about | policies | language | map'08 | Trip to China '08 | packing tips '08 | resources | students & teachers '08 | home

Resources:

cybrary
videos
books
language
 
 

Cybrary - (Cyber Library)
(send Ms. Brooks good links to add to this cybrary: lbrooks@tvhs.k12.vt.us)

Major Asian Studies Resources in our Area:

http://www.smith.edu/fcceas/ - Smith College
Resource Catalog - 5 College Center for East Asian Studies

Asian Studies Outreach Program - http://www.uvm.edu/~outreach/
University of Vermont
Asian Outreach Program - ASOP

Some Web Resources:
http://www.kn.sbc.com/wired/China/hotlist.html

A hotlist of links, covering tons of China topics

http://coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVL-AsianStudies.html
Large source for social science research in Asia

http://www.worldbank.org
homepage of the World Bank

http://pears.lib.ohio-state.edu/Manchu/Manchu.html
comprehensive information on Manchu topics

http://www.stolaf.edu/courses/2001int/Art_and_Art_History/259/links.html
links to Chinese and Japanese arts sites

http://www.stolaf.edu/depts/asian-studies/asian_links/
Asian studies links, media, resources-general, and by country

http://www.tanc.org/links.html
links about Tibet

http://www.askasia.org
Asia Society homepage: news, information, culture, education, lesson plans and tons of good links on China and other Asian countries

return to top

Language

http://resources.emb.gov.hk/~chi/frontpage.html
This is the link that Yuan-Hsiu gave students in class for pronounciation practice (2004)

The following three sites are specifically from Yuan-Hsiu, 2004 language teacher):
http://www.chinese-outpost.com/language/default.asp

http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/online.htm

http://www.chinapage.com/china.html

http://www.ocrat.com/ocrat.com/voa
site for Voice of America broadcasts in Mandarin

http://webcom.com/~bamboo/chinese/chinese.html
language studies, education

return to top

Videos

The Last Emperor, Columbia Pictures, 1988
The Oscar-winning personal story of China's emperor, the Manchu Pu-yi, who ascended the throne as a child, is intertwined with the social upheavals and political struggles of the early twentieth century in China. The film was the first feature film to be made in China by a foreign film company since before the revolution.

Red Sorghum, Directed by Zhang Yimou, New Yorker Video, 1988
Considered to be on of the most spectacularly beautiful films of recent years, Red Sorghum won the top prize, the Golden Bear, at the 1988 Film Festival. The film begins as a lusty romantic comedy about a pretty young bride's arrival and ensuing seduction at a remote provincial winery during the 1930's. The film builds to a harrowing climax with the arrival of Japanese soldiers.

Black Cannon Incident, directed by Huang Jianxin, 1986
A dark comedy starring Liu Zifeng, known as "the Woody Allen of China", this film won numberous awards. A young engineer is caught up in a struggle between ideological inflexibility of his work unit's Party vice-secretary and the production concerns of its manager. After the engineer sends a vague telegram to a friend, he is suspected of being involved in a spy plot and suspended from his work as a technical interpreter on a major project.

Ju Dou, directed by Zhang Yimou, Live Home Video, 1991
The first film from China ever nominated for an Oscar, it has been called the "most intelligently gorgeous film since "The Last Emperor." Set in China in the early twentieth century, Ju Dou tells the tale of the young wife of a cruel wealthy old dyeworks owner and her romance with the owner's nephew.

Iron and Silk, Live Home Video, 1991
Based on the best-selling novel by, and starring, Yale graduate Mark Saltzman, this film is the story of his trip to China as an English teacher and as a student of Chinese martial art. Iron and Silk illustrated the proocess of developing an appreciation for Chinese culture and of adapting to daily life in the P.R.C. This film is said to be particularly appealing to young people.

A Great Wall, directed by Peter Wang, Orion Classics, 1985
Leo Fang has not been to China since emigrating to the United States as a young man. In this humorous movie, he and his family visit his sister in Beijing and pay homage.

Tea House, directed by Xie Tian, 1984
The screen adaptation of the well-known play by Lao She, the story begins on the eve of the collapse of the Zing Dynasty and spans 50 years of Chinese history through the eyes of the customers and proprietor of a tea shop.

The Girl from Hunan, China Video Movies, 1987
Based upon the short story Xiao Xiao by Shen Congwen, this film follows the experiences of a young woman, age 12, as she is married to a two year old husband. As she matures, she falls in love with a local farm hand and becomes pregnant with his child. Her husband's family is kind to her and raises her son as her husband's younger brother.

Yellow Earth (Yellow Land), directed by Chen Kaige, 1985
The director's existential view of peasant culture in this film signalled the New Wave of Chinese film making in the mid 1980's. The story is set in the yellow hills and plains of Northern Shaanxi, where Chinese civilization was born, and which was home to Chinese Communism. an "outsider" comes to village to learn songs from the villlagers, and teaches a few songs to the children.

The following Chinese movies are recommended by Yuan-Hsui:
To Live
The Emperor and the Assassin
Shower
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Eat Drink Man Woman
Farewell, My Concubine
Story of Qiu Ju
Not One Less

return to top

Books

Leaving Mother Lake, A girlhood at the Edge of the World, by Yang Erche Namu and Christine Mathieu. Tells the story of Yang's girlhood in "the remote reaches of the Himalayas, in a place the Chinese call 'The country of daughters,' the home of the Moso , a society in which women rule. .... the impulsive restless Namu is driven to leave her mother's house, to venture out into the larger world, defying the tradition that holds Moso culture together.

Falling Leaves : The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter
by Adeline Yen Mah
Makes you rethink your childhood. A great story.

The Kitchen Gods Wife, The Joy Luck Club, The Hundred Secret Senses, and The Bonesetter's Daughter
all by Amy Tan
Amy Tan writes wonderful books which always combine contemporary Chinese-American experiences with those of historical China. They are written beautifully and are a pleasure to read. (Lisa says: Reading the Joy Luck Club, and then viewing the movie, inspired me to take my first trip to China in 1994).

Falling Leaves
by Adeline Yen Mah,
"The memoir of an unwanted Chinese daughter," This is Adeline Yen Mah's story of growing up in affluent China and fell on hard times during the cultural and political revolution of the Mao era. IA story of hardship and triumph.

Life and Death in Shanghai
by Nien Cheng
"The extraordinary story of an extraordinary woman who despite 6 1/2 years of imprisonment and torment in Communist China, not only survived but endured and even prevailed." Time

Wild Swans, Three Daughters of China
by Jung Chang
A story of three generations of women in China.
"Jung Chang vividly evokes China's sights sounds and smells to create what must be on of the grimmest, yet most perceptive accounts of growing up middle class in the maelstron that has swept China since the 1920's." Los Angeles Times

The Good Earth, Letter from Peking, The Daughters of Madame Liang, and many more

all by Pearl Buck
Buck grew up the daughter of missionary parents in China at the beginning of the 20th century. She lived in impoverished communities ministering to the poor. She later taught at Nanking University and survived the upheaval and rebellion of the 1920's. She has written extensively about China, The Good Earth won the Pulitzer Prize.

Riding the Iron Rooster
by Paul Theroux
A story of train travel across China, from Mongolia to Shanghai in the 1980's when the country was first opened up to foreigners after the cultural revolution. Creates all the sights, smells and tastes of China


top

last revised 4-1-08 lb