Product Description
Argues that Confucianism can be important to the contemporary, global conversation of philosophy and should not be confined to an East Asian context.

Is it possible to be a Confucian without being East Asian, as so many philosophers have been Platonists without being Greek? Strangely enough, many scholars would answer in the negative, citing the inextricable connection between Confucianism and East Asian culture. Boston Confucianism argues to the contrary, maintaining that Confucianism can be important to the contemporary global conversation of philosophy and should not be confined to an East Asian context. It promotes a multicultural philosophy of culture and makes a contribution to Confucian-Christian dialogue, showing that the relations among the world's great civilizations today is not a "clash," as Samuel Huntington has argued, but an entanglement whose roots are worth sorting and whose contemporary mutual developments are worth promoting. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Intellectually interesting, but lacking in practical applications
I very much enjoyed this book.What I liked best was being introduced to the work of Dr. Tu Wei-Ming.The references gave me many works to study, which I appreciated.I became very interested in how an American could apply Confucianism to his or her life, but this book is not about practical applications of Confucianism.For that I recommend another book: "Achieve Lasting Happiness, Timeless Secrets to Transform Your Life" by Robert Canright.

Can you be a Christian and a Confucian?
The author is attempting to define a form of Confucianism for non-Chinese. One of the main problems is translating the Confucian notion of ritual/etiquette into Western ideas. Neville relies on Fingarette's study, "Confucius The Secular as Sacred" to do this: basically by using a much wider concept of ritual, referring to all the *signs* in our relationships: signs of friendship, love, commitment... it goes beyond courtesy, to a definition of roles in relationships, although these can be very flexible.
Next Neville, who is a Christian, attempts to reconcile Confucianism and Christianity, and to do this he looks for some form of transcendence (an absolute beyond the perceptible phenomena) in Confucianism to match the transcendent Christian God: Hall & Ames have shown that such a transcendence does not exist in early Confucianism and I don't think that Neville succeeds in proving that they are wrong. He does point though to the Neo-Confucian concept of "principle" that is transcendent since it structures all things and man. This then could be a bridge towards Christianity.
Well the great thinkers (Neville, Hall & Ames) have given us a green light: we can be Western Confucians!
Thomas ... Read more

Product Description
Renowned international scholars examine crucial issues surrounding the Laozi, the third century Chinese classic also known as the Daodejing in this indispensable volume. The work offers diverse interpretations, a wide range of scholarly traditions, and a variety of ways to engage, ponder, and evaluate the Laozi. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Lao Tzu
a great book for people who are interested in the philosophy and the practices of the earliest "Daoists". Many of the best modern scholars have contributed essays to this book, such as Liu Xiaogan, Robert Henricks, Harold Roth, Philip Ivanhoe and Isabelle Robinet. Check out the sample pages available above. Liu Xiaogan's 24-page essay examining Ziran ("naturalness and spontaneity") is my personal favourite. I believe that this "concept" is the most important one in all of the Daoist philosophy. Ivanhoe brings to light some aspects of De (Virtue - Power) that previous scholars have overlooked. Isabelle Robinet also wrote a good essay illustrating, by comparison, the various interpretations of many past "experts".

BAO PU ... Read more

Product Description
Yixing ceramics elevate an object as ordinary as a teapot into a work of art accessible to all collectors. Its history is rich and vigorous, and this fully illustrated volume is an essential guide to Yixing ware for all admirers of this unique form of Chinese pottery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A small gem
This book is best for collectors and those seeking visual reference material.Filled with many lovely images covering a variety of time periods and styles of yixing teapots.lovely.

Misses the mark as a really useful introduction to Yixing
This book was not what I'd hoped for - which is a solid introduction to Yixing teapots.It concentrates on the history of Yixing teapots - and those that have been found in archaeological digs dating back to the Song Dynasty in China.Many of these ancient pots are illustrated in the book. There is some discussion on the qualities that make Yixing clay different from most other types of clay, but there is also much missing.The book doesn't illustrate examples of the differing colours available in the clay and never discusses famous clay types like Zhu Ni, which is so highly sought after by Yixing collectors.

There is a fairly large section on ancient masters of the art and those of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It's just a shame that their chops or signatures - which are usually recorded on their pots are not included in the text. Also missing is information on the modern state of the Yixing industry and the mechanical way modern pots are mostly made.

This is a rather basic and superficial look at Yixing pots and wares - but if you are after some biographical information on the most famous past masters or want to see illustrations on some very ancient Yixing pots then this book will be of interest to you.

So much and so small.
This is a fairly little book that is packed with solid info and great pictures. I bought one for me and a second as a gift. I may have to get a couple more for other tea fans. ... Read more

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Discover the wonders of Chinese art in this title that uncovers the unique culture and people that have created these beautiful art forms.

... Read more

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The Fragile Scholar examines the pre-modern construction of Chinese masculinity from the popular image of the fragile scholar (caizi) in late imperial Chinese fiction and drama. The book is an original contribution to the study of the construction of masculinity in the Chinese context from a comparative perspective. Its central thesis is that the concept of "masculinity" in pre-modern China was conceived in the network of hierarchical social and political power in a homosocial context rather than in opposition to "woman." In other words, gender discourse was more power-based than sex-based in pre-modern China, and Chinese masculinity was androgynous in nature. The author explains how the caizi discourse embodied the mediation between elite culture and popular culture by giving voice to the desire, fantasy, wants and tastes of urbanites. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Interesting cultural study
I find this a very enlighting read. A fine study in an interesting, well-known, but rarely written about subject in Chinese social cultural. The book is well-researched, too. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A Cornerstone of Sorts
The three way comparison format (english translation, cultural translation, and reasoning for translation based on historical and linguistic fact) and the dry, reserved language give this book the cut to access unique tumblers in the most difficult of locks.LeFargue and his students (he mentions them adding their understanding) paint meaning and understanding like a watercolor, with each layer's contribution plainly visible, rather than the masking qualities of psuedo-scientists' day-glo acrylic or the holistic turtles' enamel pastels.Triangulating one's own understanding from a single source is an unusual treat.For a rational and restrained mind the fit is magic and the bolt of suspicion is thrown back (or a rough slide for some).All the same its the only book in its genre I've been able to wholly admire.

Meaningful text or Rorschach test?
Michael LaFargue says the Tao Te Ching is the former even though it's often treated as the latter.

According to LaFargue (my paraphrase), there are two ways to read the Tao Te Ching, just as there are two ways to read any text.

The first -- the one taken by any number of readers of Lao-Tzu, including some "translators" whom LaFargue doesn't name and I won't either -- is to point your face at it and sort of see how it makes you, like, _feel_, you know?

The second, and the one LaFargue favors, is to place the text in the context for which it was written and try to understand what its writer or speaker would have intended by it.

This is the approach LaFargue uses in order to produce his excellent (and thoroughly annotated and cross-referenced) translation of the Tao Te Ching. He also, in an extremely helpful essay on hermeneutics, discusses this approach at length and explains the context in which he believes the text to have been written.

I won't try to discuss every topic he covers, but one extremely helpful point is his identification of much of the text as what he calls "compensatory wisdom." On his view, some of the Tao Te Ching's pithy sayings are intended not as metaphysical speculation but only as counters to contrary human tendencies. (When we say that "a watched pot never boils," we surely do not mean that if you sit there and watch a pot, it will literally _never_ boil. We are merely warning against a common tendency to rush things that can't be rushed.)

This seems to me to be right on the money, and indeed to be pretty widely applicable to Oriental religious literature including the Bible. It is the right way, for example, to read the book of Proverbs, and some of Jesus's sayings from the Christian New Testament as well.

LaFargue's volume, then, may be of interest both to readers of Lao-Tzu and to readers of the Jewish and Christian Bibles. In discussions of "biblical inerrancy" and such, it is too often forgotten that the Bible is ancient Near Eastern literature and therefore not written to modern Western European standards. Inerrantists and religious "liberals" alike could surely profit from greater appreciation of this point; many apparent contradictions just disappear (and so do some theological creeds) once we understand that the text isn't _always_ offering us metaphysical principles.

In any event, widespread reading of LaFargue's book might spare us another spate of ill-considered screeds on "the Tao of" this, that, and the other thing. What a relief that would be.

Inspiring contextualisation and translation: perfect.
As an anthropologist, constantly confronted with hermeneutics and the interpretation of culturally unknown texts and social situations and as a former student of chinese language and philosophie I can only stronglyrecommend this book. It is -by far- the best translation and interpretationI have ever read. Crucial to the the understanding of teh tao te qing is agood and profound explanation of the historical and social setting of thework and its probable authors. Lafargue has achieved this wonderfully.Strongly recommended... ... Read more

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An engagement between Confucianism and the philosophy of Richard Rorty. ... Read more

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In this book, Sherman Cochran reconsiders the nature and role of consumer culture in the spread of cultural globalization. He moves beyond traditional debates over Western influence on non-Western cultures to examine the points where Chinese entrepreneurs and Chinese-owned businesses interacted with consumers. Focusing on the marketing of medicine, he shows how Chinese constructed consumer culture in China and Southeast Asia and extended it to local, national, and transnational levels. Through the use of advertisements, photographs, and maps, he illustrates the visual forms that Chinese enterprises adopted and the far-flung markets they reached.

Cochran brings to light enduring features of the Chinese experience with consumer culture. Surveying the period between the 1880s and the 1950s, he observes that Chinese businesses surpassed their Western counterparts in capturing Chinese and Southeast Asian sales of medicine in both peacetime and wartime. He provides revealing examples of Chinese entrepreneurs' dealings with Chinese and Japanese political and military leaders, particularly during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45. The history of Chinese medicine men in pre-socialist China, he suggests, has relevance for the twenty-first century because they achieved goals--constructing a consumer culture, competing with Western-based corporations, forming business-government alliances, capturing national and transnational markets--that their successors in contemporary China are currently seeking to attain.

Product Description
Why has the West for so long and in so many different ways expressed the idea that the Chinese have a special relationship to cruelty and to physical pain? What can the history of that idea and its expressions teach us about the politics of the West's contemporary relation to China? And what does it tell us about the philosophy of modernity?
The Hypothetical Mandarin is, in some sense, a history of the Western imagination. It is also a history of the interactions between Enlightenment philosophy, of globalization, of human rights, and of the idea of the modern. Beginning with Bianchon and Rastignac's discussion of whether the former would, if he could, obtain a European fortune by killing a Chinese mandarin in Balzac's Le Pere Goriot (1835), the book traces a series of literary and historical examples in which Chinese life and European sympathy seem to hang in one another's balance. Hayots wide-ranging discussion draws on accounts of torture, on medical case studies, travelers tales, photographs, plasticized corpses, polemical broadsides, watercolors, and on oil paintings. His analyses show that the historical connection between sympathy and humanity, and indeed between sympathy and reality, has tended to refract with a remarkable frequency through the lens called "China," and why the story of the West's Chinese pain goes to the heart of the relation between language and the body and the social experience of the modern human being.
Written in an ebullient prose, The Hypothetical Mandarin demonstrates how the network that intertwines China, sympathy, and modernity continues to shape the economic and human experience. ... Read more

Product Description
Chinese Gardens is about the history and evolution, and the art and techniques of Chinese gardens and their architectures. The author compares the gardens with the appearance of natural landscapes and describes their meaning to the Chinese, and the Chinese people¡¯s admiration of them. With b&w and color pictures. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A small pleasure
Though a smaller volume, a good buy. It emphasizes history, the Imperial gardens in the north and private gardens of Jiangnan. But, it has only a few maps among its beautiful illustrations and often strange English. It is unique in having a chapter on individual garden designers - though only two or three are mentioned by name, including Ji Chang.

Excellent!
Great insights into the "art form" Chinese Garden as well as a complimentary sightseeing guide.

Written by a Chinese professor of "history and ancient architecture and theory", this book not only describes the "now to be seen", but also the "why" and "how it came to be like it is today".

Covers Gardens all over China. ... Read more

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Chinese and Western thinkers consider the Chinese philosophical tradition and Chinese philosophy for the contemporary global era. ... Read more

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In prehistoric times, dwellings were crude, and tended to be similar in design the world over; they differed only in the availability of local building materials and the topography they had to adapt to.

As the techniques of production improved, the styles of clothing, cuisine, transportation, etc. of different peoples gradually took on their own national colors and cultural characteristics. The same was true for the shelters that people built to dwell in, and a wide diversity of styles formed all over the world. Chinese residences, in particular, occupy a unique place in the history of world architecture. Color Illustrations. ... Read more

Product Description
In this book, you will be introduced to the basics of Chinese culture. You will discover how to initiate contact, what to expect in meetings, and how to behave there. You will learn the way the Chinese approach negotiations, discover how you can respond to them, and learn how to negotiate a successful conclusion. You will also find out how to socialize for success, how to cope with specific problems of living and working in China, and the best way to treat Chinese visitors to your organization. You are given practical advice throughout on business etiquette, and on how to fit into Chinese cultural expectations in order to achieve your goals. An appendix briefly explains Chinese history, and then considers recent economic, political, and social changes.If you fit any one of the following descriptions, this book will provide valuable help to you in your chosen field:- I am a business person and I am thinking of moving into the China market to buy or sell, or I already buy or sell in China, or I am contemplating investing in China.- I work for the government and I would like to know more about China, its business practices, and how to deal with the Chinese I meet.- I am a university professor and I teach a course about doing business in China, or the Chinese economy and society, or cross cultural management problems, or law and international negotiating practices.- I am a student and I am studying China, or taking courses about cross cultural management, or doing business in China, or international business studies, or negotiating abroad.For author bio and photo, reviews and a reading sample, go to bosonbooks.com ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Informative book, but very repetitive
Potential buyers should keep in mind that this is a book about Chinese business etiquette.It is a specific topic, not a general treatise on Chinese culture.

Buknall is thorough, but repetitive.He beats to death the concepts of hierarchy and waiting for approval from various people/governmental agencies.

He references the late 90's in the book and mentions more than once that certain historical customs are beginning to give way to more modern practices. That was six years ago.Thus, the book is in need of an update.

One other thing I've noticed is the high number of misspelled and missing words.The editor did a very poor job.

Overall, an informative book, but one that could be better.

Invaluable!!
If you ever need to do business in China then don't start anything until you've read this book. It will save you time, money and your sanity! After reading this book we took advice from it and saved a valuable business deal by using some of the knowledge Kevin Bucknall has compiled from his time spent there. This is a seriously good book even if you just want to travel in China as it tells you all you need to know to get the best from your time there.

DOING BUSINESS IN CHINA
I have no hesitation in recommending this book.It is a must read for anyone planning to do business in China.
As of 2005,it is out of date regarding lifestyle and living standards in China, however, the cultural facts are correct, in particular the aspects of culture crucial to negotiating with the Chinese.

A really good book
This is an excellent book for those who want to do business with China, whether buying, selling or investing there.It is full of practical advice and I thought was well worth the money - it will pay for itself over and over again.

When West meets East
When West meets East
-Two cents from a Chinese

Chinese Business Etiquette and Culture is a most persuasive book on Chinese culture and society I've ever read. Mr. Bucknall is really an expert on China!

Just as proclaimed in the preface, "...how to improve your behaviour to achieve greater success is explained in the context of Chinese culture. The information is practical and provided in a simple and direct way."

In this book, you can find many practical and interesting examples of cultural shocks westerners would expect in China. For example, in China, "man in a green hat " is a metaphor that his wife or lover has an affair with another guy. Amusingly, I personally happen to have read a true story elsewhere: " Several years ago, a Washington state agricultural delegate used green hats as presents in China*. No recipient bothered to put on it." Another example is about Guanxi -- a network of personal relationships with Chinese characteristic, which I bet will be of immense interest to business men. I absolutely agree with the author that Guanxi is the secret of being successful in China.

Many business tactics are taught, which deeply impressed me, an individual born and raised in China. One instance is negotiating skills covered in depth. You may also be interested in learning about Chinese business law from this book.

Although the good news is that Chinese people are more and more understanding towards foreign cultures because of globalization, there is one thing that I can't refrain from not telling: the bloody history between China and Japan in the war from 1937 till 1945. The Nanjing Massacre is a typical example. The most exasperating thing to us Chinese is that until today the Japanese has never formally apologized for their atrocity in the war . A Canadian liquor trader's experience* in Shanghai is a good lesson to those ignorant of that history. He told Chinese reporters that he was confident in the marketing prospect of his products in China because they were very popular in culturally similar Japan. His liquor never sold well.

However, you may find yourself overwhelmed by the large number of details, a very small part of which are even minor to us Chinese. One such example is Not to Ask about the Weather. In my opinion, this is a small drawback of this book.

Highly recommend!... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Interesting and worth having
Because this book has been slammed by an earlier reviewer, I feel compelled to offer a more positive view.

I bought TRC:500 Cases more than 10 years ago in Beijing (this edition has a 1993 copyright).It's one of several books I brought back from China that I cherish.If you are looking for an academic book on the early history of Chinese characters, this may not fit the bill.But it is scholarly, and has been accurate whenever I have run across character etymologies in other sources.The pictures, though a bit saccharine sometimes, are entirely legitimate since the characters covered are pictographic.

This is a book you can learn something from.

Finally, as other reviewers elsewhere point out, if you don't offer alternative sources in your review then tearing down legitimate works, like TRC, is to no one's advantage.

Bad printing & binding; average 'folk etymology' content
Overall, the book is a low-quality, PRC printing and binding, below Western standards; mine is coming undone after opening it only a few times, and some pages are faint, uneven, or otherwise unclear in places.

Explores the origins of 500 graphs in typical mass-market style, with focus on pictographs, one per page, with cartoons, rather than on the majority category of phonetic compounds and their actual evolutionary processes. Acceptable for the casual peruser, but not accurate or informative enough for the serious student of etymology. Like all such books I've seen now on the market, explanations are extremely brief, without references, and without noting competing theories, occasionally misleading the reader into thinking that his are the single, correct explanations, even though a handful of the readings are idiosyncratic or outdated (to be fair, most are correct). Examples: yao1 (now 'die young'), he defines as 'to bend' (following the outdated Han dynasty Shuowen and ignoring the established evidence that it means 'walk quickly or run, rush' based on zou3 'walk' and ben1 'rush'); bai2 (now 'white'), which he describes as 'a burning candle' (ignoring the two major theories that it is a loan of 'thumb' and 'head'); yin1 'prosperous; last Shang1 capital', which he describes as a man being beaten with a stick, despite the obvious presence of a graph for 'pregnant woman' which is probably playing a phonetic role and may even be its etymonic root (pregnant --> multitudinous, flourishing, prosperous).

Li is inconsistent in mentioning semantic and phonetic components in compounds, with omissions in graphs such as the role of ji4 'a mortar' in jiu4 'owl; old; ancient' regrettable. Polyphony is ignored; there is no mention of the role of li4 'tripod cooker' in two common compounds pronounced ge2, 'separate' and 'belch, hiccup', implying a second reading of ge2. Beginning students will not be able to make some of his leaps. For example, at ji1 'chicken' he mentions one component is phonetic, but does not mention its pronunciation or meaning; nor is there mention at the entry for that component, xi1, that it is phonetic in ji1 'chicken'. Similarly, decomposing ming2 'name', he fails to mention the origin or pronunciation of its top component (xi1, xi4), identifying it only as 'night' (although the illustration does show it correctly as the moon). Entries are sometimes slightly confusing, e.g., at wan4 '10,000': "Its original meaning was 'scorpion'. ... Later, it was loaned to be the numeral ten thousand, and was written as [ ]." This is somewhat unclear as to which meaning was written [ ], scorpion, or 10,000, and the printing quality in my copy was so poor as to render the graph [ ] illegible.

The 3-page preface, covering the history of the Chinese script, writes pinyin only, sans tones, for Chinese words, and a few minor details are incorrect (e.g., those oracle bones using turtle shells were mostly the plastrons, not the carapace, or back shell, as Li states). Otherwise the overview, albeit brief, is generally correct.

There is a stroke index by simplified char., while the main entries are conveniently ordered by pinyin.

A sequel with another 500 graphs was published as Evolutionary Illustration of Chinese Characters in 2000. Beijing Language & Culture University Press, ppbk; ISBN 7561908520. I don't plan to buy it. ... Read more

Product Description

The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture contains nearly 1,200 entries written by an international team of specialists to enable readers to explore a range of diverse and fascinating cultural subjects from prisons to rock groups, underground Christian churches to TV talk shows and radio hotlines. Experimental artists with names such as ‘Big-Tailed Elephants’ and ‘The North-Pole Group’ nestle between the covers alongside entries on lotteries, gay cinema, political jokes, sex shops, theme parks, ‘New Authoritarians’ and ‘Little Emperors’. These, as well as more traditional subjects and biographical entries, are indexed under eighteen categories for easy thematic reference.

Customer Reviews (2)

Cfor China
Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture (edited by Edward L. Davis) is a book containing
plenty of historical information, but more importantly, it gives the reader a view to modern China. Besides having a plethora of information on culture, the book also has insight on a few major cities, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Each topic in this encyclopedia is covered briefly, giving the reader a general view of the subject. Some topics were explained more in depth, while the encyclopedia covered others more briefly. However, if a reader feels that some topic was covered too briefly and wishes to know more, the book suggests sources for more reading material. This link to outside sources supports the reader in gaining more insight on the subject at hand.

Illustrations could have been informative in some cases, for example, when describing a certain art style.Therefore, the lack of illustrations makes the encyclopedia a bit less appealing; which might cause some people hesitation to start reading it.The layout of the text was rather informal for an encyclopedia which may oppose to the readers liking and expectations.

Overall the book is a well written, informative package with a refreshing variety of topics. I would recommend this to people who are interested in China and wish to gain a better understanding of their culture and way of life.Without a doubt there is something interesting for everyone, and the variety is truly impressive.

Buyer beware
The revised edition shown on this page (released in 2008, copyright date 2009) appears to have been substantially revised, perhaps for the better, from the 1st edition, which is the only version available for on view on Amazon as of the date of this review. However, I've examined a copy of the 2009 edition, and some of its "features" include:

@ use throughout of a pseudo-pinyin transliteration without tone markings
@ no Chinese characters anywhere (whether in the encyclopedia entries, in a separate index, etc.), including no Chinese characters for any names
@ no illustrations.

The first "feature" means you're not given adequate guidance as to correct pronunciation -- expect puzzled looks if you try to discuss what you've read with Chinese friends. The second means you're not given any guidance as to how to find references in Chinese-language material, or how to distinguish the name from homonyms -- of which there are lots in Chinese, even assuming you already know the correct pronunciation. Together, these reduce the book's usefulness to anyone with a scholarly or practical interest in China, unless you already know precisely whom and what the article you're reading is about. The lack of illustrations diminishes the book's interest to the casual reader.
... Read more

Product Description
What are the basic, unique characteristics of the Chinesemind, of the Chinese philosophical tradition, and of the Chineseculture based upon that tradition? Here, in a series of essays by menof exceptional competence and insight, is an interdisciplinaryapproach to the essentials of Chinese philosophy and culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

the book that stay with you
Its an amazing book which travel with me for the last few years.
I am an acupuncturist who practice, search and teaching Chinese Medicine for the last 20 years, As such I belive that the familarities with Chinese Thinking is the most important to my personal development as man and practitioner.
The book is written in clear, intresting and vivid way, so , it easy to follow despite the complexity of the material it comes to explore. ... Read more

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What do you carry? A rucksack full of books? Your baby sister or brother?
Discover all the things that bring people together in the wonderful dual language Small World series! Travel the world to find out what people eat and carry, what they celebrate and what makes them smile!
'an excellent series of books, lovely to hold and share'
Books for Keeps ... Read more

Product Description
"

Traditionally the ""Chinese body"" was approached as a totality and explained by sweeping comparisons of the differences that distinguished Chinese examples from their Western counterparts. Recently, scholars have argued that we must look at particular examples of Chinese images of the body and explore their intrinsic conceptual complexity and historical specificity.

The twelve contributors to this volume adopt a middle position. They agree that Chinese images are conditioned by indigenous traditions and dynamics of social interaction, but they seek to explain a general Chinese body and face by charting multiple, specific bodies and faces. All of the chapters are historical case studies and investigate particular images, such as Han dynasty tomb figurines; Buddhist texts and illustrations; pictures of deprivation, illness, deformity, and ghosts; clothing; formal portraiture; and modern photographs and films. From the diversity of art forms and historical periods studied, there emerges a more complex picture of ways that the visual culture of the body and face in China has served to depict the living, memorialize the dead, and present the unrepresentable in art.