This is a series of anecdotes from my misspent youth as I went over to the dark side and got involved with motorcycles. If you are into motorcycles, planes, cars, and things to do with boats, I have a few stories to tell you. It is an interest in colonial Kenya and New Zealand life as seen in the eyes of a guy from long ago and far away. It has stories from my ninety-seven-year-old dad in Seychelles, his WWII service, his deals with his experiences in the Mau Mau Emergency in Kenya, and him bringing his family to New Zealand in the sixties. In the seventies and eighties, I served my twenty years in the RNZAF, putting down a lot of my mishaps and adventures in an interesting time domestically and overseas.

The eldest son of a stonemason has answered a call from a recurring dream. He doesn't know who sent it or why, but realizes there is considerable danger involved. Although he embarks on this quest in pursuit of said danger, little does he know he will learn more about his late mother, his temperamental father, and a unique aspect of his family's lineage. Dayfid Ray Skyden has taken a sojourn that will traverse a great deal more than the land he walks upon.

China is more than a socialist market economy led by ever more reform-minded leaders. It is a country whose people seek liberty on a daily basis. Their success has been phenomenal, despite the fact that China continues to be governed by a single party. Clear distinctions between the people and the government are emerging, underlining the fact that true liberalization cannot be imposed from above. Although a large percentage of the Chinese people have been part of China's long march to freedom, farmers, entrepreneurs, migrants, Chinese gays, sex pleasure seekers, and black-marketers played a particularly important role in the beginning. Lawyers, scholars, journalists, and rights activists have jumped in more recently to ensure that liberalization continues. Social dissatisfaction with the government is now published in the media, addressed in public forums, and deliberated in courtrooms. Intellectuals devoted to improvement in human rights and continued liberalization are part of the process. This grassroots social revolution has also resulted from the explosion of information available to ordinary people (especially via the Internet) and far-reaching international influences. All have fundamentally altered key elements of the moral and material content of China's party-state regime and society at large. This social revolution is moving China towards a more liberal society despite its government. The Chinese government reacts, rather than leads, in this trans formative process. This book is a landmark - a decade in the making.

This extraordinary one-volume guide to the modern literatures of China, Japan, and Korea is the definitive reference work on the subject in the English language. With more than one hundred articles that show how a host of authors and literary movements have contributed to the general literary development of their respective countries, this companion is an essential starting point for the study of East Asian literatures. Comprehensive thematic essays introduce each geographical section with historical overviews and surveys of persistent themes in the literature examined, including nationalism, gender, family relations, and sexuality. Following the thematic essays are the individual entries: over forty for China, over fifty for Japan, and almost thirty for Korea, featuring everything from detailed analyses of the works of Tanizaki Jun'ichiro and Murakami Haruki, to far-ranging explorations of avant-garde fiction in China and postwar novels in Korea. Arrayed chronologically, each entry is self-contained, though extensive cross-referencing affords readers the opportunity to gain a more synoptic view of the work, author, or movement. The unrivaled opportunities for comparative analysis alone make this unique companion an indispensable reference for anyone interested in the burgeoning field of Asian literature. Although the literatures of China, Japan, and Korea are each allotted separate sections, the editors constantly kept an eye open to those writers, works, and movements that transcend national boundaries. This includes, for example, Chinese authors who lived and wrote in Japan; Japanese authors who wrote in classical Chinese; and Korean authors who write in Japanese, whether under the colonial occupation or because they are resident in Japan. The waves of modernization can be seen as reaching each of these countries in a staggered fashion, with eddies and back-flows between them then complicating the picture further. This volume provides a vivid sense of this dynamic interplay.