Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns

The fact that Snow did not sneak into “red China” to gather information constituting the basis of his Red Start over China all alone is in many instances isunderstood even by scholars.Mao Zedong’s biography has been the subject of an international mountain of commentary in China and elsewhere. Biographies praising Mao and those slandering him are all based on the American journalist Edgar Snow’s (1905–1972) account in Red Star over China for the route Mao traveled from early childhood through his youth.How the “Red Star” Rose introduces the image of Mao and the biographical information made known to the world through the publication of Red Star, and with its publication the circumstances which they fundamentally undermined. Ishikawa Yoshihiro uses Mao Zedong as raw material to examine from whence and how ordinary historical information and images which we habitually use unconsciously come into being.He desires to help readers to reconsider the historicity of the generation of not only

It is impossible to reflect on 2020 without discussing Covid-19. The term, literally meaning corona- (CO) virus (VI) disease (D) of 2019, has become synonymous with “the virus”, “corona” and “the pand

A strong international interest in Congolese art, its collection and public display has grown steadily since it was first institutionalised with the foundation of Belgium’s Royal Museum of Central Afr

In what period did objects of worship appear in China? Could there be a possible convergence between written testimonies and archaeological remains? How was the production of icons understood, especia

Hundreds of Chinese export paintings of Canton trading houses and shopping streets are in museums and private collections throughout the world, and scholars of art and history have often questioned th

This book includes fifty most widely used Chinese sentence patterns, and is specially designed for intermediate learners of Chinese as a foreign language. Each chapter is divided into three parts: sen

The growth of Shanghai in the late nineteenth century gave rise to an exciting new art world in which a flourishing market in popular art became a highly visible part of the treaty port’s commercializ

The essays in this volume address a diverse range of issues in China’s narrative art and visual culture mainly from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) to the present. These studies attend to the complex way

The rapid advances in information technology has elevated the role of computer (-aided) translation in translation studies and practice in recent decades. This has resulted in numerous research and pu

Escaping the End of Times is a book where history meets psychology. It invites readers to explore the intricate relationships between dreams, politics, and the Chinese writing system in early modern China.Thoroughly researched and written in an accessible manner, this book presents a series of historical encounters that reveal how Ming scholars countered instability by compiling and editing dream texts. Readers learn how these scholars translated their dreams into action, used the past to bolster their status, reaffirmed their preferred societal order, merged myth and history, and interpreted their dreams and the dreams of others through creative techniques grounded in scholarly tradition.By combining detailed research with captivating storytelling, this book not only brings the world of late Ming dream analysis to life but also demonstrates the relevance of the past to the stories we tell now about ourselves and our own dreams.

杜甫一生的虛構自傳一個穿越了多個時代、多場戰火、多種語言的杜甫，帶著他的多重身影重返我們的生活現場。— 西川「世界偉大的隨筆家之一 」——《紐約時報》「一位隱蔽的文學領袖」My favorite essayist is Eliot Weinberger.His remarkable breadth of calm concern is impressive.—Gary Snyder (Pulitzer Prize Winner, 1975)­This is a book concerned with mortality, friendship, and regret.­The psyche looking back at its life. As such, The Life of Tu Fu sometimes feels like a poetic biography of my own life, or maybe yours.—Forrest Gander (Pulitzer Prize Winner, 2019)溫伯格巧妙地運用拼貼手法，從杜甫一千多首浩瀚的詩歌中擷取靈感，將其詩句、意象與情感重新編織成五十八首全新的詩篇。這些詩篇猶如一幅幅流動的畫卷，描繪出杜甫顛沛流離的一生，以及他所經歷的戰亂與瘟疫。儘管時空相隔千年，但在後疫情時代，我們或許更能體會杜甫詩歌中那種深刻的孤獨與蒼涼。這部作品不僅是對杜甫一生的致敬，也是對我們自身、對苦難和對人生短暫易逝的反思。Drawing inspirations from a vast oeuvre of more than a thousand poems, Eliot Weinberger has deftly composed a montage of ­fifty-eight poems derived and adapted from the lines, images, and feelings in Tu Fu’s poetry. These poems weave a tapestry of Tu Fu’s turbulent life and times of war and disaster.In the post-pandemic era, we may appreciat

This book offers a glimpse into the wide-ranging 50-year career of the internationally renowned Hong Kong photographer/designer through his work in collages and photomontages. From his early album covers when he was an art director/designer for the music industry in New York, Los Angeles and London in the 1970’s, through his diverse international assignments and personal works, to his most recent exhibition in Hong Kong. The story encompasses the long journey from cut-and-paste collages to the computer-composited photomontages of dreamscapes in this Carnival of Dreams.In his introduction titled ‘The Man from Everywhere’, Pico Iyer writes: “For decades now, Basil Pao has been the global eye through which I’ve taken in almost every country, as clearly as the world within… I never know where to place Basil; I can’t get my head around him. Album-designer, loving father, covert Chan master—21st century Renaissance man—Basil is always bringing the many worlds inside him together to create so

This volume is a translated and edited collection of studies on the Shi ji (Records of the historian) by SimaQian, authored by the prestigious Japanese sinologist Miyazaki Ichisada. Providing a pathbreaking analysis of the structure and formation of the Shi ji, it serves not only as an excellent introduction to Sima Qian’s masterpiece but also offers historiographical and methodological insights that will stimulate further debate and research.In this volume, Miyazaki presents fascinating evidence of the influence of narrative fiction and drama in Sima Qian’s recreation of the entire length and breadth of Chinese history right up to his own time. By establishing a foundational model for writing comprehensive histories in China, Sima Qian’s work is essential for understanding the subsequent tradition of historical writing. This volume offers readers valuable insights into how Sima Qian constructed his seminal work.A monument of Japanese scholarship on the Shi ji, Prof. Miyazaki Ichisada’

This book is the second in a two-volume monograph on the Zidanku Silk Manuscripts. Looted in 1942 from the Warring States-period Chu tomb at Zidanku, Changsha, the manuscripts date to the turn from the 4th to the 3rd centuries BCE and are the only pre-Imperial Chinese manuscripts on silk found to-date. The monograph represents the culmination of almost four decades of research by Professor Li Ling of Peking University. Volume One addresses the circumstances of the discovery of the Zidanku Silk Manuscripts and the subsequent provenance history in China and the United States.Volume Two provides the first complete transcription of the Zidanku Silk Manuscripts in their entirety together with reproductions of the original manuscripts. The transcription is accompanied by comprehensive annotations, with full paleographic and philological analysis of the texts. An English translation of the texts has been added by Professor Donald Harper. For the first time, the Zidanku Silk Manuscripts can be

Co-published with HKU LibrariesOn the Steppes of Dreams is the latest collection of ‘dreamscapes’ by Basil Pao. Designed as a companion piece to his previous book Carnival of Dreams (2023) - which chronicled, from his first album cover and early cut & paste collages to the current CGI enhanced digital images of his photomontage work over a period of 50 years. The new book completes the circle and concludes the story of his surrealist/magic-realism imagery with a chapter of tributes to the group of artists who had inspired and influenced his work. The book is also intended as a celebration and a momento for the 100th anniversary of Surrealism.In his introduction, Terry Gilliam wrote: “His stunningly beautiful composite images surprise us by combining opposites, juxtaposing unlikely imagery and ideas that ask questions, make us smile, make us think, releasing us from the rigid restrictions of Reason. The portal is in your hands. Turn the page and float off into Basil’s endless univer

How did lay people in old China save their lives when dealing with acute or chronic health issues? Conventional medicine was costly and might not have been an option for many. Instead, people in villages and towns relied on remedies drawn from a woodblock-printed illustrated booklet called the Seventy-Two Therapies, first published in 1847. The goal of this book is to foster an appreciation of China’s long tradition of folk remedies. Each folk remedy is illustrated by a page from the circa 1860s woodblock edition of the Seventy-Two Therapies which the author used for translation. He also added a historical and interpretive analysis to expand on each therapy and to place it in the context of contemporary thinking, aiming at academics and readers interested in the everyday lives of common people in pre-1950 China, and in the folk medicine wisdom inherited from the past. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “The 72 specific disease

This concise and authoritative work offers the latest guidance on journalism ethics for students and media professionals and will help empower news consumers to make informed decisions about the trustworthiness of their sources of information. It offers advice on all aspects of journalism ethics including accuracy and seeking the truth, representation of women, LGBTQ coverage, climate change, mental health, use of images, conflict reporting, elections, and how to use artificial intelligence. The author brings a unique perspective and depth of knowledge to the complex challenges facing journalists and news consumers in this era of fake news, disinformation, and artificial intelligence.

When the Yellow River Floods explores the relationship between environmental degradation, hydraulic engineering, and nation-building in the context of Liu E’s The Travels of Lao Can. This book contributes to the field by providing a unique perspective on modern Chinese literary history that goes beyond conventional narratives that focus solely on political and cultural factors. The main areas covered include the role of water management in literary nation-building and the connections between the novel’s various themes, such as river engineering, medical and political discourses, national sentiment, and landscape description. The book is targeted toward scholars and students of Chinese literature, history, and environmental studies, as well as those interested in the intersections between literature, nation-building, and environmental challenges. By offering a comprehensive and material-based analysis of The Travels of Lao Can, this book broadens the understanding of nation-building in

The distant rustle of a tusker emerging one morning from the forests of Nepal. The crack of the shifting expanses of ice in northern Mongolia. The swirl of mist around a lantern atop of Hong Kong Island. The squeaky whistle of diving kites over the holy waters of Varanasi. Black clouds carrying sleet over the rock country of Australia. Men with their eagles on horseback singing love songs as they ride through tall grasslands. This book of images is a thought-provoking look at stillness and reflection, from the bushlands of Australia to the frozen lakes of Mongolia, and the deserts of the Middle East. It’s a personal look at places of silence and space where I have found peace and meaning. My hope is to invite the viewer to pause, slow down, and look. Pay attention to the small, magical things that are happening within each image and find your own place within them. There we can meet in silence—and be still. When you stand in front of a photographic print made with movement and the play

Fills a gap in Korean Wave studies by studying it through the lens of gender. Women We Love is an edited collection exploring femininities in and around the Korean Wave since 2000. While studies on the Korean Wave are abundant, there is a dearth of analysis about the female-identifying stars, characters, and fans who shape and lead this crucial cultural movement. Using "women" as an inclusive term extending to all those who self-define as women, this collection of essays examines the role of women in K-pop and K-drama industries and fandom spaces, encompassing crucial intersectional topics such as queering of gender, dissemination of media, and fan culture. The audience for Women We Love will reflect the contributors to this text; they are K-pop and K-drama fans, queer, international; they are also academics of Asian histories, sociology, gender and sexuality, art history, and visual culture. The chapters are playful, intersectional, and will be adapted well into syllabi for media stud

A behind-the-scenes look into the filming of The Last Emperor through the photographs of Basil Pao. The Last Emperor Revisited is a true behind-the-scenes look at the making of Bernardo Bertolucci's legendary film through the exquisite eye of a photographer who had unlimited access to everyone and everything, everywhere. The photographs feature an international cast of characters who contributed to the creation of the masterpiece, from the director, filmmakers, and actors, to the farmers, workers, and students in and around Beijing who were recruited as extras. In July 1986, Basil Pao joined the cast and crew for the filming of The Last Emperor. His principal role was to play the young emperor Pu Yi's father Prince Chun, but he also served as a third assistant director and special stills photographer. The book contains over 250 photographs, including some of Pao's most iconic images of the film, along with a treasure trove of "never-been-seen" pictures captured during filming in Beijin

An analysis of the lessons learned from tuberculosis control in Shanghai. Tuberculosis Control and Institutional Change in Shanghai, 1911-2011 is the first book on the most widespread and deadly infectious disease in China, both historically and today. Weaving together interviews with data from periodicals and local archives in Shanghai, Rachel Core examines the rise and fall of tuberculosis control in China from the 1950s to the 1990s. Under the socialist work unit system, the vast majority of people had guaranteed employment, a host of benefits tied to their workplace, and there was little mobility--factors that made the delivery of medical and public health services possible in both urban and rural areas. The dismantling of work units amid wider market reforms in the 1980s and 1990s led to the rise of temporary and casual employment and a huge migrant worker population, with little access to health care, creating new challenges in TB control. This study of Shanghai will provide valu

This book offers a glimpse into the wide-ranging 50-year career of the internationally renowned Hong Kong photographer/designer through his work in collages and photomontages. From his early album covers when he was an art director/designer for the music industry in New York, Los Angeles and London in the 1970’s, through his diverse international assignments and personal works, to his most recent exhibition in Hong Kong. The story encompasses the long journey from cut-and-paste collages to the computer-composited photomontages of dreamscapes in this Carnival of Dreams.In his introduction titled ‘The Man from Everywhere’, Pico Iyer writes: “For decades now, Basil Pao has been the global eye through which I’ve taken in almost every country, as clearly as the world within… I never know where to place Basil; I can’t get my head around him. Album-designer, loving father, covert Chan master—21st century Renaissance man—Basil is always bringing the many worlds inside him together to create so

The Guodian manuscripts are a cache of literary and philosophical texts from the fourth century BCE, discovered in a Warring States–period tomb in China’s Hubei Province. Through detailed decipherment and textual analysis, Kuan-yun Huang investigates the historical and philosophical contexts of these texts and convincingly proposes their association with Zisi, the grandson of Confucius. Huang not only offers an in-depth portrait of this famous scion from excavated texts and transmitted literary records, but also reveals the connection of the Guodian texts with early intellectual tradition in China, including the teachings of Xunzi, Mencius, Confucius, and the legendary Laozi, as well as the effort of rewriting that transformed Zisi’s original teachings into a conformist line of thinking, which defined and constituted the Confucian tradition of a later time.-------------- In Kuan-yun Huang’s The Lost Texts of Confucius’ Grandson, the shadowy figure of Zisi comes to life as an

The pandemic left disorder and crises in its wake everywhere it struck. Drawing on disciplines including public health, politics, and socioeconomics, this book tracks the spread of COVID-19 to weave a coherent picture that explains how scientists learnt about the virus, how authorities reacted around the world, and how different societies coped. Written by a leading team of public health, policy, and economics experts, this volume provides an in-depth analysis of various countries’ responses to the onset of the pandemic, as well as suggestions to increase capacity and capability to fight future pandemics. The first part of the book provides an overview of global governance and international cooperation, economic and social consequences of the outbreak, and breakthroughs in mathematical modelling and COVID-19 vaccines. The second part of the book examines and compares specific countries and regions through the lens of good governance, social contract, and political trust. This book is e

Eternal Transience, Enlightened Wisdom:Masterpieces of Buddhist Art contextualises thirtythree bronze statues and thangkas of deities and gurus in Tibetan Buddhism from Tibet, Nepal, Pakistan and Mongolia dating from the 6th–19th centuries.From an art historical perspective, these Himalayan masterpieces reflect an array of aesthetic and artistic traditions from neighbouring regions across the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia. The book provides a comprehensive analysis of the artworks’ iconography and material culture.As part of Buddhism’s eternal journey from India to the Himalayas, China and Japan, the religious icons and objects of daily religious practice remain a testament to the shifting cultures that have engaged with Buddhism over the millennia.Acknowledging such a state of transience highlights the enlightened wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism as portrayed through the various artworks.「如來一相：佛教藝術藏珍」展出藏傳佛教藝術品，包括銅像及唐卡。展品源自6至19世紀西藏、尼泊爾、巴基斯坦，甚至遠及蒙古。藝術史上，藏傳佛教藝術興於喜馬拉雅山脈一帶，承襲了印度次大陸及中亞地區的美

Grounded in a desire to bring back to life rare items from the University of Hong Kong’s Fung Ping Shan Library that are entwined within the world of music and to place them in a context of books and images in American, British, and other Asian collections, Chinese Music in Print views the library as a repository not of information but of artifact, and then uses these artifacts as a means for generating scholarly narrative. It begins by assessing seminal texts in the Confucian canon set against the delicacy of the concubine and amanuensis Shen Cai’s calligraphy and poetry. Confucianism was itself a crucial aspect of courtly life, and an exploration of its ritual is the book’s second theme. Vernacular genres of opera and song are represented in the third chapter, while the Great Sage returns in the fourth for an exploration of the repertoire and richness of his favourite instrument, the qin. The final chapter ends the journey with discussion of the legacy of generations of Europeans who

The first exhaustive English-language history and analysis of the Chinese opera genre, Kunqu. In Kunqu: A Classical Opera of Twenty-First-Century China, Joseph S. C. Lam offers a holistic and interdisciplinary view of Kunqu, a 600-year-old genre of Chinese opera that has been fashionably performed inside and outside of China. The first comprehensive and scholarly book on Kunqu written in English, this book explains how and why the genre charms and signifies Chinese culture, history, and personhood. Approaching the genre from several perspectives, ranging from those of performers and producers to those of casual audiences, dedicated connoisseurs, and scholarly critics, Lam also employs a judicious blend of Chinese and international theories and methods. Herein, he establishes the significance of Kunqu not only in the sphere of Chinese music but among the cultural heritage and performing arts at a global level as well.

This book contains analysis of different domains of contemporary art in China seen through the lens of the epistemological changes described in China Pluperfect I: Epistemology of Past and Outside in Chinese Art.It first looks at the concept of “ink art,” describing how it meant different things to different people in the former colony and how these different meanings came to determine certain institutional choices made at the beginning of the 21st century. The following chapters are dedicated to issues related to the urban and rural contexts for art creation in Mainland China and Hong Kong. One chapter observes the ups and downs of the representations of cities in the history of the People’s Republic of China and how they have defined a certain idea of culture. Another looks at how Chinese cities have been exceptional centers of art creations over the last thirty to forty years through the example of Shenzhen where a vibrant art scene, albeit closely connected to Hong Kong which has b

Based on a close reading of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu’s extant films, this book provides insights into the ways the director created narrative structures and used symbolism to construct meaning in his films. Against critics’ insistence that Ozu was indifferent to plot and unlikely to use symbols, Geist demonstrates otherwise, revealing the director’s subtle iconographic paradigms. Her incisive understanding of the historical and cultural context in which the films were conceived amplifies her analysis of the films’ structure and meaning. Ozu: A Closer Look guides the reader through Ozu’s early, silent films and his sound films made during Japan’s wars in Asia and the subsequent American Occupation, then takes up specific themes relevant to his later, better-known films. These themes include religion, gender, and the influence of traditional Japanese painting. Geist also examines the impact that Ozu’s films had on specific directors in Europe, America, and Japan. Intended for film

he Genera of Orchidaceae in Hong Kong is a handy reference for both amateurs and professional botanists in Asia who wish to enter the field of modern orchidology. Orchid appreciation is an art deeply rooted in Asian cultures. But in 1977, when this book was first published, orchidology as a science was new to people there. The technical vocabulary was unfamiliar and the subject matter difficult to understand. Therefore, this volume was intended as a general, easy-to-use reference book, with illustrations of the basic structure of orchids and their habit and habitat clearly described in Chapter I.The book may also be used as a self-help guide for naturalists and gardeners in Hong Kong who wish to identify an orchid new to them. In Chapter II, keys, descriptions, and illustrations are given to allow the reader to look up and gain information about individual orchid species. Chapter III provides an analysis of the composition and an interpretation of the phytogeographic significance of th

Masculinity, fast-changing and regularly declared to be in the throes of crisis, is attracting more popular and scholarly debate in China than ever before. At the same time, Chinese literature since 1989 has been characterized as brimming with countercultural ‘attitude’. This book probes the link between literary rebellion and manhood in China, showing how male writers, as they critique the outcomes of decades of market reform, also ask the same question: how best to be a man in the new postsocialist order?In this first full-length discussion of masculinity in post-1989 Chinese literature, Pamela Hunt offers a detailed analysis of four contemporary authors in particular: Zhu Wen, Feng Tang, Xu Zechen, and Han Han. In a series of insightful readings, she explores how all four writers show the same preoccupation with the figure of the man on the edges of society. Drawing on longstanding Chinese and global models of maverick and marginal masculinity, and responding to a desire to retain a

High Gothic: Christian Art & Iconography of the 13th–14th Century showcases classic examples of statuary, stained glass, diptychs, textiles and caskets that were used in the expression of Christian devotion in Western Europe.‘Gothic’ was originally a derogatory term coined by scholars during the Renaissance to describe the ‘barbaric’ medieval architecture that arose with the decline of the classical forms of the Roman Empire. The word is now understood to describe a style of buildings and objects created between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries which incorporate elements such as novel advances in masonry work and the characteristic ogival arch.The Gothic period saw an increased emphasis on the power of images, where vision became an active force for activating emotion and inspiring contemplation. The great cathedrals constructed in this period―with their thin walls and high vaults filled with statuary and stained-glass windows―were designed to evoke awe among visitors. The exqui

Eros of International Relations: Self-Feminizing and the Claiming of Postcolonial Chineseness is a distinctive work that explores the much-neglected Chinese perspective in broader international relations theory. Using the concept of “self-feminizing”―adoption of a feminine identity to oblige and achieve mutual caring as a relational strategy―this book argues that postcolonial actors have employed gendered identities in order to survive the squeezing pressure of globalization and nationalism in their own ways. Sovereign actors who have historically claimed to act on behalf of Chineseness have taken advantage of the images of femininity thrust upon them by transnational capitalism, the media, or intellectual thought.Shih illustrates the feminist potential for emancipation through a range of empirical examples, showing that women of various Chinese characteristics, acting on behalf of their nation, city, and corporations, reject the masculinization of their groups of belonging as remedy f

“Red and blue appear in stark contrast with one another on the map of America. But the even more profound divide is the alienation in our hearts.”This work is a striking analysis of the struggles face

Translated from the original French publication, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of twentieth-century Chinese literature and examines the relationship between Chinese literary theory and m

Based on rare first-hand historical data, Wang Ke presents the analysis of the East Turkestan from the perspective of Islamic social structure, the origin and evolution of thoughts on national revolut

Recent discoveries of bronze ritual vessels from ancient China provide the ground for this collection of essays, which focus in particular on the nature and patterns of family lineages as seen from th

Contract Law in Hong Kong: A Comparative Analysis provides readers with a clear understanding of contract law in Hong Kong as well as its counterpart in England. It enables readers to navigate a vast

The book depicts gay paradises in Southeast Asia and the men who created them. It studies the obstacles gay men have faced in securing a voice as citizens, and how they used images of paradise in Bali