å¼å·ęē: Always a good time for books!
Wow itās summer!! But no classes also sometimes means you kind of fall off the language wagon :/Ā a nice way to maintain momentum but not get too brain fried is to read works in translation, or works about china/the sinosphere. This can help remind you why you started learning or just kind of fill out fun background knowledge and maybe pick up a few things. a mish mash selection (mostly amazon links but then you have the isbn for your library or pdfing or w/e):
Free online
Paper Republic focuses on Chinese translations, Asymptote Journal is also wonderful and has work from not only Mandarin but Cantonese, Uyghur, and more!Ā
The Four Classic Novels
You donāt need to read these, straight up itās ok.Ā That said, they are referenced a lot and work their way into things, and for the most part are just fun stories. Most have multiple translations, Iām linking to one but feel free to poke around
Dream of The Red Chamber (Story of the Stone)
Journey to the West (or abridged ver, or really, this is what Dragonball is based on)
Romance of the Three Kingdoms (also a tv version from 2010 on youtube)
More Fiction
There is no real logic to this selection Ā ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆĀ
Legends of the Condor Heroes - very popular wuxia novels
Lu Xun - A Madmanās Diary, etc. A founding story in the vernacularization movement. Itās possible to find bilingual copies of much of his work, but because he was a pioneer in the early not-Classical Chinese writing movement (ē½čÆ) his writing is not what is now consideredĀ āstandard Mandarin.ā Itās decently easy to read, but maybe donāt learn grammar from it (another: åä¹å·±)
Chronicle of a Blood Merchant - Yu HuaĀ
Beijing Comrades - gay and graphic in moments, so originally published anonymously online
Notes of a Crocodile - Qiu Miaojin, aĀ ācult classicāĀ
The Chilli Bean Paste Clan - Yan Ge
Frontier - Can Xue (she has also written short stories)
Running Through Beijing - Xu ZechenĀ
Red Peonies: Two Novellas of ChinaĀ - Zhang Yihe has written quite a few stories about women from her time in prison during the Cultural Revolution, and while censored in China they are popular elsewhere. (careful tho some have only been translated into French so far but might look like English titles)
The Tibetan Suitcase - Ā I was actually trying to remember the name of a different book, but also this looks good too
Love in a Fallen City - Eileen Chang
Cantonese Love Stories - Dung Kai-Cheung (more city romantic than people)
The Wandering Earth - Liu Cixin. (havnāt seen the movie but it is on netflix)Ā I really enjoyed the Three Body Problem series, especially the first one as it actually starts a bit in the past, but if youāre not sure about scifi his stories are a good place to start and I think are a sort of look at some Chinese approaches to tech that vary from theĀ ācolonialism in spaceā style of a lot of Western scifi.Ā
There are also lots of anthologies out thereĀ (boo).
Anthology of Modern Chinese Poetry
Words from the Fire: Poems by Jidi MajiaĀ - Jidi Majia is from the Yi minority group (which has its own alphabet!) and he incorporates elements unique to it
The Poem Behind The Poem: Translating Asian PoetryĀ
The Private Life of Chairman MaoĀ - written by Maoās doctor, prof recommended this as a kind of fun/interesting read
Shanzai - Byung-Chul Han, short but a thing I think about a lot
The East is Black: Cold War China in the Black Radical Imagination
Age of Ambition - Evan Osnos. I found Osnos through this New Yorker articleĀ (long but worth it) and I think he brings both nuanced analysis (apparently difficult for some western journalists ą° Ķą² ) and engaging story telling
The State, Identity, and the National Question in China and Japan
Creativity Class: Art School and Cultural Work in Post-socialist China
The Birth of Chinese Feminism - Lydia Liu (Iām taking a class with her next semester Iām so excited and nervous)
The Chinese Typewriter - Thomas Mullaney. one of my favorite books, also about technology/media/info processing with great history work
Sound and Script in Chinese DiasporaĀ
Multilingualism In China - Zhou Ā (you can tell these are kind of linguistic-y but Iāve tried to choose ones I think are approachable)
Lin Shu Inc: Translation and the Making of Modern Chinese CultureĀ - did you know Uncle Tomās Cabin was a big hit in China? neither did I
Chinaās Design Revolution - honestly this book was a mixed bag, only bother if you find it in the library or used or something
A Short History of Chinese PhilosophyĀ Ā - bilingual! even if you plan to read Zhuangzi or something on its own I recommend some sort of contextual history help to get the most out of it (we used this in a class)
Thereās so much out there but hopefully this gets you grazing in the right direction!Ā
titsay
theartofmadeline
romaincrisis
germansingergirl
vaporwave
kaledo-art
izzy806
baratheonpilled
andulkaphoto
