Themes

New Sinology Jottings

These works are in the style of ‘jottings’ 筆記 or 劄記, a genre familiar to readers of traditional Chinese prose. I call these essays ‘Jottings in New Sinology’ 後漢學劄記 in keeping with the concept of New Sinology, the study of and engagement with the Chinese and Sinophone worlds that has its origins in the late-Ming dynasty.… Read

Gardens, Libraries, Studios

Gardens As Pierre Ryckmans notes in ‘The Chinese Attitude Towards the Past‘, the Fifty-seventh George E. Morrison Lecture that he presented in July 1986: … the vital strength, the creativity, the seemingly unlimited capacity for metamorphosis and adaptation which the Chinese tradition displayed for 3,500 years may well derive from the fact that this tradition never let itself be trapped into set forms, static objects and things, where it would have run the risk of paralysis and death.… Read

The Teddy Bear Chronicles

In 1989, the Hong Kong writer Xi Xi 西西 was diagnosed with breast cancer. Post-operative treatment damaged the nerves in her right hand, but she taught herself to write with her left and, in 1992, published Elegy for a Breast 哀悼乳房 (adapted for the screen as 2 Become 1).… Read

Nouvelle Chinoiserie

奇趣漢學 ‘Nouvelle Chinoiserie’ 奇趣漢學 qíqù hànxúe draws inspiration from the name of a ruined pavilion at the Qing-dynasty Garden of Perfect Brightness — Yuanming Yuan 圓明園 — to the northwest of Beijing.… Read

The Rings of Beijing

Sang Ye 桑曄 and Geremie R. Barmé (GRB), The Rings of Beijing, Inside China’s Global Aura, an oral history account of China and the Chinese capital. The book is organised spatially and thematically around the six ring roads (and the seventh ‘nimbus of garbage’) of Beijing.… Read