Michael Nylan Livres

Provides instructions for crocheting food, dishes, and an ice box, with basic crocheting techniques and tips on reading the patterns.

This is Volume One of a planned trilogy. One morning in Han dynasty China (206 BC - 220 AD), a girl of eleven is waking up... The day Meike grew up started out like most. She woke to the songs of mockingbirds in the camellia tree. She could hear Ahmei, the cook, in the forecourt bang a pot over the stove. She could smell smoke from Ahmei's fire and from a hundred others in their crowded district. If she concentrated, she could smell other things too - earth still damp from last night's rain, peppers soaking in a vat, and something she couldn't quite name riding the breeze that stirred the bamboo in the courtyard and trickled in through her latticed window. The first light that peeked over the roof-tiles of the east wing of the family compound made the soft green of the spring bamboo almost glow. A softer light caressed the petals of the plum blossom sprig in the vase on the table beneath her window. Her name, Meike, with its soft "may" and harder "kuh," meant Plum Blossom - soft petals, hard branch - and every Spring, on Meike's birthday, her mother placed a cutting in her room. In a few minutes, Ahmei would call her name, then call again when Meike didn't hop out of bed as ordered. She knew that if she waited, her father would creep in, slowly lift her cover, then grab her belly in a tickling claw. But then, all of a sudden, she had this unsettling feeling that today would be different.

This book explores the concept of pleasure in early Chinese philosophy, contrasting immediate gratification with the pursuit of lasting satisfaction. It delves into how ancient thinkers approached the idea of enjoyment, providing insights into their understanding of happiness and fulfillment. Through this examination, the text highlights the philosophical underpinnings that shaped attitudes towards pleasure in historical Chinese culture.

This work presents a comprehensive synthesis of classic Chinese philosophy, offering insights into its foundational concepts and ideas. The translation captures the essence of ancient wisdom, making it accessible to contemporary readers. It explores key themes such as morality, governance, and the nature of knowledge, reflecting the rich intellectual heritage of China. This synthesis serves as a vital resource for understanding the philosophical traditions that have shaped Chinese culture and thought throughout history.

"'Surely, a man has but one death. That death may be as heavy as Mount Tai or as light as a goose feather. It is how he uses that death that makes all the difference!' So wrote Sima Qian (first century BCE), author of Record of the Historian (Shiji), the first comprehensive history of China's past, in his 'Letter to Ren An.' In this, the most famous letter in Chinese history, he explains his decision to finish his life's work, the first comprehensive history of the Chinese past, which was begun by his late father, rather than to honorably commit suicide following his castration for 'deceiving the emperor.' The authenticity of the letter, which is included in Sima Qian's biography in Ban Gu's (CE 32-92) History of the Han Dynasty, has been debated for millennia. Is it a genuine piece of writing by Sima Qian addressed to a fellow sufferer who was himself languishing in prison and would die in 91 BCE? Or is it a very early work of literary impersonation whereby Ban Gu or a still earlier author sought to elucidate Sima Qian's reasoning through an epistle? Conceived as a text for Chinese history courses, this compact volume provides a full translation of the letter (along with the original Chinese text) and uses different interpretations of this key document to explore issues in textual history, epistolary culture, Han politics, and Han thought. It shows how ideas about friendship, loyalty, factionalism, and authorship encoded in the letter have far-reaching implications for the study of China"--Provided by publisher

Wai-yee Li traces notions of the pleasures and dangers of things in the literature and thought of late imperial China. She considers core oppositions- people and things, elegance and vulgarity, real and fake, lost and found-to tease out the ambiguities of material culture.

The "Great Plan" ("Hung fan") chapter of the Book of Documents (Shu ching) is a major source of Confucian political, cosmological, and social theory in early China. In her study of the "Great Plan" and its major commentaries, Michael Nylan explores the exegetical tradition of this significant text, thus following the "shifting center" of Chinese orthodoxy. The first chapter attempts to reconstruct the original message of the "Plan," its concern with the unification of the state and its focus on techniques for maximizing the ruler s power. The second chapter examines the interpretive changes which accompanied the elevation of the "Plan" from administrative manual to canonical status in the Western Han (206 B.C. - A.D. 8), when it became one of the cornerstones of the Yin-yang Five Agents theory. The third chapter demonstrates still another shift in the center of Chinese orthodoxy in eleventh century Sung China. The appendix reviews scholarly efforts to date the "Plan," concluding with the author s own tentative proposal of the date for the work. The book includes the Chinese text of the "Plan" according to Karlgren and, in addition, a reproduction of the Chinese text and its translation by Legge, a bibliography, and an index.