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Ghostwritten (novel)
''Ghostwritten'' is the first novel published by English author David Mitchell. Published in 1999, it won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and was widely acclaimed. The story takes place mainly around East Asia, but also moves through Russia, Britain, the USA and Ireland. It is written episodically; each chapter details a different story and central character, although they are all interlinked through seemingly coincidental events. Many of the themes from ''Ghostwritten'' continue in Mitchell’s subsequent novels, ''number9dream'' and ''Cloud Atlas'', and a character later appears in ''The Bone Clocks.'' ''Ghostwritten'' is the product of a number of influences, particularly from East Asian culture and superstition, as well as real events remodelled for plot purposes (e.g. the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway). There are also hints and references to other works, most prominently from Isaac Asimov and the Three Laws of Robotics towards the end of the book, as well as ''Wild ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Mitchell (author)
David Stephen Mitchell (born 12 January 1969) is an English novelist, television writer, and screenwriter. He has written nine novels, two of which, ''number9dream'' (2001) and ''Cloud Atlas'' (2004), were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has also written articles for several newspapers, most notably for ''The Guardian'', and translated books about autism from Japanese to English. Early life Mitchell was born in Southport in Lancashire (now Merseyside), England, and raised in Malvern, Worcestershire. He was educated at Hanley Castle High School and at the University of Kent, where he obtained a degree in English and American Literature followed by an M.A. in Comparative Literature. Mitchell lived in Sicily for a year, then moved to Hiroshima, Japan, where he taught English to technical students for eight years, before returning to England, where he could live on his earnings as a writer and support his pregnant wife. Work Mitchell's first novel, ''Ghostwritten'' (1999) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doomsday Cult
A doomsday cult is a cult, that believes in apocalypticism and millenarianism, including both those that predict disaster and those that attempt to destroy the entire universe. Sociologist John Lofland coined the term ''doomsday cult'' in his 1966 study of a group of members of the Unification Church of the United States: '' Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith''. In 1958, Leon Festinger published a study of a group with cataclysmic predictions: '' When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World''. Festinger and other researchers have attempted to explain the commitment of members to their doomsday cult after the leader's prophecies have proven false. Festinger attributed this phenomenon to the coping method of dissonance reduction, a form of rationalization. Members often dedicate themselves with renewed vigor to the group's cause after a failed prophecy, rationaliz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Guards
Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard leader, the movement's aims were as follows: Despite being met with resistance early on, the Red Guards received personal support from Mao, and the movement rapidly grew. The movement in Beijing culminated during the "Red August" of 1966, which later spread to other areas in mainland China. Mao made use of the group as propaganda and to accomplish goals such as seizing power and destroying symbols of China's pre-communist past ("Four Olds"), including ancient artifacts and gravesites of notable Chinese figures. Moreover, the government was very permissive of the Red Guards, and even allowed the Red Guards to inflict bodily harm on people viewed as dissidents. The movement quickly grew out of control, frequently coming into conflict with aut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imperial Japanese Army
The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor of Japan as supreme commander of the army and the Imperial Japanese Navy. Later an Inspectorate General of Aviation became the third agency with oversight of the army. During wartime or national emergencies, the nominal command functions of the emperor would be centralized in an Imperial General Headquarters (IGHQ), an ad hoc body consisting of the chief and vice chief of the Army General Staff, the Minister of the Army, the chief and vice chief of the Naval General Staff, the Inspector General of Aviation, and the Inspector General of Military Training. History Origins (1868–1871) In the mid-19th century, Japan had no unified national army and the country was made up of feudal domains (''han'') with the Tokugawa shogunate (''bakufu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Emei
Mount Emei (; ), alternately Mount Omei, is a mountain in Sichuan Province, China, and is the highest of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China. Mount Emei sits at the western rim of the Sichuan Basin. The mountains west of it are known as Daxiangling. A large surrounding area of countryside is geologically known as the Permian Emeishan Large Igneous Province, a large igneous province generated by the Emeishan Traps volcanic eruptions during the Permian Period. Administratively, Mount Emei is located near the county-level city of the same name (Emeishan City), which is in turn part of the prefecture-level city of Leshan. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. As a sacred mountain Mount Emei is one of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China, and is traditionally regarded as the bodhimaṇḍa, or place of enlightenment, of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra. Samantabhadra is known in Mandarin as Pǔxián Púsà (). Sources of the 16th and 17th centuries all ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tian Tan Buddha
The Big Buddha is a large bronze statue of Buddha, completed in 1993, and located at Ngong Ping, Lantau Island, in Hong Kong. The statue is sited near Po Lin Monastery and symbolises the harmonious relationship between man and nature, people and faith. It is a major centre of Buddhism in Hong Kong, and is also a tourist attraction. Description The statue's base is a model of the Altar of Heaven or Earthly Mount of Tian Tan, the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. One of the five large Buddha statues in China, it is enthroned on a lotus on top of a three-platform altar. Surrounding it are six smaller bronze statues known as "The Offering of the Six Devas" that are posed offering flowers, incense, lamp, ointment, fruit, and music to the Buddha. These symbolise the Six Perfections of generosity, morality, patience, zeal, meditation, and wisdom, all of which are necessary for enlightenment. The statue is tall, weighs over , and was constructed from 202 bronze pieces. In addition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diabetic Coma
Diabetic coma is a life-threatening but reversible form of coma found in people with diabetes mellitus. Three different types of diabetic coma are identified: #Severe low blood sugar in a diabetic person #Diabetic ketoacidosis (usually type 1) advanced enough to result in unconsciousness from a combination of a severely increased blood sugar level, dehydration and shock, and exhaustion # Hyperosmolar nonketotic coma (usually type 2) in which an extremely high blood sugar level and dehydration alone are sufficient to cause unconsciousness. In most medical contexts, the term diabetic coma refers to the diagnostical dilemma posed when a physician is confronted with an unconscious patient about whom nothing is known except that they have diabetes. An example might be a physician working in an emergency department who receives an unconscious patient wearing a medical identification tag saying DIABETIC. Paramedics may be called to rescue an unconscious person by friends who identify ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta in South China. With 7.5 million residents of various nationalities in a territory, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world. Hong Kong is also a major global financial centre and one of the most developed cities in the world. Hong Kong was established as a colony of the British Empire after the Qing Empire ceded Hong Kong Island from Xin'an County at the end of the First Opium War in 1841 then again in 1842.. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898... British Hong Kong was occupied by Imperial Japan from 1941 to 1945 during World War II; British administration resume ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expatriate
An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to educated professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country, either independently or sent abroad by their employers. However, the term 'expatriate' is also used for retirees and others who have chosen to live outside their native country. Historically, it has also referred to exiles. Expatriates are immigrants or emigrants who maintain cultural ties such as the language of their country of origin. Etymology The word ''expatriate'' comes from the Latin terms '' ex'' ("out of") and ''patria'' ("native country, fatherland"). Semantics Dictionary definitions for the current meaning of the word include: :Expatriate: :* 'A person who lives outside their native country' (Oxford), or :* 'living in a foreign land' (Webster's). These definitions contrast with those of other words with a similar meaning, such a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in European harmony and African rhythmic rituals. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. But jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisationa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Record Shop
A record shop or record store is a retail outlet that sells Sound recording and reproduction, recorded music. In the late 19th century and the early 20th century, record shops only sold gramophone records, but over the 20th century, record shops sold the new formats that were developed, such as eight track tapes, Cassette tape, compact cassettes and Compact disc, compact discs (CDs). Today in the 21st century, record stores sell CDs, gramophone record, vinyl records and in some cases, DVDs of Film, movies, Television show, TV shows, animated cartoons, cartoons and concerts. Some record stores also sell music-related items such as posters of bands or singers, -related clothing items and even Merchandising, merchandise such as bags and coffee mugs. Even when CDs became popular during the 1990s, people in English-speaking countries still used the term "record shop" to describe a shop selling sound recordings such as CDs. With the vinyl revival of the 21st century, often generating ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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