago now) and have since studied in many different situations, including serious immersion programs abroad, high-intensity programs in Sweden, online courses, as well as on the side while working or studying other things. I have also successfully used my Chinese in a graduate program for teaching Chinese as a second language, taught entirely in Chinese mostly for native speakers (the Graduate Institute for Teaching Chinese as a Second Language at National Taiwan Normal University). All these parts have contributed to my website, Hacking Chinese, where I write regularly about how to learn Mandarin.

This condensed anthology reproduces close to a dozen plays from Xiaomei Chen's well-received original collection, The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama, along with her critical introduction to the historical, cultural, and aesthetic evolution of twentieth-century Chinese spoken drama. Comprising representative works from the Republican era to postsocialist China, the book encapsulates the revolutionary rethinking of Chinese theater and performance that began in the late Qing dynasty and vividly portrays the uncertainty and anxiety brought on by modernism, socialism, political conflict, and war. Chosen works from 1919 to 1990 also highlight the formation of national and gender identities during a period of tremendous social, cultural, and political change in China and the genesis of contemporary attitudes toward the West. PRC theater tracks the rise of communism, juxtaposing ideals of Chinese socialism against the sacrifices made for a new society. Post-Mao drama addresses the nation's socialist legacy, its attempt to reexamine its cultural roots, and postsocialist reflections on critical issues such as nation, class, gender, and collective memories. An essential, portable guide for easy reference and classroom use, this abridgment provides a concise yet well-rounded survey of China's theatricality and representation of political life. The original work not only established a canon of modern Chinese drama in the West but also made it available for the first time in English in a single volume.

From the acclaimed author of Brothers and To Live: a major new novel that limns the joys and sorrows of life in contemporary China. Yang Fei was born on a moving train. Lost by his mother, adopted by a young switchman, raised with simplicity and love, he is utterly unprepared for the tempestuous changes that await him and his country. As a young man, he searches for a place to belong in a nation that is ceaselessly reinventing itself, but he remains on the edges of society. At age forty-one, he meets an accidental and unceremonious death. Lacking the money for a burial plot, he must roam the afterworld aimlessly, without rest. Over the course of seven days, he encounters the souls of the people he’s lost. As Yang Fei retraces the path of his life, we meet an extraordinary cast of characters: his adoptive father, his beautiful ex-wife, his neighbors who perished in the demolition of their homes. Traveling on, he sees that the afterworld encompasses all the casualties of today’s China—the organ sellers, the young suicides, the innocent convicts—as well as the hope for a better life to come. Yang Fei’s passage maps the contours of this vast nation—its absurdities, its sorrows, and its soul. Vivid, urgent, and panoramic, The Seventh Day affirms Yu Hua’s place as the standard-bearer of modern Chinese fiction.

This book is a comprehensive and inviting introduction to the literary forms and cultural significance of Chinese drama as both text and performance. Each chapter offers an accessible overview and critical analysis of one or more plays—canonical as well as less frequently studied works—and their historical contexts. How to Read Chinese Drama highlights how each play sheds light on key aspects of the dramatic tradition, including genre conventions, staging practices, musical performance, audience participation, and political resonances, emphasizing interconnections among chapters. It brings together leading scholars spanning anthropology, art history, ethnomusicology, history, literature, and theater studies. How to Read Chinese Drama is straightforward, clear, and concise, written for undergraduate students and their instructors as well as a wider audience interested in world theater. For students of Chinese literature and language, the book provides questions to explore when reading, watching, and listening to plays, and it features bilingual excerpts. For teachers, an analytical table of contents, a theater-specific chronology of events, and lists of visual resources and translations provide pedagogical resources for exploring Chinese theater within broader cultural and comparative contexts. For theater practitioners, the volume offers deeply researched readings of important plays together with background on historical performance conventions, audience responses, and select modern adaptations.