In Limpid Dream: Nostalgia and Zhang Dai's Reminiscences of the Ming

Literature & Fiction

Kafalas, Philip A

World Literature

Camphor Press Ltd

Twentieth Century Korean Literature

Yi, Nam-Ho

Yi, Kwangho

U, Ch'angje

History & Criticism

The Teahouse of the August Moon

American-style democracy and capitalism come to the sleepy village of Tobiki in this uplifting comedy of cultural conflict set on Okinawa at the end of World War II.
The hapless Captain Fisby, with the help of his local interpreter, Sakini, is implementing the U.S. Army’s Plan B, which includes establishing a Women’s League for Democratic Action and building a pentagon-shaped schoolhouse where the children will learn English.
When Fisby mistakenly accepts a gift of souvenirs in the form of two geishas, life in the village and his plans for it spin out of control. The vainglorious area commander, Colonel Wainwright Purdy III, sends a spy to Tobiki to discover what is going on.
This immensely likeable satire of the American civilizing mission was a phenomenon when it was published in 1951. An award-winning play and hit movie of the same name soon followed. The many-layered novel retains its charm and power today; beneath the comical mayhem that engulfs Tobiki we see the pitfalls and possibilities of cultural exchange.
Author Vern Sneider drew directly on his personal experiences as the military administrator in charge of the Okinawan village of Tobaru. This new Camphor Press edition features an introduction revealing the autobiographical elements in Sneider’s masterpiece and its important place in post-war American literature.

Sneider, Vern

Humor & Satire

Lord of Formosa

The year is 1624. In southwestern Taiwan the Dutch establish a trading settlement; in Nagasaki a boy is born who will become immortalized as Ming dynasty loyalist Koxinga. Lord of Formosa tells the intertwined stories of Koxinga and the Dutch colony from their beginnings to their fateful climax in 1662. The year before, as Ming China collapsed in the face of the Manchu conquest, Koxinga retreated across the Taiwan Strait intent on expelling the Dutch. Thus began a nine-month battle for Fort Zeelandia, the single most compelling episode in the history of Taiwan. The first major military clash between China and Europe, it is a tale of determination, courage, and betrayal – a battle of wills between the stubborn Governor Coyett and the brilliant but volatile Koxinga. Although the story has been told in non-fiction works, these have suffered from a lack of sources on Koxinga as the little we know of him comes chiefly from his enemies.While adhering to the historical facts, author Joyce Bergvelt sympathetically and intelligently fleshes out Koxinga. From his loving relationship with his Japanese mother, estrangement from his father (a Chinese merchant pirate), to his struggle with madness, we have the first rounded, intimate portrait of the man.Dutch-born Bergvelt draws on her journalism background, Chinese language and history studies, and time in Taiwan, to create an irresistible panorama of memorable characters caught up in one of the seventeenth century’s most fascinating dramas.

Bergvelt, Joyce

Genre Fiction

Tsingtao - idyillic beach resort in China, Little Germany upon the Yellow Sea, home port to the Kaiser's East Asia Squadron - was the scene of a historically important yet largely forgotten First World War battle. In the autumn of 1914, four thousand German defenders, outnumbered six to one by Japanese and British forces, and outgunned on land, air, and sea, resisted bravely for two months. Nowhere was the fight more one-sided than in the air, the remarkable Gunther Pl schow the enclave's one-man airforce. In his barely-airworthy Taube monoplane, he flew alone, armed with only a pistol, all the while dodging ground fire and the enemy's eight superior biplanes as he spied on Allied positions and movements.On the eve of Tsingtao's surrender, Pl schow flew to neutral China, the start of his long journey home. After crash-landing in a padi-field, escaping detention, and slipping out of Shanghai, he made his way across the Pacific, the United States, and the Atlantic, only to be caught in Gilbratar and sent to a POW camp in England. Within six months he would be on the run again, this time successfully - the only German in either world war to escape from a POW camp in Britain and make it all the way back to Germany.Pl schow wrote a gripping account of his wartime experiences, an instant bestseller in 1917 called Die Abenteuer des Fliegers von Tsingtau (The Adventures of the Airman of Tsingtao). An English translation appeared in 1922 with the underwhelming title My Escape from Donington Hall. This retitled Camphor Press edition has new material, including notes throughout the text, a timeline, and an introduction by British author Anton Rippon, whose 2009 biography Gunther Pl schow, Airman, Escaper, Explorer is the standard work on this remarkable figure.

The Aviator of Tsingtao: My War in China and Escape from a British POW Camp

Biographies & Memoirs

Plüschow, Gunther

Historical

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.

The Jing Affair

Spencer, D J

A mysterious windfall upends Lena Haze's almost-comfortable middle-class American life. Her husband Marcus has inherited some prime Hong Kong real estate, a building in Wan Chai - the bustling, gentrifying heart of the city. It comes with a catch, though: the building must not be sold. With financing from local investors, Lena begins overseeing renovations to convert it into a premier boutique hotel. Alone in Hong Kong and a recent arrival, Lena struggles with culture shock, business obstacles, and malignant ghosts - a part of her life she thought she'd put behind her. Lena's previous experiences with the spirit world are of little help because she's dealing with Chinese ghosts this time. Different rules, rituals, and customs apply, and she has no idea what is coming.

Inhospitable

Moore, Marshall

In the Footsteps of Genghis Khan

DeFrancis, John.

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