How Chinese characters triumphed over the QWERTY keyboard and laid the foundation for China's information technology successes today. Chinese writing is character based, the one major world script that is neither alphabetic nor syllabic. Through the years, the Chinese written language encountered presumed alphabetic universalism in the form of Morse Code, Braille, stenography, Linotype, punch cards, word processing, and other systems developed with the Latin alphabet in mind. This book is about those encounters—in particular thousands of Chinese characters versus the typewriter and its QWERTY keyboard. Thomas Mullaney describes a fascinating series of experiments, prototypes, failures, and successes in the century-long quest for a workable Chinese typewriter. The earliest Chinese typewriters, Mullaney tells us, were figments of popular imagination, sensational accounts of twelve-foot keyboards with 5,000 keys. One of the first Chinese typewriters actually constructed was invented by a Christian missionary, who organized characters by common usage (but promoted the less-common characters for “Jesus" to the common usage level). Later came typewriters manufactured for use in Chinese offices, and typewriting schools that turned out trained “typewriter girls” and “typewriter boys.” Still later was the “Double Pigeon” typewriter produced by the Shanghai Calculator and Typewriter Factory, the typewriter of choice under Mao. Clerks and secretaries in this era experimented with alternative ways of organizing characters on their tray beds, inventing an input method that was the first instance of “predictive text.” Today, after more than a century of resistance against the alphabetic, not only have Chinese characters prevailed, they form the linguistic substrate of the vibrant world of Chinese information technology. The Chinese Typewriter, not just an “object history” but grappling with broad questions of technological change and global communication, shows how this happened. A Study of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute Columbia University

This book takes up one of the most important themes in Chinese thought: the relation of pleasurable activities to bodily health and to the health of the body politic. Unlike Western theories of pleasure, early Chinese writings contrast pleasure not with pain but with insecurity, assuming that it is right and proper to seek and take pleasure, as well as experience short-term delight. Equally important is the belief that certain long-term relational pleasures are more easily sustained, as well as potentially more satisfying and less damaging. The pleasures that become deeper and more ingrained as the person invests time and effort to their cultivation include friendship and music, sharing with others, developing integrity and greater clarity, reading and classical learning, and going home. Each of these activities is explored through the early sources (mainly fourth century BC to the eleventh century AD), with new translations of both well-known and seldom-cited texts.

This revised and updated new edition provides a comprehensive introduction to the history of cinema in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, as well as to disaporic and transnational Chinese film-making, from the beginnings of cinema to the present day. Chapters by leading international scholars are grouped in thematic sections addressing key historical periods, film movements, genres, stars and auteurs, and the industrial and technological contexts of cinema in Greater China.

In this learned, yet readable, book, Joseph McDermott introduces the history of the book in China in the late imperial period from 1000 to 1800. He assumes little knowledge of Chinese history or culture and compares the Chinese experience with books with that of other civilizations, particularly the European. Yet he deals with a wide range of issues in the history of the book in China and presents novel analyses of the changes in Chinese woodblock bookmaking over these centuries. He presents a new view of when the printed book replaced the manuscript and what drove that substitution. He explores the distribution and marketing structure of books, and writes fascinatingly on the history of book collecting and about access to private and government book collections. In drawing on a great deal of Chinese, Japanese, and Western research this book provides a broad account of the way Chinese books were printed, distributed, and consumed by literati and scholars, mainly in the lower Yangzi delta, the cultural center of China during these centuries. It introduces interesting personalities, ranging from wily book collectors to an indigent shoe-repairman collector. And, it discusses the obstacles to the formation of a truly national printed culture for both the well-educated and the struggling reader in recent times. This broad and comprehensive account of the development of printed Chinese culture from 1000 to 1800 is written for anyone interested in the history of the book. It also offers important new insights into book culture and its place in society for the student of Chinese history and culture. 'A brilliant piece of synthetic research as well as a delightful read, it offers a history of the Chinese book to the eighteenth century that is without equal.' - Timothy Brook, University of British Columbia 'Writers, scribes, engravers, printers, binders, publishers, distributors, dealers, literati, scholars, librarians, collectors, voracious readers — the full gamut of a vibrant book culture in China over one thousand years — are examined with eloquence and perception by Joseph McDermott in The Social History of the Book. His lively exploration will be of consuming interest to bibliophiles of every persuasion.' - Nicholas A. Basbanes, author of A Gentle Madness, Patience and Fortitude, A Splendor of Letters, and Every Book Its Reader Joseph McDermott is presently Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, and University Lecturer in Chinese at Cambridge University. He has published widely on Chinese social and economic history, most recently on the economy of the Song (or, Sung) dynasty for the Cambridge History of China. He has edited State and Court Ritual in China and Art and Power in East Asia.

In The Chinese Atlantic, Sean Metzger charts processes of global circulation across and beyond the Atlantic, exploring how seascapes generate new understandings of Chinese migration, financial networks and artistic production. Moving across film, painting, performance, and installation art, Metzger traces flows of money, culture, and aesthetics to reveal the ways in which routes of commerce stretching back to the Dutch Golden Age have molded and continue to influence the social reproduction of Chineseness. With a particular focus on the Caribbean, Metzger investigates the expressive culture of Chinese migrants and the communities that received these waves of people. He interrogates central issues in the study of similar case studies from South Africa and England to demonstrate how Chinese Atlantic seascapes frame globalization as we experience it today. Frequently focusing on art that interacts directly with the sites in which it is located, Metzger explores how Chinese migrant laborers and entrepreneurs did the same to shape—both physically and culturally—the new spaces in which they found themselves. In this manner, Metzger encourages us to see how artistic imagination and practice interact with migration to produce a new way of framing the global.

The words 'Tong Sing' mean 'know everything book'. No wonder the traditional Chinese almanac contains information on everything from astrology to herbal remedies, Taoist philosophy to the interpretation of dreams. Drawing his inspiration from this centuries-old work, but using his own research and adapting the contents to appeal to a modern audience, Charles Windridge has compiled a fully updated book that will answer every question the reader can ask about the ancient Chinese way of life.

The Chinese Art Book is a beautifully packaged, authoritative, and unprecedented overview of Chinese art from its earliest dynasties to the contemporary generation of artists enlivening today's art world. 300 works represent every form of Chinese visual art, including painting, calligraphy, sculpture, ceramics, figurines, jade, bronze, gold and silver, photography, video, installation, and performance art. Full of surprises for readers of all levels, The Chinese Art Book breaks new ground by pairing works that speak to one another in unexpected ways, enlightening historical, stylistic and cultural connections. Concise descriptive essays place each work in context, while cross-references lead the reader on a fascinating journey through Chinese art history. The Chinese Art Book features an introductory essay by Colin Mackenzie, Senior Curator of Chinese Art at the Nelson-Akins Museum of Art, along with an accessible summary of Chinese political and cultural history, a comprehensive glossary defining technical terms, and an illustrated timeline.