Read About China in Cursive Script by Chang Yi-nan

[geek_frappa]

i scanned a crumbling, old, fragile book of cursive for your reference last year. it's out of print and no can find it so i posted it as a service. hope this helps somebody..

Read About China in Cursive Script by Chang Yi-nan

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pzlabs/sets/709578/

[kudra]

thanks.

If you go to "different sizes" you can look at "original" and see the brushwork.

This is in contrast to Fred Wang's book which uses a fixed width pen if I remember. Also Wang's book has examples from several contributors.

A few things for beginners to note(which I a beginner note):

1. stroke order is key

2. stroke order is key

3. in the first essay you can see "zhong guo" (sorry don't have ime installed on this computer) a few times, and each looks a little different.

4. regarding the examples of zhongguo, the most abbreviated versions of "guo" are basically the simplified character version. I don't know about other hanzi, but this suggests to me that there is a cultural connection between the traditional and simplified characters which counters the claim, which maybe you don't hear that much anymore, that simplified characters represent a betrayal of Chinese culture. (I hope this remark doesn't derail the thread)

[freipole]

It seems that the flickr pages are gone. Any chance that somebody made an offline copy and can post it?

[Tomsima]

Bumping this, does any body have any sources for Chang Yi-nan's Read about China in Cursive Script? I've been searching around for about an hour now and the only links I can ever find point to the dead flickr link above. Did anyone here happen to download the copy here, or have any idea how to get hold of this book?

[Shelley]

I could only find this by him. 

 

https://archive.org/details/introductiontochineselettersincursivescript/page/n27

 

Wonder if you could find it using the waybackmachine?

 

 

[Tomsima]

yeah ive got this one, unfortunately the author states his book Read about China in Cursive Script is intended to be read in between Fang yu wangs Chinese cursive script and chinese letters in cursive script. i just cant deal with this book seemingly have disappeared into some dusty library somewhere and noone being able to use it!

[Shelley]

https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=no%3A43794463

 

https://hollis.harvard.edu/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=01HVD_ALMA212185410680003941&context=L&vid=HVD2&lang=en_US&search_scope=default_scope&adaptor=Local Search Engine&tab=books&query=lsr02,contains,43794463&sortby=rank

 

You may be able to find something here, but I think they are are hard copies for lending, but they may have a digital version, might be worth asking. You never know where it might take you, I leave you to chase down the leads, I must go to bed?

[Tomsima]

I'll send off some emails, see if I can get any leads…

[Simahui]

Hello, I hope this is the right place to ask about this. I've finished working through Wang Fangyu's introduction to Chinese cursive script and I would like to move on to another book that is referenced in it called "Read about China in cursive script" (行草漫談中國) by one 李抱忱 but it is exceedingly rare and seemingly impossible to find. Does anyone know if this book is available anywhere?

[Shelley]

Hope this is of help.

 

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/10697-read-about-china-in-cursive-script-by-chang-yi-nan/

 

Ah I remember why I remembered this post. It was also a fail.

 

I wonder if @Tomsima got anywhere with the emails?

[Tomsima]

nope, nobody got back to me. i regularly go on ebay and run searches on these kind of old books and occasionally get lucky, but no nothing so far from this author yet either. Don't worry, Ill drop in if and when i do manage to get hold of anything

[大块头]

If there is strong interest, I could request a loan through the university library here and scan the pages. It isn't that long...

[Shelley]

It does seem there is interest here, is it old enough to be out of copyright? Did it ever have any? 

[Tomsima]

I would definitely be interested, a fantastic offer

[OneEye]

I'd be interested too. I've searched high and low for that book, to no avail.

 

However, the third book in the series (I think?) is available for download here: https://archive.org/details/introductiontochineselettersincursivescript 

[889]

It looks like the book was published by FSI, the Foreign Service Institute, which is part of the U.S. State Department. As such, the book would not be copyrighted since it's a Federal government publication. This is why the FSI course materials for many languages are so widely available.

 

You can try asking FSI for a copy, first informally then with a FOIA request, if necessary.

 

[大块头]

OK, I've submitted an inter-library loan request. It'll take a couple weeks. As @Shelley pointed out it looks like there a few copies on Worldcat.

 

Mods, perhaps this thread should be merged with this one?

[Simahui]

What an amazing response, I never would have thought such an obscure book would garner such interest! I await your news with bated breath

[imron]

16 hours ago, Simahui said:

I've finished working through Wang Fangyu's introduction to Chinese cursive script and I would like to move on to another book that is referenced in it

Not related to your exact question, but still possibly helpful if you are looking for a more advanced and thorough book to practice Chinese handwriting (either to improve your own handwriting, or to improve your ability to read other people's), is this book.  If you work your way through that book, doing all the examples, then by the time you finish you should be able to read a large amount of the handwritten Chinese you see.

[Simahui]

Definitely interested as well, I'm very interested in practical cursive, common and unofficial variants, etc. I've done some brush cursive calligraphy but not all of it is particularly practical or legible. I managed to get my hands on a rare copy of a little dictionary of unofficial simplified characters which is also quite useful for handwritten stuff, it's amazing how often these variants turn up.