Books published by Camphor Press Ltd

This fascinating selection of Kyoto-specific literature takes readers through twelve centuries of cultural heritage, from ancient Heian beginnings to contemporary depictions. The city's aesthetic leaning is evident throughout in a mix of well-known and less familiar works by a wide-ranging cast that includes emperors and court ladies, Zen masters and warrior scholars, wandering monks and poet "immortals." We see the city through their eyes in poetic pieces that reflect timeless themes of beauty, nature, love and war. An assortment of tanka, haiku, modern verse and prose passages make up the literary feast, and as we enter recent times there are English-language poems too.Kyoto: A Literary Guide is a labour of love. It arose from the shared passion of a small group of translators, academics and professors of literature chaired by noted Kyoto author John Dougill. For over ten years they have met for monthly discussion, and when they discovered that there was no book dedicated to Kyoto literature they decided to produce their own. This involved sifting through a large number of poems and prose items, with the eventual selection made according to historical importance, literary merit and reference to specific sites. Translations were carefully finessed, with particular regard to the fine balance between linguistic accuracy and literary rendition. Accompanying the translations are the original Japanese with transcription and an informative footnote. The book is generously illustrated with black-and-white photographs, old prints, and picture scrolls, adding visual accompaniment to the verbal description.Given the centrality of Kyoto to the national culture, the book will not only be a must-have for lovers of the city but for anyone with an interest in Japanese literature. It will enhance appreciation for those visiting "the ancient capital" and it will be cherished by those who live there. Above all, it is the hope of the Kyoto-philes who created the book that the pieces collected here will prove an inspiration to readers to go on and explore the larger works from which they were extracted.

Down on his luck and disabled, cancer survivor Matthew Evans had nothing to lose by fleeing the farmsteads of Muscatine, Iowa, at age 21 to pursue his Chinese Dream. With all the makings of a classic folk tale, his curiosity became an epic five-year adventure that would find him homeless, stateless, posing as a professor, imprisoned, deported, and caught in the middle of the 2014 Hong Kong protests.

Formosa Betrayed is the authoritative account of the Kuomintang takeover of Taiwan in 1945 and the 1947 228 Incident in which tens of thousands of Taiwanese people an entire generation of intellectuals and leaders were massacred by the new government. Kerr was there, knew Taiwan well, and paints a compelling picture of Taiwans tragic past.

The Jing Affair is Taiwan's standout Cold War novel, a page-turning action thriller describing the bloody resistance to a combined military coup and invasion.As American surveillance reports come in of troop build-ups near the Chinese coast, Taiwan's KMT leaders are seen gathering at a secret base in the mountains. With all signs pointing to an imminent betrayal of Taiwan to China by secret police chief General Jing, the call goes out to implement Contingency Plan S; long-dormant, pro-independence Taiwanese leaders and fighters assemble in the hills, while out in the Taiwan Strait aboard a U.S. Navy carrier, Taiwanese-born air force pilot Johnny Hsiao prepares for a daring undercover mission.War comes to Taiwan on land, sea, and air. Clashes between Chinese and U.S. forces threaten to escalate into full-blown war, while Taiwanese are pitched against fellow Taiwanese. And the old tiger flag of the Formosa Republic will once more fly proudly into battle.First published in 1965 under an alias, The Jing Affair is an audacious book. Dedicated to the victims of Taiwan's White Terror, it spares no punches. The senile puppet president - the "Old Man" in the story - is a barely disguised then-president Chiang Kai-shek. The villainous General Jing has significant overlap with Chiang Ching-kuo, whom some feared would sell Taiwan out to Beijing (secret unification talks had, in fact, been held).The identity of the author came to light with the publication of his daughter Danielle Flood's memoir The Unquiet Daughter. D.J. Spencer was James (Jim) Flood, a long-time Foreign Service officer with the U.S. State Department (1951 to 1974) who had first come to Asia as a soldier in the Second World War and stayed on working as a reporter. Flood had a deep knowledge of Asia, and was based in Taiwan during the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1958. Flood's daughter makes a compelling case in her memoir that her parents were the inspiration for the main characters in Graham Greene's acclaimed 1955 novel The Quiet American.

Vibrant, modern, and drenched in history from centuries as a gateway to China, this garden city of two million is a hidden gem. When the author, Robert Barge, arrived in Xiamen to take up an engineering position, he was expecting a typical gray Chinese city; instead, what he found left such an impression that he was inspired to write this book, the first guide dedicated exclusively to Xiamen.Explore Xiamen's temples, markets, and old alleyways; stroll through gardens and traverse waterfront boardwalks; hike hills of subtropical forest for sweeping island views, and as night falls sample the street food around Zhongshan Road or watch the sunset over the mainland from seaside Haiwan Park; take a short ferry ride to Xiamen's crown jewel, the car-free island of Gulangyu, with its beautiful colonial buildings and eccentric museums, and step back in time to the treaty port days when Xiamen was known to the world as Amoy.Camphor Press' Xiamen City Guide covers all the top attractions, and much more; by going into detail that the big China guides can't, it takes travellers off the tourist trail to experience the color and life tucked away from the bright lights of the major tourist spots. The guide gives informative and honest advice on what to see and what might not be worth seeing and has tips on avoiding the crowds in what is a hugely popular destination for domestic Chinese tourists. It reveals whole neighborhoods hitherto ignored by other travel guides. With detailed sections on getting there and away, public transport, visa requirements and helpful Chinese phrases, the guide has the practical information covered. The Xiamen City Guide will save you time, stress, and money.Features of the guide: Detailed neighborhood maps Sample itineraries Up-to-date information (recent changes to transportation and visas have made pre-2017 guides obsolete) Easily assessed info the guide is made to be used on the road, with phone numbers, and addresses in Chinese that you can show a taxi driver or passer-by Dining and accommodation suggestions for all budgets

Destination Chungking is the fictionalized autobiography of best-selling writer Han Suyin. It tells the love story of a young Chinese couple during the turmoil of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Childhood friends Han Suyin, a medical student, and Tang Pao, an officer in the Kuomintang Army, cross paths in England and fall in love. Returning to China to take part in the resistance, they marry in October 1938 in the city of Hankow on the eve of its capture by Japanese forces. Separated and reunited during an epic retreat across China to the wartime capital of Chungking (Chongqing) far up the Yangtze River, the couple will find their love and patriotism tested. Written and published as the war still raged and Chungking continued to be heavily bombed the book is also a story of the idealistic couple's love for China, an homage to the good humour and persistence of the Chinese people.Destination Chungking is a stunning debut from a young woman writing in her third language. Han Suyin (19162012), born Rosalie Matilda Kuanghu Chou, was a Chinese-Flemish novelist and historian who explored the contact and conflict between East and West in her fiction, a reflection of her own mixed heritage. Her most famous work is A Many-Splendoured Thing, a bestseller when it was released in 1952 (though some critics such as Kirkus Reviews considered it inferior to Destination Chungking), and which was later made into the film Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1956).

Deep within the heart of China, far from the glamour of Shanghai and Beijing, lies the Chinese every-city of Huaishi. This worker's paradise of smog and concrete is home to Party Member Yang Wei, a mediocre man in a mediocre job. His content life of bureaucratic monotony is shattered by an encounter with the advanced consumer goods he has long been deprived of. Aided by the cynical and malicious advice of an unlikely mentor, Yang Wei embarks on a journey of greed, corruption, and murder that takes him to the diseased underbelly of Chinese society.Will Yang Wei achieve his ambition of promotion to the mysterious eighth floor? Will he win the love of his beautiful but materialistic colleague, Rainy? And will his penis stop telling him to eat at fast-food restaurants? Just how far will Yang Wei go to achieve his pursuit of wealth, glory, and a better car?Party Members is a bleak and black comedic fantasy about a world where to get rich is glorious, no matter who gets hurt in the process. Designer handbags, sex, karaoke, and shady property deals combine to paint a picture of modern China unlike anything seen before.

Little known today, Instructions for Chinese Women and Girls has a storied place in Chinese history as the first educational text for women and a standard reference for them from the first century AD all the way into the nineteenth. Polymath author Ban Zhao was perhaps China's greatest female scholar. A writer, historian, mathematician, and astronomer, she was also a tutor to the ladies of the imperial court and a close confidant of Empress Deng. Although Ban Zhao completed a monumental historical tome on the Western Han dynasty, she would be best remembered for this slighter work a short handbook of female etiquette in which she advises submissiveness in order to achieve household harmony. A kind of women's Art of War, there is more yielding than winning in the guidebook, but at least Ban Zhao was a pioneer in asserting that girls should be educated.Instructions for Chinese Girls and Women is an easy, enjoyable read. It contains passages preaching subservience that will make the modern reader cringe and/or laugh, but there is interesting nuance there for readers with an open mind.The husband commands, the wife obeys;Yet let there be mutual grace and love;There are timeworn, universal complaints:The present generation's children are very bad;They have learned nothing.And there are humorous warnings against immoral immodesty:Imitate not those rude women who with confusion eat, drink, and talk;Drinking wine until crazy, they shamefully vomit their food;In this state going home, before reaching their house, many shameful, rude acts will they do.This Camphor Press edition has illustrations and a new introduction from Susan Blumberg-Kason, author of the memoir Good Chinese Wife.