I think I interacted with the locals a lot more than the folks who made this video did. In fact, my only big criticism is that while the enormous patience of these hard working people is portrayed, their vitality, curiosity and humor doesn’t come through. Come to think of it, I have another criticism: I would have preferred real Chinese music. The music on the video is pleasant but there is some traditional Chinese music that is incredibly beautiful and most Westerners don’t seem to know anything about it.

All in all, the video does a good job of portraying what China really looks like, minus the dirt, pollution, smells, etc. Still, standards of cleanliness are improving rapidly so why hold a grudge? I often wished I had a video camera with me on my trips but now I don’t need to feel that way.
Rating: 4 / 5

For those interested in knowing about the formation conditions and existence strategies of the floating population in China, Li Zhang’s book is worth reading. This is an ethnographic study on a particular migrant enclave in Beijing, which is called Zhejiangcun and only five kilometers from China’s political centre, Tiananmen Square. The largest migrant settlement in Beijing, Zhejiangcun is mainly made up by the petty entrepreneurs originating from Wenzhou, a municipal city in Zhejiang province. It took shape in the 1980s and had nearly 100,000 migrant workers in 1995. Making use of pre-accumulated small capital and extended kinship ties, the entrepreneurs run family-based businesses mainly in garment manufacturing and trade. The settlement appears startlingly different from those formed by migrant workers (mingong) who have nothing but their labor to sell and depend heavily on the urban labor market for work. As small manufacturers and traders with economic resources, the Wenzhou migrant entrepreneurs in Zhejiangcun have the edge over other migrant workers as they are more capable to create native-place-based enclaves, workable social connections, and higher business flexibility.

As reflected in the subtitle of the book, Li Zhang explores three key issues – space, power, and social networks. More specifically, she demonstrates how the Wenzhou migrants gained, lost, and rebuilt a space in Beijing by strengthening social networks with fellow natives and forging power relations with the local government officials.

The book is well structured into a chronological order to show the formation and changes of the space in Zhejiangcun. Chapter 1 is a broader analysis of how the Chinese party system attempted to control and to manage the floating population that has grown in numbers in many cities. Li Zhang argues that the rural migrants, while their everyday practices were to some extent regulated by the government, they were able to create “alternative modes of social life and multifocal community life beyond a single, fixed geographic location.” (p. 20).

In Chapter 2, Li Zhang traces how a distinctive historical commercial culture and petty capitalist economy nurtured Wenzhou migrant’s present economic and spatial practices. She maps their migration routes and underscores the importance of family and native-place networks in the migration trajectories.

Chapters 3 and 4 explore how the privatization of space and power has been taking place concurrently in Zhejiangcun in the context of China’s reform into market economy. More specifically, Chapter 3 shows how Wenzhou migrants appropriated land in local villages to create large residential with new social and political meanings. Chapter 3 demonstrates how the migrant leadership emerged and expanded their social and spatial bases of Zhejiangcun.

Once formed, Zhejiangcun evolved with its power structure changing in the space. As Li Zhang shows in Chapter 5, not merely the gender and domestic relations have changed, but the Wenzhou migrant households and production have also reorganized spatially. In the midst of these changes, the social order was damaged by increased crimes. Chapter 6 examines the different interpretations of the origin of crimes offered by the Wenzhou migrants and officials.

The social disorders led to the political conflicts between the upper-level governments and Wenzhou migrants and local residents. The authorities launched a number of cleanup campaigns in Zhejiangcun. Chapter 7 shows that the social conflicts actually involved many levels and the popular resistance during the campaign highlights the disparity, instability, different motivations and interest within the state.

The members of Zhejiangcun were able to challenge and manipulate land-use regulation through clientelist ties with local officials. Indeed, Zhejiangcun has survived the cleanup actions. Li Zhang shows in Chapter 8 that the Wenzhou migrants were able to make a return to Zhejiangcun by forming new commercial alliances with closed-down state factories and local government.

With this book, Li Zhang has tried to address a bigger question: how different components of the Chinese society position themselves in the midst of the rapid economic transformation and the subsequent restructuring of power relations. As indicated in the Conclusion, the point Li Zhang wants to make clear is to “resist the assumption that current societal transformations in China will necessarily lead to the demise of the socialist regime” (p. 208). Indeed Li Zhang has successfully shown that “indigenous petty capitalism coexists with state-owned enterprises and managed foreign capital, which together reshape the contours of Chinese society, one that is based on the interplay of market forces, traditional social relations, and state regulatory power.” (p. 208).

I highly recommend this book to those who want to read about the internal migrants and petty entrepreneurs in China in the reform period.
Rating: 5 / 5

The video is not digital quality, and is quite grainy, a complaint you will find on other DVDs of this collection. I must confess my initial reaction was disappointment due to the video quality. (I have watched it several times since then) However, despite this, I have given the DVD a 5 star due to the fact that I have found the video scenes as intellectually stimulating as the music (and I have enjoyed Windham for quite some time).

Let’s just say that the visuals DO NOT detract from the Windham Hill classics. The video very strongly reflects a beautiful array of chinese perspectives on technology, art and nature. You will NOT lack for a feel of the culture and environment Windham is skillfully trying to convey. One moment you may be standing on a dusty and busy bike-filled street corner. The next you are viewing the dream-like mountainscapes which inspired ancient paintings.

The DVD’s video emphasis seems to be on people rather than scenery. One would think that scenery is by nature preferable (and yet there is much astounding scenery), but Windham’s devotion to the social aspect is what makes this project much much more than a simple visually entertaining CD.

This is educational and beautiful at the same time. When Windham finally discovers digital video, I’ll find a way to grant 6 stars.
Rating: 5 / 5

The strong point of this book lies in the style of the author’s prose. Birch is able to write in a way that is simple and elegant yet lends a magical feel to the stories so that they read like good mythical narratives. You get that archaic flavor. (Certain parts of some stories seem over-summarised, though; they could have been fleshed out with slightly richer descriptions.)

A very unsatisfactory aspect of the book, from the point of view of a contemporary heir of the Chinese tradition, is that (except for the first section, ‘The Conquerors of Chaos’) it leaves out many (indeed most) of the most important and representative of Chinese myths and legends. The Eight Immortals, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, the Monkey God who wreaked havoc in Heaven and later escorted the Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang (a.k.a. Tripitaka) to India, Chang’e the lady who flew to the moon after stealing the elixir or immortality from her husband… All are missing. The stories found in this volume are enjoyable in their own right, but they are relatively obscure. I would have left out most of them and put the abovementioned stories in their place.

Another shortcoming is that the book does not offer at least some brief introductory note regarding the stories and their sources. Neither is there a pronunciation guide. You do find introductory notes and pronunciation guides in TALES FROM INDIA and TALES OF THE NORSE GODS, both from the same series, so I can’t understand this omission from the present volume.

Finally, I think the cover design just looks a bit too goofy. David O’Connor could have done a better job researching traditional Chinese design motifs a bit more.

(Note: at the time this review is written (17th Dec ’04), it is possible to get a NEW copy of this book from Barnes and Noble.)
Rating: 4 / 5

I highly recommend trying this product if you’ve never tasted Chinese-styled beef jerky. It is an excellent and tasty treat. The spicy fruit flavored variety is also fantastic and even better than this one if you like a bit of kick. You might also like Chinese-styled pork jerky such as Formosa Pork Jerky Original Flavor-16 Oz, a popular brand in Chinese grocery stores and supermarkets.
Rating: 5 / 5

My impression is that Jews were treated better in classical China than almost any foreign land in which they found themselves, with the exception of America. But ironically Jews didn’t last in Old China. Rather than being persecuted for their religion or their ways, they were given almost privileged status. Somehow this encouraged their assimilation into Chinese society, and they had a hard time remaining as Jews after many generations.

I need hardly add that many Jews who found their way to China during World War II were a good deal luckier than those who stayed in Europe, although they didn’t realize this at first. They eventually managed to find their way out to Israel – alive. So, despite post-war “hiccups” due primarily to Marxist ideology, Jews and Chinese traditionally had a benign if somewhat distant relationship.
Rating: 5 / 5

This period encompasses the time when Chinese printing was changing from manuscript to an imprint culture. It also covers four Chinese dynasties: Song (960-1279), Yuan (1232-1367), Ming (1368-1644), Qing (1644-1911).

This book represents a considerable amount of original research into the earliest records of Chinese publishing from Chinese, Japanese and Western records. Dr. McDermott is a lecturer in chinese at Cambridge University.
Rating: 5 / 5