Modeling and Simulation in Python

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

Studies in Colloquial Chinese and Its History: Dialect and Text presents cutting-edge research into issues regarding prestige colloquial languages in China in their spoken forms and as well as their relationship to written forms and the colloquial literary language. These include the standard regional languages and prestige dialects of the past, the influence of historical forms of spoken Chinese on written Chinese, the history of guānhuà and the history of báihuà, proto-dialects and supra-regional common languages (koines), and their relationship to spoken dialects. The various studies in this collection focus on the dialect groups with the most substantial written tradition, including Mandarin, Wu, Min, and Cantonese, in north, central and eastern coastal, and southern China respectively. The contributors explore the histories of these dialects in their written and spoken forms, presenting a variegated view of the history and development of the regional forms, including their evoluti

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

In The Making of Chinese-Sinophone Literatures as World Literature, Kuei-fen Chiu and Yingjin Zhang aim to bridge the distance between the scholarship of world literature and that of Chinese and Sinophone literary studies. This edited volume advances research on world literature by bringing in new developments in Chinese/Sinophone literatures and adds a much-needed new global perspective on Chinese literary studies beyond the traditional national literature paradigm and its recent critique by Sinophone studies. In addition to a critical mapping of the domains of world literature, Sinophone literature, and world literature in Chinese to delineate the nuanced differences of these three disciplines, the book addresses the issues of translation, genre, and the impact of media and technology on our understanding of “literature” and “literary prestige.” It also provides critical studies of the complicated ways in which Chinese and Sinophone literatures are translated, received, and reinveste

Traversing from the rapidly urbanising county-level city of Fuqing to the remote mountainous kingdom of Lesotho in Southern Africa, Searching for Sweetness is one of the first and most extensive ethnographies linking rural-to-urban migration in China with Chinese migration to Africa. Against the backdrop of China’s national struggle for modernity and globalisation, Sarah Hanisch examines Chinese migrant women’s complex and ever-shifting struggles for upward social mobility across different generations and localities in China and Lesotho. Embedding the women’s individual portraits into larger historical contexts, Hanisch illustrates how these women interpret and narrate their migratory and everyday experiences through and beyond powerful state metanarratives on ‘sweetness’ and ‘bitterness’. In her exploration of migratory identities and projects that have been overlooked by previous studies, Hanisch brings uniquely gendered, multi-sited, and intergenerational perspectives to existing sc

The Many Faces of Ruan Dacheng: Poet, Playwright, Politician in Seventeenth-Century China is the first monograph in English on a controversial Ming dynasty literary figure. It examines and re-assesses the life and work of Ruan Dacheng (1587–1646), a poet, dramatist, and politician in the late Ming period. Ruan Dacheng was in his own time a highly regarded poet, but is best known as a dramatist, and his poetry is now largely unknown. He is most notorious as a ‘treacherous official’ of the Ming–Qing transition, and as a result his literary work―his plays as well as his poetry―has been neglected and undervalued. Hardie argues that Ruan’s literary work is of much greater significance in the history of Chinese literature than has generally been recognised since his own time. Ruan, rather than being a transgressive figure, is actually a very typical late Ming literatus, and as such his attitudes towards identity and authenticity can add to our understanding of these issues in late Ming intel

Reverse paintings on glass occupy a special place in Chinese art, spanning the genres of glass working, export art, folk art, erotica, and meiren hua (paintings of beauties). Their unique appearance is the result of a challenging production process in which artists layer pigments in the reverse order of the normal painting procedure–highlights first, then mid-layers, and finally base colours. The final product is viewed in reverse from the opposite side of the glass, which must also be considered when creating the paintings. A product of the encounter between East and West, the manufacture of glass paintings in China was stimulated by European glass paintings brought to the imperial court by traders and diplomats in the seventeenth century. Initially made in Canton for Western consumers, by the eighteenth century their production had spread throughout China, with subjects and styles adapted to suit local tastes. The glass paintings in the Mei Lin Collection represent this later floweri

English novelist E.M. Forster wrote his last and best-loved work, A Passage to India, both as a paean to his love for India and as a tribute to the relationships he formed with Indians. Forster became entranced by the India of the Raj at a young age, and his love affair with the sub-continent, its princes, and peoples, was to last all his life. At his most socially transgressive, it was with Indians that Forster chose to connect and with whom he put into effect his belief in man’s duty to value friendship over state or ideology. His time in India was undoubtedly when he was at his most human and most vulnerable.At once a contemporary reflection on India’s rich history and a biographical retelling of Forster’s travels through the country in the early 1900s, Developing the Heart delves into the past to better understand the profound impact certain events and people had on his writing. In doing so, it allows readers to look on as Forster matures and softens over time in his behaviour with

What does it mean to be queer in a Confucian society in which kinship roles, ties, and ideologies are of such great importance? This book makes sense of queer cultures in China—a country with one of the largest queer populations in the world—and offers an alternative to Euro-American blueprints of queer individual identity. This book contends that kinship relations must be understood as central to any expression of queer selfhood and culture in contemporary cultural production in China. Using a critical approach—“queering Chinese kinship”—Lin Song scrutinizes the relationship between queerness and family relations, and questions Eurocentric queer culture’s frequent assumption of the separation of queerness from blood family.Offering five case studies of queer representations across a range of media genres, this book also challenges the tendency in current scholarship on Chinese and East Asian queerness to understand queer cultures as predominantly counter-mainstream, marginal, and unde

The crisis of masculinity surfaced and converged with the crisis of the nation in the late Qing, after the doors of China were forced open by Opium Wars. The power of physical aggression increasingly overshadowed literary attainments and became a new imperative of male honor in the late Qing and early Republican China. Afflicted with anxiety and indignation about their increasingly effeminate image as perceived by Western colonial powers, Chinese intellectuals strategically distanced themselves from the old literati and reassessed their positions vis-à-vis violence. In Mastery of Words and Swords: Negotiating Intellectual Masculinities in Modern China, 1890s–1930s, Jun Lei explores the formation and evolution of modern Chinese intellectual masculinities as constituted in racial, gender, and class discourses mediated by the West and Japan. This book brings to light a new area of interest in the “Man Question” within gender studies in which women have typically been the focus. To fully r

In the West, love occupies center stage in the modern age, whether in art, intellectual life, or the economic life. We may observe a similar development in China, on its own impetus, which has resulted in this characteristic of modernity—this feature of modern life has been securely and unambiguously established, not the least facilitated by the thriving of literature about qing, whether in traditional or modern forms.Qiancheng Li concentrates on the nuances of a similar trend manifested in the Chinese context. The emphasis is on critical readings of the texts that have shaped this trend, including important Ming- and Qing-dynasty works of drama, Buddhist texts and other religious/philosophical works, in all their subtlety and evocative power.

Chinese Diaspora Charity and the Cantonese Pacific, 1850–1949 sheds new light on the history of charity among Chinese overseas and its place in the history of charity in China and in the wider history

In Queer Chinese Cultures and Mobilities, John Wei brings light to the germination and movements of queer cultures and social practices in today’s China and Sinophone Asia. While many scholars attribu

In Paths of Justice, Johannes Chan illuminates fundamental themes and basic values in Hong Kong’s legal system by using his own experience and drawing on interesting and important cases. The book expl

In July 1940, the wives and children of British families in Hong Kong, military and civilian, were compulsorily evacuated, following a plan created by the Hong Kong government in 1939. That plan focus

When discussing inequality and poverty in Hong Kong, scholars and politicians often focus on the failures of government policy and push for an increase in social welfare. Richard Wong argues in Fixing

From ancient times, China's remote and exotic South—a shifting and expanding region beyond the Yangtze River—has been an enduring theme in Chinese literature. For poets and scholar-officials in mediev

Transnational Representations focuses on a neglected period in Taiwan film scholarship: the golden age of the 1960s and 1970s, which saw innovations in plot, theme and genre as directors highlighted t

INTRODUCTIONThe role of media in any society is vital and is closely related to brands and consumption especially in a vibrant 21st century Asian city. Hong Kong with its free-market economy and urban

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

As a Cultural construct, gender is fictional and imagined, yet its ideological and representational effects on the formation of self and identity are quite real. The fiction behind the fictional, which many accepts as truth, is at the core of what is most intriguing about the problem of gender. Critiquing this narrative, Gender, Discourse, and the Self in Literature unravels the strategies that writers and filmmakers adopt in their (de)construction of the gendered self in three Chinese communities: mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Writing from the vantage points of film, literature, and gender studies, contributors make an innovative marriage to Western gender discourse and the construction and representation of self and identity in contemporary China.

Co-authored by Eugene Nida and JIN Di, On Translation was first published in 1984 by the China Translation and Publishing Corporation in Beijing. It is widely recognized as a classic in translation th

The first half of the 20th century was a time of great change in China. After the 1911 Revolution, leaders like Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek tried to modernize the government, education, defense, and more. With the onset of the Second Sino-Japanese War and later occupation of Hong Kong, the focus of both the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party shifted to resistance efforts in order to survive. And who did they turn to for help?To his children, Lee Sik-pang (李錫彭) was just an artist and antiques dealer in Hong Kong until the family immigrated to the United States in the late 1950s. So why did several of his watercolor paintings depict possible Allied bombing targets? And how did he know so many famous people, including Sun Fo (Sun Yat-sen’s son), Admiral Henry Hsu of the Republic of China Navy, and the British High Commissioner-General for Southeast Asia Malcolm MacDonald?By answering these questions and many more, this book argues that Lee Sik-pang was not only an accomplished

The term Silk Road has been well-known for many years, but in fact this ancient trade route was not a singular path from East to West. Rather, it was a network of multiple ways that peoples, goods, and cultures spread across the Asian continent and beyond. This book focuses on the Steppe Silk Road, starting with the Hulunbuir Grasslands in today’s Steppe, which stretches through several countries from the Danube to the Ural River.The result of the author’s extensive travels through China, Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, and more, this travelogue presents modern-day experiences together with ancient history. It explores how civilizations of the steppe grasslands evolved over time from a Chinese perspective, along with personal anecdotes and scenic highlights from various trips over the past 47 years. The book provides a window into less-visited regions suitable for intrepid explorers and armchair travelers alike.

Why were so many Buddhist grottoes carved across China, and what do they tell us about the history of Chinese art?Grotto Art of China: A Sourcebook traces the origins of this unique art form from the Indian subcontinent to its monumental flowering across Asia and into China.This volume brings together contributions from leading international scholars, providing systematic studies of major grotto complexes—including Mogao, Yungang, Longmen, Gongxian, Xiangtangshan, and Tianlongshan—alongside crucial, lesser-known regional sites in Gansu, Shandong, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Tibet, and Xinjiang.Organized geographically, the book explores these sacred sites as mediums of devotion, political expression, and cultural exchange, covering topics such as imperial patronage, distinctive artistic styles, and the ways these resilient sites preserve vital information otherwise lost to history.An essential reference for students, scholars, and informed travelers, it offers deep insight into the spiritual and

Over a span of 260 years, from 630 to 894, Japanese embassies to Tang China (ken-Tō shi) played a vital role in importing Tang governance and culture to Japan, significantly shaping the political and cultural landscape of an emerging Japanese state with codes of law (ritsuryō). However, the seventeenth embassy during the Jōwa period, fraught with turmoil, marked the final mission to Tang China. Alongside disasters and significant loss of life during the voyage, mysteries persist around Vice-ambassador Ono no Takamura's refusal to board the ship, the government's insistence on the mission, and the objectives behind dispatching this mission to China. In this volume, Professor Saeki Arikiyo traces the journey from departure to return, focusing on the individuals involved and the prevailing trends of the era. Drawing upon a rich tapestry of historical sources, including records from Shoku Nihon kōki and the accompanying monk Ennin's Nit-Tō guhō junrei kōki, Arikiyo delves into the arduous

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.

This book features five theme-based units on cross-disciplinary academic English skills, focusing on the needs of first-year undergraduate students. Each unit covers academic writing, reading, and speaking skills. The units progressively take students through the steps needed to complete three common academic assignments: the essay, report, and tutorial discussion. These steps include searching for quality sources, note-taking, establishing a critical stance, formulating evidence-based arguments, synthesizing information from multiple sources, and structuring academic texts. Each unit also provides opportunities for students to analyse texts, apply their critical thinking skills, practise what they have learnt in productive tasks, and reflect upon their progress.This book is aimed at first-time university students. Many of the readings are related to China and a broader Asian context. As such, it appeals to first-year university students in Hong Kong, Mainland China, and Taiwan.

In The New Politics of Beijing–Hong Kong Relations, Sonny Shiu-Hing Lo looks at the diverging changes to the ideologies from both Beijing and Hong Kong, and the ideological conflicts as taken in the form of factional political struggles between 2012 and the present. This book examines the paternalistic authoritarianism that can be seen in Beijing’s policy toward Hong Kong since the promulgation of the national security law in late June 2020. Lo analyzes the ideological shift from liberal nationalism to conservative nationalism in mainland China, which has taken place since late 2012. The increasingly radical localism in Hong Kong after 2014 transformed Beijing–Hong Kong relations into a conflict-ridden situation characterized by factional struggles. While the imposition of the national security law into Hong Kong since late June 2020 has stabilized the city politically, Beijing’s policy toward Hong Kong is now guided by the principles of protecting its national security and maintaining

For readers interested in China depicted by western travellers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this set focuses on the theme "The Silk Road" and features five books written by explorers from various walks of life, including:Through Hidden Shensiby Francis H. Nichols, 1902In Forbidden China: The D'Ollone Mission 1906–1909;China—Tibet—Mongoliaby Vicomte d'Ollone, 1911Across China on Foot: Life in the Interior andthe Reform Movementby Edwin J. Dingle, 1911Among the Celestials: A Narrative of Travelsin Manchuria, Across the Gobi Desert,Through the Himalayas to Indiaby Francis Younghusband, 1898In the Footsteps of Marco Polo: Being the Accountof a Journey Overland from Simla to Pekinby Clarence Dalrymple Bruce, 1907Each volume of the collection aims to reignite interest and also to allow readers to explore how these books relate to the region today.

Some people say that entrepreneurship is a lonelyroad, but new startups do not need to travel it alone.Hong Kongʼs mature startup ecosystem providesmany lessons to be learned for startup founders inthe city and around the world. As long as they arewell prepared and understand the ecosystem, theycan create a path to success! This book features exclusive interviews withstakeholders involved in various aspects of HongKongʼs startup ecosystem, providing answers toquestions about entrepreneurship. It allows readersto connect with the startup ecosystem, learn aboutthemselves and their competitors, and subsequentlyachieve twice the results with half the effort. A must-read for startups, the book also includes lists of usefulinformation to help entrepreneurs put theirinnovative ideas into practice.

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

Written in Stone by Polo Bourieau is an extraordinary exploration of how monumental sculpture transforms urban spaces into places of meaning and connection. From the ancient marble quarries of Carrara to the skyscrapers of Hong Kong or the bustling lanes of Chengdu, this richly illustrated book charts Polo’s creative journey, offering profound insights into the dialogue between sculpture, architecture, and community.Structured as an epic narrative inspired by Joseph Campbell’s monomyth theory, Polo’s sculptures become the protagonists of our common narrative of adventure, transformation, and identity. With reflections on the creative process and a conversation with urban planner and design writer Catherine Shaw, the book delves into the challenges and realities of creating public art in the dynamic landscapes of 21st-century China.Written in Stone offers a philosophical meditation on the power of art to shape our cities and ourselves. It invites readers—whether city planners,

Revelations of China’s global influence and intentions, from one of its most respected foreign policy analysts.For Washington, China is a strategic competitor: the only country with both the will to reshape the world order and, increasingly, the means to do so. For Europe, the People’s Republic is a ‘partner for cooperation, an economic competitor and a systemic rival’. For NATO, it is a ‘decisive enabler’ of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Yet Beijing’s image is far more positive in the Global South, of which the PRC considers itself a part.Zhou Bo’s essays unpack China’s own view of its role today. The PRC is operating not only in a world becoming less Western, but—more importantly—a West becoming less Western; and the key to its outlook lies in Africa, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific as much as in Europe and the White House.Are Moscow and Beijing really so closely aligned? Where are Sino-Indian relations headed? Is China a new Cold War foe for the West? Or will economic ties inev

HONG KONG LITERATURE SERIESSeries Editor: John MinfordAfter her celebrated The Teddy Bear Chronicles, Xi Xi turns her creative vision towards the world of the primate kingdom. At the age of 73, despite physical challenges, Xi Xi traveled extensively across Asia, from tropical forests to conservation centers, immersing herself in the natural world of apes and monkeys.This book is one of the remarkable outcomes of this journey. Xi Xi documented 51 endearing ape and monkey puppets that she had sewn, weaving them into a series of insightful dialogues with her friend, the Hong Kong writer Ho Fuk Yan. These discussions cover the depiction of apes and monkeys in Chinese and Western literature, painting, drama, and film, as well as the interconnectedness of humans and their primate relatives. Xi Xi’s words, filled with empathy, reveal the heart of her work: ‘If there is a common theme to our conversation, it is to respect life and speak for those lives that have been discriminated against in t

A novel dialogue between Buddhism and Western psychology, grounded in original Pali texts. As mindfulness and meditation become mainstream therapeutic tools, their deep Buddhist roots are often stripped away and limit their effectiveness for clients from Buddhist cultural backgrounds. Early Buddhist Teachings: A Theoretical Foundation for Counseling restores these practices to their original context, offering a culturally congruent counseling model grounded in Pali scriptures and core Buddhist principles. This informative volume explores key Buddhist concepts including dependent co-arising, non-self, and impermanence, and places them in conversation with Western psychological theories. Supplemented with practical assessment tools and intervention techniques, this work provides mental health professionals with a new framework for integrating Buddhist teachings into counseling. For therapists, students, and counselors seeking to expand their approach, Early Buddhist Teachings offers a vi

The widely acclaimed films of Wong Kar-wai are characterized by their sumptuous yet complex visual and sonic style. Bettinson argues that Wong’s films—from Days of Being Wild and Chungking Express to In the Mood for Love and The Grandmaster—are permeated by an aesthetic of sensuousness and “disturbance” achieved through techniques such as narrative disruptions, jarring cuts, the blocking of facial access, and other complex strategies. The effect is to jolt the viewer out of complete aesthetic absorption. This tenth-anniversary edition of The Sensuous Cinema of Wong Kar-wai includes a substantial new afterword bringing the story of Wong’s career up to date (including reflections on the mainland Chinese drama Blossoms Shanghai). Bettinson revisits and extends the arguments of the first edition, surveys the recent key debates on Wong’s filmmaking, and introduces fresh lines of critical investigation.

My Mum Called Alzheimer’s is a heartfelt memoir chronicling the author’s journey through her mother’s battle with dementia in the final 4 years of her life. In a diary of intimate dialogues between mother and daughter, we glimpse into the challenges of caring for someone you love, coming to terms with losing them, and finding strength in cherishing the moments that remain. The touching account of the interaction between the author and her mother sends a strong message about keeping a balance, maintaining dignity whilst coping with the effects of the symptoms of dementia and the need to make the best of what we still have. It is a story of love, resilience, perseverance, and hope.

In an epic historical story that talks directly to our times, Cross and Dragon dramatizes the life of one of the most famous Western figures in China: Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci. Sent by the Pope in the late 16th century to convert the Chinese Emperor, Ricci was faced with a “mission impossible” as China in the Ming Dynasty did not allow foreigners to enter the country.

The Classic of Poetry (Shijing), also known as the “Mao Poetry” (Mao Shi), is the oldest existing collection of poetry in China, or indeed anywhere in the world. As a fountainhead of the Chinese literary tradition, it has endured over two and a half millennia of continuous readership. In this volume, eminent sinologist Edward L. Shaughnessy presents a complete English translation of the 305 discrete poems from the Classic of Poetry, divided into the Feng 風“ Ya 雅“ and Song 頌“ Combining the received text with newly unearthed manuscript discoveries, Shaughnessy offers a modern, authoritative interpretation that departs from the dated translations of earlier scholars. His masterful rendering encapsulates the essence of this poetic treasury, reflecting the diverse aspects of life, love, nature, and ritual in ancient China.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Professor Shaughnessy’s translation of the Classic of Poetry