Chinese Life

This book invites you on a fascinating journey through timeless Chinese idioms that hold immense practicality in our everyday lives. Spanning a diverse range of themes such as strategic thinking, effective communication, meaningful relationships, the art of learning, emotional wellbeing, and the pursuit of achievement and success, these idioms resonate deeply in our modern existence, transcending cultural boundaries to offer universal wisdom.

Join Tommy and his family in this award-winning, bilingual picture book, The Boy Who Turned Lives Around As The World Turned Upside Down! for an awe-inspiring adventure as they step out of their comfort zone and put on their thinking caps to make our world a cleaner, cozier, and more compassionate home for all! From caring for the fruits and flowers in their rooftop garden to creating a remote-controlled cart using recycled materials for their elder neighbor, Tommy and his family's creativity, compassion, and camaraderie with the community inadvertently turn lives around.

This book invites you on a fascinating journey through 33 timeless Chinese idioms that hold immense practicality in our everyday lives. This engaging compilation encompasses a wide array of themes, including communication, well-being, and the pursuit of success. Unveiling the universality of these values, these idioms resonate profoundly in our modern lives, offering wisdom that transcends cultural boundaries.

世界上最大的群岛国家在哪儿？海水温度会随着太阳的辐射变化吗？大陆在漂移吗？……世界上最大的群島國家在哪兒？海水溫度會隨著太陽的輻射變化嗎？大陸在漂移嗎？

Your home should be your safe place, but for some, it feels like a place where they are stuck in old thoughts, stubborn habits, and stalled health goals. But what can you do about it? For thousands of years, people from Asia have used the teachings of Feng Shui to enhance their homes, which eventually enhanced their lives.

Eleven-year-old Danny’s life is turned upside down when his Chinese grandmother comes to live with his family in England. Things get worse when Danny finds out he’ll have to share his room with her, and she took the top bunk! At first, Danny is frustrated that he can’t communicate with her because she doesn’t speak English—and because he’s on the verge of failing math and Nai Nai was actually a math champion back in the day. It just feels like he and his grandmother have nothing in common.

Sophie’s work on the Chinese booth at last year’s Rainbow Fair is a point of pride for her and her parents, even if Sophie and her best friend, Katie, think the whole thing is a little silly. Sophie's family is Hui, Chinese Muslim. The Muslim part is something she doesn't know much about. Her parents prefer to keep it private. So when it gets slipped to an overenthusiastic teacher that Sophie is Muslim, the only Muslim in her class, suddenly Sophie is in charge of debuting a booth representing the Islamic religion she doesn't practice, an assignment she is determined to keep secret.

Vivian Yin is dead. The first Chinese actress to win an Oscar, the trailblazing ingénue rose to fame in the eighties, only to disappear from the spotlight at the height of her career to live out the rest of her life as a recluse. Now her remaining family members are gathered for the reading of her will, and her daughters expect to inherit their childhood home: Vivian’s grand, sprawling, Southern California garden estate. But due to a last-minute change to the will, the house is passed on to another family instead—one that has suddenly returned after decades of estrangement.

Nainai has lived in Shanghai for many years, and the time has come to find a wife for her adopted grandson. But when the bride she has chosen arrives from the countryside, it soon becomes clear that the orphaned girl has ideas of her own. Her name is Fu Ping, and the more she explores the residential lanes and courtyards behind Shanghai’s busy shopping streets, the less she wants to return to the country as a dutiful wife. As Fu Ping wavers over her future, she learns the city through the stories of the nannies, handymen, and garbage collectors of postwar Shanghai....

On a December morning in 1982, the courtyard of a Beijing siheyuan - a lively quadrangle of homes - begins to stir. Auntie Xue’s son Jiyue is getting married today, and she is determined to make the day a triumph. Despite Jiyue’s woeful ignorance in matters of the heart - and the body. Despite a chef in training tasked with the onerous responsibility of preparing the banquet.

Seventh grader Freya June Sun has always believed in the Chinese superstitions spoon-fed to her since birth—but ever since her dad’s death a year ago, she’s become obsessed, believing that her father is sending her messages through signs from the beyond. Like how, on her way to an orchestra concert where she’s dreading her viola solo, a pair of lucky red birds appear, a sure indication that Dad wants Freya to stick with the instrument and make him proud.

Twenty-two-year-old Charlie Wong grew up in New York's Chinatown, the older daughter of a Beijing ballerina and a noodle maker. Though an ABC (America-born Chinese), Charlie's entire world has been limited to this small area. Now grown, she lives in the same tiny apartment with her widower father and her 11-year-old sister, and works - miserably - as a dishwasher. But when she lands a job as a receptionist at a ballroom dance studio, Charlie gains access to a world she hardly knew exis.

Deborah Fallows has spent a lot of her life learning languages and traveling around the world. But nothing prepared her for the surprises of learning Mandarin - China's most common language - or the intensity of living in Shanghai and Beijing. Over time, she realized that her struggles and triumphs in studying learning the language of her adopted home provided small clues to deciphering behavior and habits of its people, and its culture's conundrums.

Critically acclaimed author Gish Jen is a National Book Critics Circle Award nominee and the person John Updike proclaimed as the young novelist most likely to become his successor. In The Love Wife, Jen poignantly explores the explosive dynamics of a mixed-race modern family.

If you've learned about the history of Chinese people in America, it was probably about their work on the railroads in the 1800s. But more likely, you may not have learned about it at all. This may make it feel like Chinese immigration is a newer part of this country, but some scholars believe the first immigrant arrived from China 499 CE—one thousand years before Columbus did!

The emperor sought to make his own daughter empress, but this violates the Mandate of Heaven! The empress endured humiliation for eleven years only to be deposed, unthinkable! It's lamentable that countless heroes of the realm were defeated by a frail woman! War is imminent, yet you say I triggered it? How can you be so heartless! The unity and division of the realm, how could it be influenced by a powerless woman like me? Beauty of a Lifetime (Parts I & II) takes you into the complex struggle within the imperial harem.

The emperor sought to make his own daughter empress, but this violates the Mandate of Heaven! The empress endured humiliation for eleven years only to be deposed, unthinkable! It's lamentable that countless heroes of the realm were defeated by a frail woman! War is imminent, yet you say I triggered it? How can you be so heartless! The unity and division of the realm, how could it be influenced by a powerless woman like me? Beauty of a Lifetime (Parts I & II) takes you into the complex struggle within the imperial harem.

华盛顿，美国国父，民主宪政下的总统楷模，他的一生也是一部“美国建国史”……華盛頓，美國國父，民主憲政下的總統楷模，他的一生也是一部「美國建國史」……

Few know that Master You played minor roles for half a lifetime before taking on the role of Ji Gong after age 50. Few know that at 85 years old, Master You still actively performs on stage. Even fewer know that at the incredible age of 80, Master You sold his home to start a performing arts troupe, all to promote art and enlighten people. The story of Master You Benchang is worth young people today learning about and being inspired by. His ideology has profound significance for countless contemporary listeners.

The King of Violins is the heartbreaking story of China's most celebrated violin prodigy, Ma Sicong, who composed his first concerto at the age of 12. During his career, this gentle, dignified man composed 57 of the world's best-known symphonies and concertos, and performed in front of hundreds of sold-out audiences across the globe. Chairman Mao Zedong declared Ma Sicong "a national treasure" and nicknamed him "the King of Violins". But Mao's brutal Cultural Revolution distorted the truth of Ma's life and work. Ma and his family made a breathtaking escape to America.