Uncle Tiki Pu is in terrible trouble with the War Lord, and Tashi must rely on the help of a phoenix, a beautiful creature with eyes of crystal and tail feathers of gold, to save him and his family. Then Princess Sarashina's sister is told she must marry a man who is sneaky and cruel instead of the good, kind Cha Ming who loves her best of all. How will Tashi persuade the powerful emperor to change his mind? It takes more than courage to deal with warlords and emperors, but Tashi always has a clever idea and something useful in his pocket.

In the 15th book of Tashi's magical adventures, Tashi outwits the Warlord, with the help of a dazzling Phoenix, in order to get his Uncle Tiki Pu out of terrible trouble. And then he persuades the Emperor to let Princess Sarashina's sister marry her true love.

Most studies of Chinese literature conflate the category of the future with notions of progress and nation building, and with the utopian visions broadcast by the Maoist and post-Mao developmental state. The future is thus understood as a preconceived endpoint that is propagated, at times even imposed, by a center of power. By contrast, Tales of Futures Past introduces "anticipation"—the expectations that permeate life as it unfolds—as a lens through which to reexamine the textual, institutional, and experiential aspects of Chinese literary culture from the 1950s to 2011. In doing so, Paola Iovene connects the emergence of new literary genres with changing visions of the future in contemporary China. This book provides a nuanced and dynamic account of the relationship between state discourses, market pressures, and individual writers and texts. It stresses authors' and editors' efforts to redefine what constitutes literature under changing political and economic circumstances. Engaging with questions of translation, temporality, formation of genres, and stylistic change, Iovene mines Chinese science fiction and popular science, puts forward a new interpretation of familiar Chinese avant-garde fiction, and offers close readings of texts that have not yet received any attention in English-language scholarship. Far-ranging in its chronological scope and impressive in its interdisciplinary approach, this book rethinks the legacies of socialism in postsocialist Chinese literary modernity.

Tashi Tashi is the story of a young girl s love for an older man. The two are brought together by their common love for music, Richard being a composer, she a budding cellist. As she matures into young adulthood, her love for the reticent composer is continually tested by jealousy, physical separation, parental concern, and above all by his unconscious fear of rejection. Through it all she is sustained by support from her eccentric but compassionate grandfather who provides her with the ultimate key to unlocking her would-be lover's suppressed desire. The novel draws on a theme familiar to both literature aficionados and opera-goers, the theme of a flawed man redeemed by a woman's love. Most-often associated with Richard Wagner's operas, it tells of how an otherwise heroic figure, typically saddled with guilt or fear, is absolved from self-punishment by a woman whose love is deep and pure enough to transcend the most despicable of sins.

The "Tibetan Question," the nature of Tibet's political status vis-à-vis China, has been the subject of often bitterly competing views while the facts of the issue have not been fully accessible to interested observers. While one faction has argued that Tibet was, in the main, historically independent until it was conquered by the Chinese Communists in 1951 and incorporated into the new Chinese state, the other faction views Tibet as a traditional part of China that split away at the instigation of the British after the fall of the Manchu Dynasty and was later dutifully reunited with "New China" in 1951. In contrast, this comprehensive study of modern Tibetan history presents a detailed, non-partisan account of the demise of the Lamaist state. Drawing on a wealth of British, American, and Indian diplomatic records; first-hand-historical accounts written by Tibetan participants; and extensive interviews with former Tibetan officials, monastic leaders, soldiers, and traders, Goldstein meticulously examines what happened and why. He balances the traditional focus on international relations with an innovative emphasis on the intricate web of internal affairs and events that produced the fall of Tibet. Scholars and students of Asian history will find this work an invaluable resource and interested readers will appreciate the clear explanation of highly polemicized, and often confusing, historical events.