A Leaf In The Storm
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A Leaf In The Storm
''A Leaf in the Storm, a Novel of War-Swept China'' is a novel written in English by Lin Yutang, published in 1941 by John Day Company. Set in Beiping (Beijing) when it was controlled by the Japanese, the novel describes the years of the Second Sino-Japanese War before the American entrance in 1941. It is a sequel to Lin's ''Moment in Peking''. Plot The scene opens in Peking (Beiping) in 1937, on the eve of the war with Japan, when there was fierce debate over China's best strategy. Yao Poya, a wealthy but patriotic businessman, and Lao Peng, who is a Chan Buddhist but angry and actively supporting the guerrilla resistance, are sharing a dinner and chouyin "drinking in sorrow". They mourn his retreats and military blunders, but Chiang Kai-shek is their hero. They resign themselves to his strategy of wearing down the Japanese Army and forcing them to brutalize and alienate the Chinese people. , 13 In spite of the fact that he is married, Poya is smitten with Malin, a young lady o ...
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John Day Company
The John Day Company was a New York publishing firm that specialized in illustrated fiction and current affairs books and pamphlets from 1926 to 1968. It was founded by Richard J. Walsh in 1926 and named after John Day, the Elizabethan printer. Walsh was the editor and second husband of Pearl S. Buck. The John Day Company was sold to the Thomas Y. Crowell Co. in 1974. Authors Some of the many authors associated with John Day Publishing. * Chinua Achebe * Irving Adler * Peggy Adler * Scott Buchanan * Pearl S. Buck * James Burnham * Buwei Yang Chao * Stuart Chase * Peter Drucker * Albert Einstein * Langston Hughes * Sidney Hook * Jawaharlal Nehru * Patrick O'Brian * Franklin D. Roosevelt * Joseph Stalin * Leon Trotsky * Rexford Guy Tugwell * Lin Yutang Pamphlet Series The Great Depression led to a steep decline in book sales in the early 1930s, this led to a small revival in pamphlet literature. Between 1932 and 1934 the John Day Company published a pamphlet series known ...
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Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang ( ; October 10, 1895 – March 26, 1976) was a Chinese inventor, linguist, novelist, philosopher, and translator. His informal but polished style in both Chinese and English made him one of the most influential writers of his generation, and his compilations and translations of classic Chinese texts into English were bestsellers in the West. Youth Lin was born in 1895 in the town of Banzai, Pinghe, Zhangzhou, Fujian. His father was a Christian minister. His journey of faith from Christianity to Taoism and Buddhism, and back to Christianity in his later life was recorded in his book ''From Pagan to Christian'' (1959). Academic career and Shanghai intellectual world Lin studied for his bachelor's degree at Saint John's University in Shanghai, then received a half-scholarship to continue study for a doctoral degree at Harvard University. He later wrote that in the Widener Library he first found himself and first came alive, but he never saw a Harvard–Yale game. In ...
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Beijing
} Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 million residents. It has an administrative area of , the third in the country after Guangzhou and Shanghai. It is located in Northern China, and is governed as a municipality under the direct administration of the State Council with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts.Figures based on 2006 statistics published in 2007 National Statistical Yearbook of China and available online at archive. Retrieved 21 April 2009. Beijing is mostly surrounded by Hebei Province with the exception of neighboring Tianjin to the southeast; together, the three divisions form the Jingjinji megalopolis and the national capital region of China. Beijing is a global city and one of the world's leading centres for culture, diplomacy, politics, finance, busi ...
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Moment In Peking
''Moment in Peking'' is a novel originally written in English by Chinese author Lin Yutang. The novel, Lin's first, covers the turbulent events in China from 1900 to 1938, including the Boxer Uprising, the Republican Revolution of 1911, the Warlord Era, the rise of nationalism and communism, and the start of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945. Background At the repeated invitation of Pearl S. Buck, who had sponsored the publication of Lin's bestselling '' My Country and My People'' in 1935, Lin left China for New York in August, 1936 to write '' The Importance of Living'', which was published in August 1937 to even greater success just as war broke out in China. In 1938, Lin left New York to spend a year in Paris, where he wrote ''Moment in Peking''. Lin wrote the book in English for a U.S. audience, yet he based it in Chinese literature and philosophy. As an exercise, before he started to compose ''Moment in Peking'', Lin translated passages from the classic Chinese novel ...
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Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Theater of the Second World War. The beginning of the war is conventionally dated to the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937, when a dispute between Japanese and Chinese troops in Peking escalated into a full-scale invasion. Some Chinese historians believe that the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 18 September 1931 marks the start of the war. This full-scale war between the Chinese and the Empire of Japan is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia. China fought Japan with aid from Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, United Kingdom and the United States. After the Japanese attacks on Malaya and Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war merged with other conflicts which are generally categorized under those conflicts of World War II a ...
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Chan Buddhism
Chan (; of ), from Sanskrit '' dhyāna'' (meaning "meditation" or "meditative state"), is a Chinese school of Mahāyāna Buddhism. It developed in China from the 6th century CE onwards, becoming especially popular during the Tang and Song dynasties. Chan is the originating tradition of Zen Buddhism (the Japanese pronunciation of the same character, which is the most commonly used English name for the school). Chan Buddhism spread from China south to Vietnam as Thiền and north to Korea as Seon, and, in the 13th century, east to Japan as Japanese Zen. History The historical records required for a complete, accurate account of early Chan history no longer exist. Periodisation The history of Chan in China can be divided into several periods. Zen, as we know it today, is the result of a long history, with many changes and contingent factors. Each period had different types of Zen, some of which remained influential while others vanished. Ferguson distinguishes three p ...
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Eighth Route Army
The Eighth Route Army (), officially known as the 18th Group Army of the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China, was a group army under the command of the Chinese Communist Party, nominally within the structure of the Chinese military headed by the Chinese Nationalist Party during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Eighth Route Army was created from the Chinese Red Army on September 22, 1937, when the Chinese Communists and Chinese Nationalists formed the Second United Front against Japan at the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, as the Chinese theater was known in World War II. Together with the New Fourth Army, the Eighth Route Army formed the main Communist fighting force during the war and was commanded by Communist party leader Mao Zedong and general Zhu De. Though officially designated the 18th Group Army by the Nationalists, the unit was referred to by the Chinese Communists and Japanese military as the Eighth Route Army. The Eighth Route Army wor ...
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Wuhan
Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei, Hubei Province in the China, People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the List of cities in China by population, ninth-most populous Chinese city and one of the nine National Central City, National Central Cities of China. The name "Wuhan" came from the city's historical origin from the conglomeration of Wuchang District, Wuchang, Hankou District, Hankou, and Hanyang District, Hanyang, which are collectively known as the "Three Towns of Wuhan" (). Wuhan lies in the eastern Jianghan Plain, at the confluence of the Yangtze river and its largest tributary, the Han River (Hubei), Han River, and is known as "Nine Provinces' Thoroughfare" (). Wuhan has historically served as a busy city port for commerce and trading. Other historical events taking place in Wuhan include the Wuchang Uprising of 1911, which led to the end of 2,000 years of d ...
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Fortress Besieged
''Fortress Besieged'' (Traditional Chinese: 圍城; Simplified Chinese: 围城; Pinyin: ''Wéichéng'') is a Chinese satirical novel written by Qian Zhongshu (Ch'ien Chung-shu), first published in 1947, and widely considered one of the masterpieces of twentieth century Chinese literature. The novel is a humorous tale about middle-class Chinese society in the late 1930s. It gained worldwide popularity after it was reprinted in the 1980s and made into a television series in 1990. Origin and History Qian Zhongshu started writing the novel in 1944 and completed it in 1946. He began writing the book while he and his wife, Yang Jiang, were living in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation. According to Yang Jiang, the successful production of several of her plays inspired Qian to write a full-length novel. Qian’s personal experiences abroad and in China inspired the characters and plot of the novel. For example, both Qian and the protagonist, Fang Hongjian, studied abroad in the m ...
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Qian Zhongshu
Qian Zhongshu (November 21, 1910 – December 19, 1998), also transliterated as Ch'ien Chung-shu or Dzien Tsoong-su, was a renowned 20th century Chinese literary scholar and writer, known for his wit and erudition. He is best known for his satirical novel ''Fortress Besieged''. His works of nonfiction are characterized by large amount of quotations in both Chinese and Western languages such as English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin. He also played an important role in digitizing Chinese classics late in his life. Qian created a profound theoretical meaning for the three features of motivational nature, empathetic nature, and rational nature of aesthetic emotion for literature by deeply studying questions such as the source of emotion motivation, the ways to express emotion, and the optimal comfort in emotion in writing. He believed that the source of emotion motivation is poems because poems can convey human's emotion. When people transfer their emotion to inanimat ...
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