Yi Zhongtian's book on Chinese culture

[djwebb2004]

I wanted to tell people about the book I am reading. It is by 易中天, who people probably know is currently very popular in China. He is a professor at Xiamen University whose TV shows and books are lapped up, and every street corner, in Kunming anyway, is selling his books. One is called 闲话中国人 (gossiping about, or informally discussing, Chinese people). He explains in the preface that his aim is to create a new type of academic work, one that is academically robust, not dumbed down, but written in colloquial Chinese, almost like a conversation, not in stuffy academic language. So the book itself is very chatty in style. There are 9 chapters on every aspect of Chinese culture, incl food and drink clothes, love, friendship, "face", the work unit, the family etc. He is aiming to explain, not just what Chinese culture is, but why and how it developed the way it did.

[wushijiao]

I have his 品三国前传：之汉代风云人物, which is about the Han dynasty. One of the many books I’ve started but haven’t finished yet.

It’s really incredible how big he is on the Mainland right now.

[djwebb2004]

I want to give an update on this. Although in the preface he says he will have a chatty style, it turns out that Yi Zhongtian's books are rather difficult to read even for Chinese people!! My chinese friends say he likes to "摆样子" and that is why. There are about 30 chengyu per page, and many discussions of historical stories and lines from poems etc. And there are even his own concocted sentences in wenyanwen ending in "ye". I am embarrassed to say that say I generally look up 30 words per page for this book ,and 60 is not unknown either. I am one third of the way in the book owing to my laziness. But some of the chengyu are absolutely great.

Kick the bucket 一命呜呼

A piece of cake 小菜一叠

Anyway, this is the hardeest book in modern Chinese I have seen...

[xianu]

sounds like it could be an interesting or at least linguistically helpful read. Anyone know where to get it in the states?

[xianu]

BTW, I just looked him up at Nanhai in california, and found that there will be an event, I guess with him speaking at the San Mateo Marriot on April 22. http://nanhai.com/store//product348.html

[gato]

Anyone know where to get it in the states?

joyo.com and dangdang.com both ship to the U.S., I think. I've personally only had delivery from joyo.com. The shipping probably costs more than the books, but since the books are at PRC prices -- very, very cheap, that is -- it's worth it.

[roddy]

Picked this up over the weekend as I was in a bookshop, didn't really know what to buy, and recognized it as having been mentioned on here so I figured even if I hated it I could come on here and say so.

Didn't get very far into it, but I agree that it isn't the easiest to read. There are lots of references to historical stories / events, and they really are just references, not descriptions. Which means if you don't know them already, they're just going to leave you wondering. Needless to say, I don't know them already. Also, the chapter on food, and I suspect the entire book, has lots of 'Western people blah blah blah, while Chinese people blah blah blah' stuff, which generally appears to be nonsense. I can't remember anything from inside the book, but the back cover claims that Chinese people are more suited to using chopsticks as they are introverted, and Westerners knives and forks as they are extroverted, and that seems to set the tone somewhat.

That said, I'm not very far in, so maybe I'm judging to early. Not sure I'll get much further though . . .