Specials

A Golden Treasury of Chinese Poetry

chengtsu — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:07:03 +0000

A collection of 121 verse translations of Chinese classical poems.

Hi, Dharma!

chengtsu — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:07:03 +0000

"A searing piece of work, resonant and beautifully structured."
—Time Out

In this critically acclaimed action comedy from Korea, a group of thugs running away from an escalating gang war finds refuge in a Buddhist monastery. As they don the robes and settle in, the gangsters' rascal-like behavior begins to wear on the monks, who decide to come up with a series of games for their obnoxious guests. DVD includes Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, Chapters, and Trailers.

Korean, Cantonese with on/off English subtitles. Color, 2002; 97min.

Japanese Inro

chengtsu — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:07:03 +0000

This book draws extensively on the Victoria & Albert Museum's collection of inro, one of the finest and most comprehensive in the world. Traditional Japanese dress did not include pockets. One of the most highly decorative pocket substitutes was the inro. Worn exclusively by men, inro were suspended from a sash by netsuke. The inro became an object of high fashion and is now prized by collectors. Profusely illustrated throughout, this book looks at the diverse origins of the inro and follows its development through to the twentieth century. It also covers the inro's construction, techniques, and materials used, and the craftsmen who made them. Photographs and transcripts of craftmen's signatures provide a useful reference for dealers and collectors. The author's original research reveals the sources of many inro designs, including paintings, ukiyo-e prints, and especially woodblock printed books. Precise dating of inro and the methods which may be used to obtain an approximate date are also discussed. Japanese Inro incorporates the very latest research and is the most comprehensive book on the subject to date. This is an excellent book for specialists, as well as anyone interested in Japanese art.

Blue Sky, Green Sea and Other Stories

chengtsu — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:07:03 +0000

Author Liu Sola pushed her way into Chinese culture with multimedia installations, rock operas (that always seemed to get cancelled), and stories about, well, self-indulgent artists that raise the ire of some critics and draw praise from others, who find her seemingly throw-away style refreshing, rebellious, and eminently readable.

Burma

chengtsu — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:07:03 +0000

The academic study of Burma, especially the study of its cultural history, has been unfortunately neglected over the last 50 years -- but the conference papers published here together form a major contribution towards the redress of that neglect. This volume presents papers from a two-day conference organized in London in 2000 by The British Museum and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Current research is included on the topics of prehistory, architecture (monastic and secular), the cult of the nats, lacquer, illustrated manuscripts, mural paintings, sculpture, textiles, and the Ferrars Archive of Burma photographs at the Royal Geographical Society.

Peace Under Heaven

chengtsu — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:07:03 +0000

A satirical masterpiece from occupied Korea, this novel picks out a day in the life of a whiny, entitled landlord, Master Yun, and his family. It cannot be dismissed, however, as a blanket condemnation of the Japanese presence in Korea between 1910 and 1945, because the Korean characters are vilified almost as much.

New Year Celebrations in Central China in Late Imperial Times

chengtsu — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:07:03 +0000

Keenly attuned to the play of symbols, this anthropological study explores one of the major manifestations of Chinese popular tradition: the celebration of the lunar New Year. It analyzes a multitude of folk practices within a holistic perspective on Chinese traditional society, crafting a new picture of a world in which the social rhetoric of gender, lineage continuity, and ancestry were challenged by ritual manifestations of iconic symbolism. Viewed through the lens of Chinese imagery, the traditional calendar reveals new stories about the social organization of time as an expression of existential concerns in late imperial Chinese social life.