Books with author Yuan Wang

Inconvenient Memories is a rare and truthful memoir of a young woman's coming of age amid the Tiananmen Protests of 1989. In 1989, Anna Wang was one of a lucky few who worked for a Japanese company, Canon. She traveled each day between her grandmother’s dilapidated commune-style apartment and an extravagant office just steps from Tiananmen Square. Her daily commute on Beijing’s impossibly crowded buses brought into view the full spectrum of China’s economic and social inequalities during the economic transition. When Tiananmen Protests broke out, her Japanese boss was concerned whether the protests would obstruct Canon’s assembly plant in China, and she was sent to Tiananmen Square on a daily basis to take photos for her boss to analyze for evidence of turning tides. From the perspective as a member of the emerging middle class, she observed firsthand that Tiananmen Protests stemmed from Chinese people’s longing for political freedom and their fear for the nascent market economy, an observation that readers have never come across from the various accounts of the historical events so far.

Su Dong-Po (1036-1101 A.D.) represents the pinnacle of literary accomplishment from the Song Dynasty. He is credited with transforming ci (tune poem) from a minor form of poetry, written to match fixed tunes and often used to express amorous feelings, to a major form of poetry capable of expressing the full range of emotions and the human condition. It became the primary vessel for lyric poetry in classical Chinese poetry. School children in China learn that the indispensable classics in poetry are "Tang shi Song ci (Tang poems and Song tune poems)". Li Bai and Du Fu are the grand masters of Tang shi; Su Dong-Po is the grand master of Song ci. Many poems in this Chinese/English bilingual book are appearing in English translation for the first time. The Chinese originals are accompanied by Pinyin, making this an ideal textbook for students.