Tales from Five Thousand Years of Chinese History: Volume IV

Acquisition of proficiency in a foreign language calls for diligent practices in listening, speaking, reading and writing. Learning Chinese is no exception. To a student of Chinese, extensive reading exercises are as important as constant exposure to spoken Mandarin. Cultural China: Chinese-English Readers series is an open-ended series of collections of writings in Chinese, mostly essays, short stories or novels by contemporary Chinese writers. Our purpose in putting together this bilingual series is to help you enjoy contemporary Chinese literature and other writings in their authentic, unadulterated flavour and to understand the Chinese society, culture, history, and the contemporary life of the Chinese people as you learn language and hone your reading skills. A bilingual text will assist you in better savoring these works and in checking your understanding of the Chinese original against the English translation. Tales from Five Thousand Years of Chinese History is a collection of stories arranged in chronological order, covering a period from ancient times to pre-Opium War Qing Dynasty. The topics were selected by educator and linguist Lin Handa (1900-1972), who drew up the outline for the collection and contributed some chapters. Following Lin's death, Cao Yuzhang (1924-1996) took over his mantle and completed the work. This combined effort of two consecutive authors has enjoyed wide appeal by virtue of its historical accuracy, well-structured narration, fluent writing and its distinctive style. The bilingual Tales from Five Thousand Years of Chinese History (IV) covers a period of history from the last years of the Eastern Jin Dynasty to the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. For the sake of brevity, the original Chinese work has been slightly abridged in this bilingual edition.