Books published by Orchid Press

Essential Thai is a complete learning package for those who want to acquire basic working skills in the Thai language, quickly and efficiently. Freshly updated and back by popular demand, Essential Thai includes downloadable MP-3 audio files to introduce the student to Thai pronunciation and beginning phrases. Focussed completely on developing practical language skills, Essential Thai introduces conversation and grammar, commonly used vocabulary and how to read Thai script in a logical, graduated, manner. The book employs easy to learn and use phonetic spelling and tone markers and includes an introductory English-Thai dictionary. Whether you are travelling or planning to live in Thailand, whether shopping, booking a hotel, ordering a meal or speaking on the phone or much more, this is the language tool for you. By the author of the popular, more advanced text, Thai Reference Grammar.

Lao is the native language of the southeast Asian country of Laos, and is also spoken by much of the inhabitants of northeastern Thailand, an area known as Isaan. Mastering a language as different to English as is Lao may first seem to be impossible; with its strange looking script and its multitude of tones and vowels, the task can be decidedly intimidating. Compounding the problems, many native Lao language teachers don't fully understand how to effectively explain these aspects of their language to the expatriate. Rather than a linguistic treatise, Shapes and Sounds of the Lao Language is a practical guide to help you to become fluent in Lao. Using a combination of relevant descriptions, language learning tricks, flash cards, drills and comparison tracks on downloadable MP3 audio files, you will be able to conquer some of the most difficult aspects of the language. Certainly, learning a second language takes hard work and patience, but by following the instructions outlined in this book, you will get the most out of your efforts and will be delighted at the progress you never believed you could make.

Progressive Thai, a new language learning tool, is the product of thousands of classroom hours of instruction to foreign students of the Thai language. Comprised of sixteen progressive lessons, the beginning student will gradually develop the ability to communicate in Thai in many practical, day-today situations, as well as build a sound foundation upon which to progress to more advanced studies. Each lesson is explained in simple and clear terms, and is accompanied by practical dialogue, providing the student both with the tools for daily conversation and with fascinating insights into Thai culture. With explanations of grammatical points, exercises with answer keys at the end of the book, and including downloadable MP3 audio files on which each lesson is enunciated, Progressive Thai is ideal both as a classroom learning tool and for self study.

In order to master the Thai language, one must become adept at reading Thai. Students who rely on books with phonetic transliterations of Thai will make limited progress. In addition, some sounds in Thai have no direct equivalent in the Roman alphabet, so even the best transliterations cannot capture all the nuances of the language. Learning to read Thai is the path to a more profound grasp of the language. This book is based on years of experience teaching foreigners to speak and read Thai, and builds on the author's observations in the classroom about which rules of grammar, spelling and pronunciation most commonly impede their progress. Introduction to Thai Reading, designed to be a comprehensive foundation of 24 progressive lessons, will pave the way towards a solid and advanced knowledge of the Thai language. Those who complete the book will have acquired not only essential Thai reading skills, but also the vocabulary and grammar needed for basic Thai speaking. Includes downloadable MP3 audio files to accompany the text.

Let's Speak Lao is the only phrasebook and dictionary that the visitor will require to start communicating in Laos and Isaan, Thailand. Includes downloadable MP3 audio pronunciation lessons.

Let's Speak Thai is the only phrasebook and dictionary that the visitor will require to start communicating in Thailand. Includes downloadable MP3 audio pronunciation lessons.

A comprehensive survey of Indian Buddhism and its subsequent establishment in Tibet, where it was transferred preceding its demise in India in the thirteenth century CE. It is especially informative on the tantric period of Buddhist practice from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries, but also deals with the earlier evolution of Buddhist doctrines, the 'Three Turnings of the Wheel', during the first thousand years. Thereafter, the author addresses the Buddhist conversion of Tibet, emphasizing the great importance played by the kingdoms of Central Asia in the gradual process of Tibetan conversion. Professor Snellgrove draws upon original sources to illustrate the cultural changes that came over Tibet as a result of its rule from the seventh to ninth centuries of an extensive Central Asian Empire, a period of their history largely forgotten by Tibetans themselves when they later embarked upon the wholesale absorption of Buddhism from its Indian source.

The year is 1917. The self-acclaimed Emperor of China, Yuan Shikai, died the previous year and Sun Yat-sen returns from exile to form a new Nationalist government. China declares war with Germany, in support of the Western efforts in Europe-but China itself is on the brink of descending into feuding factions, and eventually its own civil war. For the moment, though, all is calm, and life goes on in the Middle Kingdom much as it has for thousands of years.Tourists must first travel by steamer to British Hong Kong-a journey of some two weeks from North America and up to a month from London. China has yet to establish its first tourism agency, so the intrepid visitor must rely Archie Bell's book to make his or her way around.And what a trip Bell takes us on! From Hong Kong to Canton, Macau, Shanghai, Hangzhou and on to Peking where we tour the Forbidden City and the Great Wall. And further to Korea, the Hermit Kingdom, then under Japanese rule. The Spell of China is truly a trip back in time; a spellbinding journey for the modern tourist, amateur historian and armchair traveller alike.

The year is 1914. A distinguished couple had arrived overland two years previously from Europe via Russia and Korea to Yokohama and on to Tokyo. The gentleman, Mr. Larz Anderson, assumes the role of American ambassador to Japan. His wife, Isabel—a glamourous, Boston-born heiress—submerges herself in the rich, yet little known culture of Imperial Japan.With ready access to Japanese high society, Isabel records court custom, art, costume and ritual as few Western visitors have before. Yet her lack of pretension and keen observation allows her to describe the life of the common people of old Japan in just as lucid prose.The Spell of Japan takes the us through Japanese occupied Korea, to the gilded temples of Kyoto and the splendours of the Imperial court of Tokyo. An illuminating journey for the modern tourist, the armchair traveller and amateur historian alike.  

Long out of print and unavailable, and now available in a special reprint edition, the first two bulletins of the renowned Oriental Ceramic Society of Hong Kong featured articles presented by such luminaries as Soame Jenyns, Hugh Moss and Cheng Te-K'un, among others. Essential reference material for all with interest in the fine- and plastic arts of ancient China.

Growing interest in tantric Buddhism worldwide has resulted in an explosion of literature on the subject; despite this, there still remain many voids in our understanding of this complex practice, with its proliferation of gods and saints, bodhisattvas and demons.R. H. van Gulik was one of the pioneer Western scholars of the tantric deities, having completed a highly acclaimed doctorate on the subject of the tantric god, Hayagriva, in 1935, with the dissertation upon which this book was based. Soon out of print, it seems that no monograph has since been published on the subject, despite the relatively frequent occurrence of the 'The Horse-Headed One' both in Buddhist practice and in religious painting and sculptured images, across Asia.In Hayagriva: Horse Cult in Asia, van Gulik traces the evolution and migration of the god, from its ancient roots in Hindu belief, through its adoption into the Tibetan Buddhist pantheon, and the subsequent migration of its cult westward, through Mongolia and China to Japan. In this long journey, Hayagriva interacted with indigenous, pre-Buddhist horse cults and assumed various attributes as a result, ranging from a deity who conferred fertility, to protector of the faithful from demons, to mythical winged navigator of the vast northern plains.

The great Song Dynasty poet and artist, Mi Fu (1051-1107), entered official life as secretary of the Board of Rites and Court painter. He founded a school of painting characterized by its bold and vigorous brushwork, and yet delicate in the composition of its exquisite landscapes.Besides writing poetry, critical essays and colophons, Mi Fu left important treatises on painting and calligraphy, in addition to the present work on ink-stones, translated here by the eminent Dutch diplomat and Sinologist, Dr R. H. van Gulik. In the case of the first two works, the subjects of Mi Fu's deliberations have long since disappeared. There remain, however, numerous surviving examples of ink-stones from the Song and earlier dynasties, enabling us to compare Mi Fu's words with the actual objects he describes.The importance of the ink-stone as an essential tool of the Chinese Literati-and thus the importance of our understanding of its nature to our overall comprehension of Chinese brushwork-is but one aspect of the present work. The ink-stone is, in addition to a tool, a work of art in its own right, combining the skill and wit of the sculptor with the ancient Chinese tradition of appreciation of beautiful stones. In this translation of Mi Fu on Ink-stones, Dr van Gulik provides not only a guide to the connoisseurship of this essential treasure of the scholar's studio, but also an illuminating glimpse into the mind of this brilliant eleventh century artist.

Compiled in the 13th century, the T'ang-Yin-Pi-Shih is a record of 144 criminal and civil court cases judged in the courts of ancient China, spanning some 1,400 years of the country's history, commencing about 300 BC. During this period, China's judiciary was chosen from among the ranks of the country's scholar-officials, who, dispatched to various parts of the Empire often with little or no prior training in the legal arts, fulfilled the role of both investigative detective and court judge in the provincial centers of the land.Casebooks such as the T'ang-Yin-Pi-Shih were thus essential tools of the appointees, providing guidance and precedence to which to refer, when the courts were confronted with challenging cases. In Crime and Punishment in Ancient China, the author provides us with an informative and highly entertaining translation and commentary on the ancient text.R. H. van Gulik was also the author of a popular series of detective novels, based in ancient China and featuring the semi-historical Judge Dee Gong-An. It will soon become evident to fans of Judge Dee that van Gulik drew much inspiration for his novels from the T'ang-Yin-Pi-Shih.

"Move quietly, hit hard"-a lesson learned as a child vagrant under a bridge in Ha Noi, and one that was to serve Hai well as he rose inexorably to the heights of success, in the shadowy world of intelligence and counter-insurgency.Born the illegitimate son of a Vietnamese nobleman in the early years of the twentieth century, Hai suffers under the added burden of a curse at birth that dooms him to 36 years of ill fortune. A born survivor, like the proverbial cat with nine lives, he continually re-invents himself under the French, Viet Minh and Japanese regimes. At thirty-six years of age, he comes into his own and his rise is unstoppable, emerging as the 'Tiger General' in the South Vietnamese Republic, whose gallant alliance with America ended in 1975. Not one to give up, the Tiger moves to Washington as a senior political consultant to continue the fight to bring freedom back to his people. A gripping and unforgettable saga of struggle, bravery, love and loss amid one of the most turbulent periods of the 20th century, by an author who writes with the authority of one who lived through many of the events he describes.

Since China and the West first came into contact centuries ago, descriptions of Chinese women of widely varying accuracy by travelers and writers have fueled the imagination of Western readers. By the early 20th century two images predominated-that of the passive, fragile and vulnerable beauty, and that of the seductive, ruthless and scheming 'dragon lady'. Many modern English language writers and filmmakers have seized on these easily duplicated stereotypes, extending them even to the end of the 20th century and beyond. In a series of penetrating chapters, Mimi Chan explores the early origins and 20th century development of these images in popular fiction, the prejudices and misunderstandings that they perpetuate, and some of the works that have attempted to present a fairer, more nuanced, more 'human' view of Chinese womanhood. An important study of value to all who seek a clearer understanding of those who hold up 'half the (Chinese) sky'.

Groslier's seminal study of the accounts of early Spanish and Portuguesemissionaries and adventurers in Cambodia was published in French in1958, and is translated here into English for the first time.The reports of the Europeans record the earliest surviving first-handaccounts of Angkor, following the 'rediscovery' of the site by the Khmers,over a hundred years after its abandonment in 1432 CE, and four hundredyears prior to the colonization of Cambodia by the French.While the accounts are fascinating in their own right, Groslier employssome of their key observations on the structure of Angkor in the 16th centuryto embark on further exploration of his own into the nature of Khmercivilization. Complementing his studies of the early accounts with the firstaerial surveys of the site, Groslier reconstructs a broad picture of Angkoriancivilization, its economy, the genius of its engineers and planners, its uniquereligious foundations and the pivotal humanitarian role of its god-kings.Angkor and Cambodia in the Sixteenth Century represents one of themajor breakthroughs in our understanding of this rich and complexmedieval Asian culture, and is a pillar on which all subsequent studies havebeen built. Essential for all readers, both scholarly and lay, who seek tofurther understand the society responsible for the construction of the greatmonuments of ancient Angkor.

The Khmers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are best remembered by the magnificent monuments that they left the world-the ruins of Angkor Wat, the Bayon and Banteay Chmar and other relics at Siem Reap now attract over a million visitors annually.The Khmers, as well as visionary architects and builders, were by far the most formidable fighting force of Southeast Asia, and much of their fabled wealth was generated directly from the spoils of their conquests. In the present volume, drawing on depictions of warfare found on the stone reliefs of the monuments mentioned above, French scholar Jacq-Hergoualc'h reconstructs a vivid image of the Khmer armed forces, both land and naval, providing insight into its organization, technology, weaponry and strategies.Such was the quality of the relief images that, along the way, we also observe some fascinating and diverse aspects of Khmer life, including details of clothing and textile patterns, hair styles and body ornaments.The Khmer army was in reality an international force, and reliefs also illustrate Siamese, Vietnamese and Chinese mercenaries among the ranks, as well as providing significant details of the Cham forces, the Khmers' arch enemies, with whom they are often shown engaged in battle.The Armies of Angkor is essential reading not only for those with interest in the history of war and weaponry but for all who seek a better understanding of the brilliant culture of the creators of Angkor.

India is home to one of the richest and most diverse populations of wildlife of any territory on earth, including lions, multiple species of tigers and leopards, many species of deer, the Indian elephant, the rhinoceros and a great multitude of reptiles and birds. At the beginning of the British Raj (1858) Indian wildlife populations were largely intact-some estimate that there were up to 100,000 tigers in the territory alone.The following 100 years, however, saw this rich heritage greatly depleted. A swelling native population combined with the British colonial passion for big game hunting wreaked havoc on all Indian wildlife. By the mid 20th century the tiger population was reduced to less than 2,000 animals and a number of other important species had been driven to extinction. Indian and international efforts in the past several decades have attempted to arrest, if not reverse the damage and at present India hosts some 515 wildlife sanctuaries and 18 biosphere reserves.The present volume, aside from providing a fascinating historical travalogue, presents a sampling of what Indian wildlife consisted of in the mid 19th century, prior to the devastation that was to follow. As such it is a fascinating read for all with interest in the ecology and history of the Subcontinent.

Orchid Press is pleased to make available for the wide community with interest in Tibetan culture a reprint edition of this seminal conference, featuring papers by some 47 eminent Tibetologists, first presented at the International Seminar on Tibetan Studies in Oxford in 1979. Dedicated to one of the most highly respected of these scholars, Hugh Richardson, the quality and diversity of the papers herein, reflecting as they do the very significant contribution to this field of Richardson himself, are a fitting tribute to the man. Commencing with an essay in appreciation of Richardson's life and myriad achievements, and followed by a complete bibliography of his writings, the papers then presented span the full range of disciplines that have focused on this rich and endangered culture. Included in this list are important contributions to the history, geography, religion, philosophy, arts, sociology, ethnography, folklore, language and literature, medicine and commerce of Tibet and the Tibetan diaspora. Many of the papers remain standard references in their respective fields, and copies of the original publication of these Proceedings are now long out of print and very difficult to obtain. It is thus hoped that this reprint edition will serve as a valuable reference for new and current scholars in the field of Tibetan studies, both in terms of the scholarly material presented and as an inspirational example of the quality of work of those who preceded them."It is difficult to think of any aspect of Tibetan culture which is not, to some extent at least, touched upon." Review by K.R. Norman, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 16-1, 1982.

Historically defined as "Negrito" because they physically resemble small Africans, these forest peoples may have the most ancient ancestry in Asia. Captured for slavery, exhibited at the 1904 St. Louis World''s Fair, nearly exterminated by disease and a cataclysmic volcano, they survive in a few places: Malaysia, the Philippines and India''s remote Andaman Islands. Some are armed with spears and blowpipes, a few with cellphones and graduate degrees. Edith Mirante, author of Burmese Looking Glass and Down the Rat Hole, weaves a compelling Chatwinesque narrative examining race and identity and the environmental, social, political challenges these indigenous peoples face in contemporary Asia.

Returning to Tarang, a remote village in northwestern Nepal, 44 years after conducting his groundbreaking study there, anthropologist Fisher explores the ways in which modernization and mobility have transformed the livelihood and culture of these once isolated people. Through individual life histories he constructs and analyses the economic and cultural impacts that political, environmental and commercial revolutions in Nepalese society at large have had on the people of Tarang, both transforming their lives and also consolidating and elaborating centuries old societal patterns.Together with Fisher’s original study (Trans-Himalayan Traders), recently republished, this volume will be of interest to social scientists and others focused on the changing South and Central Asian worlds.

On an isolated Himalayan hillside in northwest Nepal, the village that was the subject of this groundbreaking study in the late ‘60s—at the time two weeks’ walk from the nearest commercial transportation—was as culturally complex as it was remote. While the villagers were largely self-sufficient, it was the ways in which they still depended on outside forces that anthropologist Fisher analyses compellingly in this work.Republished almost 50 years after the original fieldwork to coincide with the publication of a recent follow-up investigation by Fisher (Trans-Himalayan Traders Transformed), the two volumes provide a fascinating and significant view of the evolution of this once remote culture.…well researched, well analysed and equally well-written ethnography. The author’s style is insightfull and easy-going, with a certain wit and frankness… exceptionally good... Donald A. Messerschmidt, Mountain Research and Development, Vol. 6, No. 4, 1986.

Norman Mailer, author of such masterpieces as The Naked and the Dead, The Armies of the Night and The Executioner''s Song, died in November 2007 at the age of 84, shortly following the publication of his last novel, The Castle in the Forest. By nature, Mailer was larger than life, and his writing will continue both to disturb and to offer emancipation to his readership. Mailer remains one of the most emblematic literary figures of our time, a fact that cannot be dissociated from the quasi-religious mission he had consciously undertaken from the beginning of his career: to become a prophet, a self-appointed messiah, of his times and of his country. In this penetrating new study, Gwendolyn Chabrier begins her exploration of Mailer''s life and work from the perspective of the flowering of Jewish literature in the West in the twentieth century. Dr Chabrier then examines Mailer''s relationship with, among other major influences in his life, his mother, his wives, the women''s rights movement, his university years, politics, the black community, anti-semitism and racism. Based on a number of personal interviews with Mailer, as well as many years'' research, this is an essential book for all who wish a deeper understanding of this iconic American author, his life and goals.

Seventy years and at least three generations have passed since the abomination of the Holocaust was inflicted by the Nazis on the Jewish population of eastern Europe. And yet the singular horror and monstrosity of those events does not fade with time, and nor should it ever. As this book goes to press, the headlines of the New York Times announces yet one more of the perpetrators brought to justice (Demjanjuk Convicted for Role in Nazi Death Camp; May 12th, 2011). Behind the Barbed Wire vividly and eloquently records the memories of one who lived through, and miraculously survived, the Nazi atrocities inflicted on Latvian Jews during WWII. This graphic, at times harrowing and always mesmerizing true account should be required reading for all who hold hope that mankind will never again witness such depravity.

Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen was one of the most loved and respected poetic voices in Portuguese literature. Throughout her long career, her writing, like the life and history of her people, returned to and revolved about the sea. This anthology presents her words, drawn from works written over a span of some 50 years of her career.