十個詞彙裡的中國 China in Ten Words

[Meng Lelan]

Anyone seen this book by Yu Hua? Today's news saying that it is coming out in English. If there's a Chinese edition I may go buy it online.

[michaelS]

It sounds great. I'll be reading it in English.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/books/review/china-in-ten-words-by-yu-huatranslated-by-allan-h-barr-book-review.html

[Silent]

http://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010491632

[Meng Lelan]

Thank you silent, so glad it's in trads. Going to order it and see how it goes.

[Gleaves]

I picked this and Chronicle of a Blood Merchant up after reading 活着。 I was planning to give it a go in a few months. If others are starting to read it soon, though, I'll probably be tempted to start sooner.

[Meng Lelan]

gleaves where did you get your copy from?

[Gleaves]

Books.com.tw, same as Silent's link. I've ordered quite a few books/comics from them and have always been pleased. The shipping is expensive, but pretty quick. I have found that it is worth ordering a few books from them at once, as the shipping doesn't go up much for additional books (but is steep for that first book). I would have preferred a simplified version, but I don't think this book is published on the mainland.

[freshysauce]

The book is in simplified - look here

http://ishare.iask.sina.com.cn/f/21019576.html

I've only read a few pages of the 人民 discussion, but I think its great so far. I've never totally understood the concept of 人民 (being that it's meaning is different from that of simply "people") but this book is really helping. Can't wait to read the rest.

[jbradfor]

Interesting..... the traditional linked to in post #3 and the simplified linked to in post 8 have the same ISBN; is this normal for a traditional vs simplified versions? I would have thought they would have separate? It's also interesting that the simplified version is priced in TWD.

[roddy]

I can't see the book on Amazon.cn, so I'd say it isn't published in the mainland, and that simplified version has probably been derived from the traditional one - anyone who wants to look for conversion errors is welcome to do so.

[Meng Lelan]

That's right roddy! The book isn't considered appropriate for sale in the mainland, that's why the book is sold in Taiwan and that's why the book was written into English so that it can be sold in the US. When you read the book itself you'll find out why this is the case.

[roddy]

I can already guess why it's the case. This could be quite an interesting one though, and a quick glance at the online version doesn't make it look too difficult.

[paotale]

only read through 6 of the stories (chinese version) so far, plan to buy the translated copy to give to my dad for Christmas because I think Yu Hua's writing is very insightful, and the mix of humor, seriousness, and personal stories blend together really well.

[paotale]

Also interested to hear others opinion on how to classify the book, I'd say its almost an autobiography but not quite...

[roddy]

There's a traditional epub file (as in traditional Chinese, not as in the epub your grandmother prefers) here if anyone wants it.

[skylee]

How is the link above different from those links removed from this post? -> http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/22134-best-english-chinese-dictionary-for-google-android/page__view__findpost__p__263999

Is it not pirated? If it is, why the double standards? Because those were dictionaries?

[imron]

If it is, why the double standards? Because those were dictionaries?

From the T&C's

Pirated / Cracked material: Discussion of or links to pirated Chinese-learning material or cracked software is not permitted. Discussion of how to obtain general Chinese material (ie music, TV shows) for educational purposes is permitted, but not encouraged.

I believe the reasoning behind such a policy is that Chinese learning material is a relatively small market (compared to 'the general public'), and copyright infringement in that market can have a significant impact on someone's decision to create and release quality content for that market. This is perhaps something we can have an impact on because many of the forums' readers are part of that market.

For general Chinese material, not only are we not really likely to have any serious impact on copyright infringement (either by encouraging or discouraging it) due to the large scale on which it occurs outside of these forums and because many of the forums' readers aren't really part of the publishers' target market anyway, but I guess for quite a few readers of the forums, obtaining an official version of such material can actually be quite difficult due to it not being sold in their market, and problems/delays in trying to order stuff from overseas and so on. Which is not to say that such discussion/linking is encouraged, but sometimes it can be the only practical way for many people not based in a Chinese-speaking country to actually get access to such content.

This is becoming less of an issue for tv shows and movies, because nowadays many of these are legitmately licensed and hosted on sites such as tv.sohu.com and others. For printed books however it still presents a problem, and in fact that's one of the reasons why the last few times I've been back to China I stock up on enough reading material to last me the next year.

[roddy]

I've read the first bit of this - '人民' and started '领袖'. The former was all about Tiananmen, the latter is starting off about Mao. I can see why he opted not to try and publish it in China.

[Meng Lelan]

My copy came in the mail just now from books.com.tw.

[roddy]

Have you started it? I'm working my way through - about halfway finished I think. I'm not spending much time on it each day and I'm reading it in traditional which slows me down - plus the scanning errors, of which there are quite a few, don't help.