The Center for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University, published scholarly works on topics relating to China, Japan, Korea, and Mongolia under the banner of East Asian Studies Press.
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Workers and Commissars: Trade Union Policy in the People’s Republic of China
Merton Don Fletcher
Workers and Commissars: Trade Union Policy in the People’s Republic of China by Merton Don Fletcher: This study is not an organizational or sociological work on trade unions in China. It is primarily a case study illustrating how changes in Chinese Communist Party political and economic orientations over time have been reflected in the Party's policy toward trade unions. The All-China Federation of Trade Unions and its branch organs ceased to function in December 1966, victims of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Only in 1973, following the rebuilding of the Party and the subsequent rehabilitation of mass organizations such as the Young Communist League, have trade unions reappeared. Thus, union policy in China continues to mirror broader policy developments.
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Mongolian Short Stories
Henry G. Schwarz
Mongolian Short Stories, edited by Henry G. Schwarz: My students rightfully complain that they need an anthology of unabridged and representative samples of Mongolian literature. There is at present only one source for such materials, the magazine, Mongolia. Unfortunately, the magazine, like most other periodical publications of its kind, scatters its literary samples across scores of issues. Moreover, it is probably true that this useful magazine is still little known in the United States where I would guess fewer than ten university libraries have complete sets.
To meet my students' legitimate demands, I have selected some twenty-one short stories from the pages of this magazine, and have attempted to edit them into acceptable contemporary American English. I have endeavored as much as it is feasible to make the selection representative of different generations of writers and of different themes.
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An Economic History of China
Jinsheng Zhou
An Economic History of China by Chou Chin-sheng: Subjective idealism, whether Chinese or European, boils down to spiritualism. Pre-Marxist materialism boils down to the reduction of man to a thing, as it fails to recognize that not only does the natural environment (sunspots, China as a continental rather than a seacoast-dominated geographic entity) act on man, but that man reacts on his environment too. The same is true of the school of social or economic materialism founded by Marx. At best, materialism provides the objective element in history; the spiritual element must remain history's motive force. In earliest times the material forces predominated in man's history, but the trend has been for the immaterial forces to grow in strength with time until now they can (as in the accomplishments of modern science) reshape the material forces themselves. Only the historical viewpoint of Sun Yat-sen's "People's Livelihood" adequately synthesizes the strong points of spiritualism and both varieties of materialism, making them inseparable facets of itself, the center of human history. It sees human progress as a spiritual process, but one inextricably linked to continuous improvement in material production.
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Ikkyū Sōjun: A Zen Monk and his Poetry
Sonja Arntzen and Ikkyū
Ikkyū Sōjun: A Zen Monk and his Poetry by Sonja Arntzen: Some eight years ago when I had just started my first course in Japanese, I heard Professor Katō Shūichi give a lecture about Ikkyū in a general survey course. Even though no translations of Ikkyū's poetry existed at that time, Professor Katō was eager to introduce his students to this unusual figure in Japanese literature, a "Japanese John Donne," as Katō described him then. I was fascinated by the lecture and approached Professor Katō afterwards with all the naive enthusiasm of a novice student in East Asian languages to inquire if I, with one year of Japanese, might be able to read Ikkyū's poems for myself. Professor Katō laughingly shook his head and told me I would have to wait before attempting such an ambitious project. Several years and a period of stay in Japan later, when I was casting about for a suitable topic for my Master's thesis, Katō reminded me of Ikkyū. The translation of Ikkyū's kambun poems has been an absorbing project for me ever since and has resulted in the present work.
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The Love of Nature: Hsü Hsia-k'o and his Early Travels
Chi Li
The Love of Nature: Hsü Hsia-k'o and his Early Travels, by Li Chi: I have enjoyed the diaries of Hsü Hsia-k'o for many years; never dilettantish, he was a veteran traveler and a thorough observer. The factual quality of his writing convinces me that his information is reliable as much as his disdain of affection, although often suggesting simplicity, ensures that his writing will always be fresh. Although all his diaries can be read with equal interest, those written during mountain visits are the most rewarding and important. They have a single focus and thus avoid the tediousness of, for example, the diaries written in Kweichow and Yünnan. Moreover, readers will find greater pleasure in the descriptions of the great mountains because their monasteries, academies and ruins, known through poetry and prose to generations of Chinese, form a vital part of China's cultural history. An awareness of this linkage should help readers in making their study of Chinese literature more intelligent and meaningful. Although the geographical information in these diaries is less important, a student of geography may find something of Interest. I have prepared this translation primarily, however, for the general reader interested in the natural scenery of China and for the student of literature concerned about a significant portion of the field in which Chinese literature was created.
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Chinese Policies Towards Minorities: An Essay and Documents
Henry G. Schwarz
Chinese Policies Towards Minorities: An Essay and Documents by Henry G. Schwarz: Over the past several years, I have been surprised by the lack of knowledge of Communist Chinese policies toward minorities on the part of otherwise well prepared graduate students beginning to specialize in contemporary China. To help remedy this regrettable state of affairs, I offer this collection of documents and introductory essay in the hope that it will provide a handy reference tool and a starting point from which a novice may strike out for detailed investigations of China's minorities.
The essay does not pretend to offer a full-scale analysis of Chinese policies toward minorities. It does attempt, however, to give a general introduction to the problem of China's minorities and to focus on some of the objectives and results of China's policies, as presented in the documents.
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Maxims for the Well-Governed Household
Yungchun Zhu
Maxims for the Well-Governed Household by Chu Yung-ch’un and translated by Edward H. Kaplan is a seventeenth- century essay which maintained broad popularity, especially as a subject for calligraphic and pedagogic exercises, throughout the late Imperial period In China and among traditionalists even well Into republican times. Under an alternative title, Chu Wen-kung chia-hsun (Lord Chu's Household Instructions) it was sometimes mistakenly ascribed to Chu Hsi (1130-1200), often considered the greatest Confucian after Confucius himself, rather than to Its actual author, Chu Yung-ch'un, an indication of the degree to which it embodied for its audience the essence of orthodox Neo-Confucianism.