"A mysterious bequest brings a whole new life - and brand-new love - to three unsuspecting women..."--Page 4 of cover.

"Red Silk is a history of China’s Yangzi Delta silk industry during the wars, crises, and revolutions of the mid-twentieth century. Based on extensive research in Chinese archives and focused on the 1950s, the book compares two very different groups of silk workers and their experiences in the revolution. Male silk weavers in Shanghai factories enjoyed close ties to the Communist party-state and benefited greatly from socialist policies after 1949. In contrast, workers in silk thread mills, or filatures, were mostly young women who lacked powerful organizations or ties to the revolutionary regime. For many filature workers, working conditions changed little after 1949 and politicized production campaigns added a new burden within the brutal and oppressive factory regime in place since the nineteenth century. Both groups of workers and their employers had to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. Their actions—protests, petitions, bribery, tax evasion—compelled the party-state to adjust its policies, producing new challenges. The results, though initially positive for many, were ultimately disastrous. By the end of the 1950s, there was widespread conflict and deprivation among silk workers and, despite its impressive recovery under Communist rule, the industry faced a crisis worse than war and revolution."

You will laugh and cry throughout this TRUE international love story - The Red Silk Robe is full of devotion, intrigue, adventure and suspense. From Bristol to Beirut....The Red Silk Robe encompasses love, death, escape, survival and illegal entry into the US with two small children, without friends, family or funds...A survival story of love and strength.. The Red Silk Robe is a true story of a young English girl from Bristol, left without a family, who was determined to live life to the full and experience the world. You will follow her dream of being in show business, her travels, and her chance meeting with a handsome Lebanese 22 year-old in Beirut, Lebanon, which turned into a 'LOVE-AT-FIRST-SIGHT' encounter and marriage.... ...leading to her first dramatic escape from Beirut after betrayal by her Moslem inlaws... her subsequent bare survival in Bristol with her two babies - broke, alone and vulnerable... and her tragic near-death experience... ...then following her return to Beirut to survive and the glorious times for ten years... her second escape from war torn Beirut, amid tanks and riots... ...her arrival in the USA with her two young sons, illegal and broke again - her struggle to survive, travelling from State to State settling up in Dallas, Texas for twenty years... ...finally retiring in the beautiful Riviera Maya. Julia says, 'I do hope you enjoy The Red Silk Robe, it was MY LIFE; I needed to write it before I perhaps began to forget...' 'It could have been a dream, but when I look at my late husband's picture on the wall and the photo of my two sons and grandchildren in my home in beautiful Mexico, I know it was not; it really happened.' Julia dedicates this book to her two sons, Darren and Tarek and to the father they never knew.

An enchanting tale of hidden beauty and fierce courage, retold in the style of T’ang Dynasty poetry and illustrated with charm and grace A young Chinese princess is sent from her father’s kingdom to marry the king of a far-off land. She must leave behind her home of splendors: sour plums and pink peach petals and -- most precious and secret of all -- the small silkworm. She begs her father to let her stay, but he insists that she go and fulfill her destiny as the queen of Khotan. Beautifully told and arrestingly illustrated, here is a coming-of-age tale of a brave young princess whose clever plan will go on to live in legend -- and will ensure that her cherished home is with her always.

Arthur Sze has rare qualifications when it comes to translating Chinese: he is an award-winning poet who was raised in both languages. A second-generation Chinese-American, Sze has gathered over 70 poems by poets who have had a profound effect on Chinese culture, American poetics and Sze's own maturation as an artist. Also included is an informative insightful essay on the methods and processes involved in translating ideogrammic poetry. MOONLIGHT NIGHT by Tu Fu can only look out alone at the moon. From Ch'ang-an I pity my children who cannot yet remember or understand. Her hair is damp in the fragrant mist. Her arms are cold in the clear light. When will we lean beside the window and the moon shine on our dried tears? Sze's anthology features poets who have become literary icons to generations of Chinese readers and scholars. Included are the poems of the great, rarely translated female poet Li Ching Chao alongside the remorseful exile poems of Su Tung-p'o. This book will prove a necessary and insightful addition to the library of any reader of poetry in translation. The poets include: T'ao Ch'ien Wang Han Wang Wei Li Po Tu Fu Po Chü-yi Tu Mu Li Shang-yin Su Tung-p'o Li Ch'ing-chao Shen Chou Chu Ta Wen I-to Yen Chen Arthur Sze is the author of six previous books of poetry, including The Redshifting Web and Archipelago. He has received the Asian American Literary Award for his poetry and translation, a prestigious Lannan Literary Award, and was recently a finalist for the Leonore Marshall Poetry Prize. He teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts. from A Painting of a Cat Nan Ch'uan wanted to be reborn as a water buffalo, but who did the body of the malicious cat become? Black clouds and covering snow are alike. It took thirty years for clouds to disperse, snow to melt. -Pa-ta-shan-jen (1626-1705) The Last Day Water sobs and sobs in the bamboo pipe gutter. Green tongues of banana leaves lick at the windowpanes. The four sur