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(June 28, 2008) The Bilingual Eileen Chang, Part 2: Henry David Thoreau Here are three poems by Henry David Thoreau that Eileen Chang once translated for an anthology of American poetry. These translations are not well-known.
(April 7, 2008) The Bilingual Eileen Chang, Part 1: A Return To The Frontier This is the story about the publication of the newly discovered Eileen Chang travelogue about her visit to Taiwan and Hong Kong in 1961. Previously, this was published in English but now an expanded Chinese version has just been published.
(March 2, 2008) The Spyring and 'Lust, Caution' Apple Daily essay (in Chinese) about the origins of Eileen Chang's <Lust, Caution> as determined from the English-language manuscript <The Spyring> and the letters between her and Stephen Soong.
(November 12, 2007) The Letters of Eileen Chang - Part 6 色﹐戒 是怎麼樣練成的? Stephen Soong's advice to Eileen Chang about the novela <Lust, Caution>. If she had taken his advice fully, the diamond ring would have become a watch!
(October 22, 2007) The Letters of Eileen Chang - Part 5 張愛玲《憶胡适之》 Correspondence between Eileen Chang and Hu Shi about the literary merits of <The Rice Sprout Song>.
(October 16, 2007) Eileen
Chang:
(October 8, 2007) 張愛玲在我家住過幾個月 Apple Daily interview of this blogger about Eileen Chang.
(September 29, 2007) 张爱玲侵权诉讼 The case of Crown Press versus a number of Chinese publishers over the copyright violation of the works of Eileen Chang.
(September 13, 2007) 張愛玲色戒心結 亞洲週刊 2007年9月23日, Volume 23, Issue 37, p. 28-33, 馬靄媛.
(September 8, 2007) 張愛玲寫blog 這裡也有六個張愛玲的'blog'。這幾小段的生活雜感來自張愛玲尚沒公開親筆寫的手稿。
(August 6, 2007) The Letters of Eileen Chang - Part 4 張愛玲的書信: 有關"羊毛出在羊身上——談《色·戒》" The largest archive of correspondence with Eileen Chang belongs to Stephen and Mae Soong. Here are some scanned images of the letters (in Chinese) between Eileen Chang and Stephen Soong on the essay "On <Lust, Caution>." This should give some insight about the writer at work.
(June 6, 2007) The Letters of Eileen Chang - Part 3 Why was Eileen Chang's novela <The Classmates> held back from publication until almost a decade after her death? It was about literary flaws and 'outside pressures'? This essay provides some insight into those 'outside pressures' based upon correspondence with Eileen Chang.
(February 23. 2006) My Publisher -- The Internet Translation of writer Yang Hengjun's speech to members of the Independent Chinese PEN. Yang is the first to write a political espionage novel that dared to assert that the National Security Ministry is an espionage agency that sends spies overseas.
(February 8, 2006) The Letters of Eileen Chang - Part 2 Presentation of one letter between Chinese writer Eileen Chang and her friends Stephen and Mae Soong, which brings up many issues such as censorship, openness, confidentiality, etc.
(December 14, 2006) Wolfgang Kubin on Contemporary Chinese Literature A German Sinologist is interviewed by Deutsche Welle to discuss contemporary Chinese literature, a Chongqinq newspaper takes his quotes out of context and all hell breaks loose on the Chinese Internet.
(November 7, 2006) Roots - Part 3 This is about an uncle that I only knew from the stories that my father told me about.
(October 27, 2006) Roots - Part 2 My grandfather T.F. Soong has a house by West Lake (Hangzhou) which served as the unofficial hostel for visiting Peking University professors and their families.
(October 25, 2006) Eileen Chang's Photograph With Kim Il-sung Here are some possibly unknown facts about Chinese writer Eileen Chang based upon archival materials in my possessoin.
(October 18, 2006) Deconstructing the Deconstructivists Two artists created statues of two Super Girls, leading to a social debate. At issue, should monuments belong only to heroes and martyrs? Are the Super Girls working class heroines? What is a hero? What is heroism?
(October 3, 2006) The Life and Times of Liao Bingxiong Translation of a Southern People Weekly interview with the late Chinese cartoonist Liao Bingxiong, plus samples of this work.
(August 15, 2006) Crazy Stone Is A Poisonous Weed A Tianya Club post denounced the movie Crazy Stone as a poisonous cultural weed, but one should not count on the return of the Cultural Revolution because the readers found the post to be a hilarious spoof.
(August 10, 2006) Roots - Part 1 In reseaching for an upcoming project, I found out that my personal knowledge about my grandfather T.F. Soong was different from the Internet version in which the city of Qingdao figured prominently.
(August 5, 2006) Why Teresa Teng Could Not Visit Mainland China Translation of a long Southern Weekend interview with Liu Zhongde, former Minister of Culture and deputy director of the Central Propaganda Department. This gives insight as to how cultural policies work in China.
(August 2, 2006) Mafalda in Chinese A review of the new release of San Mao's translation of the famous comic strip from Argentina.
(June 14, 2006) Product Placement In Mission Impossible 3 In the movie Mission Impossible 3, a chance shot captured a telephone number on a wall in Shanghai. This netizen dialed the telephone number and here is the report about what happened.
(May 7, 2006) 2008 - Beijing Readings of an oil painting by Liu Yi that reflect contemporary China-western relations.
(April 4, 2006) The State of Taiwan Pop Music in China Translation of a Massage Milk blog post on the influence of Taiwan pop musicians on mainland China today.
(March 27, 2006) Being Alive Is Not Just An Instinct Translation of a Southern Weekend essay by author Yan Lianke about his novel The Dream of Ding Village, including an explanation about how reality is even stranger than the imaginary world of fiction.
(March 20, 2006) You Are What Your Read Photographs of the books on the bookshelves of my New York City apartment.
(February 22, 2006) The Most Popular Chinese Blogger Four months after establishing a Sina.com blog, Chinese actress Xu Jinglei has accumulated 11.5 million visits. This is a translation of a Southern Metropolis Daily interview in which Xu Jinglei discusses how she found a mode of expression to compliment her movie work.
(February 16) The Steamed Bun Lawsuit The Promise's director Chen Kaige is suing the author of the 20-minute Internet video parody. This has led to some speculations about the true motiviations behind the lawsuit: copyright? embarrassment? revenge? publicity?
(February 7) Listening to Chen Leishi's Zither A bold attempt to translate Wong Kwok-pun's poem from Chinese into English.
(February 2) How Memoirs of a Geisha Became "Sensitive" Translation of a Southern Metropolis Daily article about why Memoirs of a Geisha is on hold in mainland China. "Zhang Ziyi beat out the Japanese movie stars for the star role, but she never imagined that she would nearly be drowned by the saliva from her own country's people."
(January 29) The Promise in Shangri La Translation of an article about the environmental damage that Chen Kaige's movie The Promise did to beautiful Shangri La.
(January 22) The Same Song There is a famous Chinese song titled The Same Song written in 1990. Should it be banished? Read about the connections with the Chinese model opera The White-Haired Girl and Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.
(January 16) The Libelous Novel Translation of a Southern Weekend article. A retired university professor wrote a novel about his Cultural Revolution experience, but his former colleagues sued him for libel. The novelist is currently appealing the six month jail term.
(January 13) Discussion of Two Novels About Blood Selling Translation of a discussion of the new novel The Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke set in a Henan AIDS village, compared to Yu Hua's The Story Of Xu Sanguan Selling Blood.
(January 8) "The Bloody Case That Started From A Steamed Bun" The hottest item on the Internet is this 20-minute spoof of Chen Kaige's The Promise.
(January 3) First Anniversary Of The Death Of Susan Sontag Translation of an elegy by Bei Ling on the occasion of the first anniversary of the death of Susan Sontag.
(December 31) Chen Kaige's The Promise and Iraq Translation of a blog post about the symbolic correspondence with East Asian history (including China, Taiwan, Korea, the United States and Iraq). See if you agree that Cecilia Cheung is Saddam Hussein.
(December 29) A Noteworthy Film Festival in Guangzhou Many of the underground Chinese films get to make their public debut in the original formats. This post includes a translation of a blog post by Zhang Yuan - the director of arguably the first prominent Chinese movie about homosexuality.
(December 28) I Am God A young child was reading an avant-garde publication in which the phrase "I Am God" was repeated multiple pages. What did he learn?
(December 27) The Currently Most Condemned Movie in Chinese Blogosphere The latest blockbuster from the director of Farewell My Concubine sucks, according to Chinese bloggers.
(December 26) Zhang Yimou's Harmonious Society Review of the latest flick from the director of Hero and House of Flying Daggers.
(December 26) Some Past Antecedents of ESWN Culture This is a list of old blog posts at EastSouthWestNorth that may be construed as antecedents, ancestors or predecessors.
Culture Blogroll Mail to: Roland Soong, Lawrence Li
