In the introduction to You Don’t Know China, John Ross notes the plethora of books on China that have “dragon” in the title. Yup, “dragon” has become something of a cliché in books about China, as “samurai” tends to get overused in books about Japan — though at least in the case of samurai they […]
Author Archives: Mark Swofford
This title doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue: ‘t Verwaerloosde Formosa, of waerachtig verhael, hoedanigh door verwaerloosinge der Nederlanders in Oost-Indien, het eylant Formosa, van den Chinesen mandorijn, ende zeeroover Coxinja, overrompelt, vermeestert, ende ontweldight is geworden…. So Camphor Press probably won’t be reprinting it a new English edition. But even so — and even […]
Dr. Linda Gail Arrigo, author of A Borrowed Voice: Taiwan Human Rights through International Networks, 1960-1980 (forthcoming from Camphor Press) will be lecturing this Friday in London on “The Social Origins of the Taiwan Democratic Movement: The Making of Formosa Magazine.” For details, see the announcement by SOAS’s Centre of Taiwan Studies.
This is a busy week for T.C. Locke (a.k.a. T.C. Lin). There’s an exhibition in Hangzhou, China of his photos. Camphor Press has just issued his terrific new book, Barbarian at the Gate: From the American Suburbs to the Taiwanese Army. And, what’s more, his movie The Kiss of Lady X will have its premiere […]
From How to Travel: Hints, Advice, and Suggestions to Travelers by Land and Sea All Over the Globe, by Thomas W. Knox, first published in 1881: There is no pleasanter steamship life anywhere than in the East, so far as the associations are concerned. The brainless idiots that add a pang to existence on the […]
Michael Turton recently noted that the ashes of Homer Lea are interred in Taipei’s Beitou District. Lea was an all-around colorful character and an adviser to Sun Yat-sen. He was also the author of a pretty awful melodramatic novel, The Vermilion Pencil; a Romance of China (1908). Here’s a selection. Enjoy! The Bay of Tai Wan, […]
James Cahill, a towering figure in the study of Chinese art, died last Friday at the age of 87. Cahill was especially generous in sharing his work online. For example, his lecture series on “A Pure and Remote View: Visualizing Early Chinese Landscape Painting” is available in full in video form on YouTube. Here’s part […]