The Possible and the Probable

Watching China Watching (XXIV) This is one of three essays concerned with living in the New Epoch of Xi Jinping and the party-state of the People’s Republic of China. The following speech-turned-essay (‘蘊 — What Is & Isn’t Possible’), and ‘Staying Out of Range 彀外遺少’, which will appear on 25 May 2018, were published in 2008 and 2009 respectively.… Read

Encore — John Minford on Change

In the following lecture, offered here as one of The Wairarapa Talks, John Minford discusses translating the I Ching 易經, or Book of Changes. His translation of the book, with an introduction and extensive commentary, was published by Penguin Classics in 2015.… Read

‘The Midget Hound’, by Pu Songling

Dog Days (VI) ‘The Midget Hound’ 小獵犬 is the first in a new series of translations by John Minford from the stories collected in Pu Songling’s (蒲松齡, 1640-1715) Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio 聊齋誌異.… Read