Tsuji Hitonari’s Mother Calm and Father Storm （母なる凪と父なる時化）

Finally finished this book by Tsuji Hitonari…

A bit of it is available on a Chinese blogger’s site, and here in automatic translation

Recent reads

Japanese language

Tanizaki Junichirou

In ei rai san
Chijin no ai
Yukiguni

Natsume Souseki

Kokoro

Kawabata Yasunari

Yama no oto

Sakaguchi Ango

Darakuron

Akutagawa Ryuunosuke

Rashoumon
Torokko
To Shishun
Hana
etc. short stories

Yu Miri

Kazoku Cinema (Family Cinema)

Oooka Shouhei

Nobi (Field Fires)

Murakami Haruki

Norway no mori (Norwegian Wood)
Dance Dance Dance
Hitsuji wo meguru bouken (Sheep Adventure)
Sekai no owari to hardboiled wonderland (The End of the World and the Hardboiled Wonderland)
1973 nen no natsu no pinball (Pinball of Summer 1973)
Kaze no uta wo kike (Listen to the Wind’s Song)

Ooe Kensaburou

Hiroshima nooto (Hiroshima Notes)
Shisha no ogori

Dazai Osamu

Shayou
Ningen Shikkaku

German language

Max Frisch

Homo Faber
Stiller

Hermann Hesse

Siddharta
Das Glasperlenspiel (The Glass Bead Game)
Steppenwolf

French language

Albert Camus

L’etranger

Russian literature (translated)

Dostoyevsky

Crime and Punishment

English language

John Steinbeck

Of Mice and Men

J.D.Salinger

Catcher in the Rye

Shakespeare

Macbeth

Norman Mailer

The Naked and the Dead
Executioner’s Song

Boris Vian, citations aléatoires (random citations)

Le plus clair de mon temps, je le passe à l’obscurcir. (I spend my clearest time blurring it away.)

J’ai le fâcheux travers de ne me satisfaire que de l’ultime. Aussi comprendrez-vous que je sois toujours mécontent. (I have the annoying characteristic of being satisfied only by the ultimate. You must understand how discontended I always am.)

Personellement dans mes classements, j’ai toujours un tiroir étiqueté “choses inclassables ailleurs”. Tiroir qui est extrêmement commode. Il y a beaucoup de choses dedans et c’est souvent parmi les choses les plus amusantes, justement parce que ce sont les choses exceptionnelles et, comme tout bon pataphysicien, ce qui m’intrésse c’est l’exception, le cas général pouvant être considéré comme une exception non exceptionnelle et par conséquent sans aucun intérêt. (In my categorization of things, I always have one drawer labeled “other inclassifiable things”. That drawer is very convenient. There are many things in that drawer, and they are often some of the most amusing things, exactly because they are exceptional things, and like any good pataphysician, what interests me is the exception, the general case being and unexceptional exception and therefore without any interest.)

Il est beaucoup moins indécent de coucher ensemble que de se regarder dans les yeux. (It is much less indecent to sleep together that to look each other in the eyes.)

Pour qu’il y ait passion, c’est-à-dire réaction explosive, il faut que l’union soit brutale, que l’un des corps soit très avide de ce dont il est privé et que l’autre possède en très grande quantité. (For there to be passion, that is to say explosive reaction, the union has to be brutal, that one of the bodies is very keen on that which is private and the other possesses is great quantities.)

Chez une femme, la beauté est signe de modestie. (In a woman, beauty is a sign of modesty.)

Pourquoi les chanteuses jolies sont-elles toujours mariées au saxo-ténor de l’orchestre? Et est-ce pour ca que tout le monde joue du saxo-ténor? (Why are the pretty singers always married with the sax-tenor of the orchestra? And is this the reason why everyone plays the sax-tenor?)

Les femmes compliquent la vie des hommes pour obliger ceux-ci à la simplifier et entretenir en eux la flamme créatrice. (Women complicate the lives of men in order to have them simplify it, and to maintain in themselves the creative flame.)

Quant à être galant… si on admet l’égalité de l’homme et de la femme, la politesse suffit et l’on n’a pas de raison de traiter une femme plus politement qu’un homme. (As of being gentlemanly… if we admit to equality of man and woman, politeness is enough and we have no reason to treat a woman more politely than a man.)

Ce qui compte, ce n’est pas le bonheur de tout le monde, c’est le bonheur de chacun. (What counts is not the happiness of everyone, it is be happiness of each one.)

On se rappelle beucoup mieux les bons moments; alors, à quoi servent les mauvais? (One recalls much better the good moments; so what are the bad ones for?)

On passe sa vie à romancer les motifs et à simplifier les faits. (One passes one’s life romanticizing the motives and simplifying the facts.)

Jacques Prévert, French poems

 

La Belle Saison

A jeun perdue glacée

Toute seule sans un sou

Une fille de seize ans

Immobile debout

Place de la Concorde

A midi le Quinze Août. 

 

Le Jardin 

Des milliers et des milliers d’années

Ne sauraient suffire

Pour dire

Le petite seconde d’éternité

Où tu m’as embrassé

Où je t’ai embrassée

Un matin dans la lumière de l’hiver

Au parc Montsouris à Paris

A Paris

Sur la terre

La terre qui est un astre.

Kafka quotes translated more

Found this: www.kafka.org for “publishing online all Kafka texts in German, according to the manuscripts.” Pretty cool, considering that K. wanted all his papers burnt unread. Talk about copyright there  :D

Maurice Blanchot has written some interesting stuff on Kafka. I believe it was in the book L’Entretien infini. Working on that one now…

Some favorite K. quotes…

Es ist hier die Redensart, vielleicht kennst du sie: “Amtliche Entscheidungen sind scheu wie junge Mädchen”. “Das ist eine gute Beobachtung”, sagte K., er nahm es noch ernster als Olga, “eine gute Beobachtung, die Entscheidungen mögen noch andere Eigenschaften mit Mädchen gemeinsam haben.” – “Vielleicht”, sagte Olga. “Ich weiß freilich nicht, wie du es meinst. Vielleicht meinst du es gar lobend.” (Das Schloss)

We have a saying which suits this situation, maybe you know it: “Administrative decisions are shy like young maidens”. “That’s a good observation”, said K. who took it even more seriously than Olga, “a good observation, and the decisions may well have even more qualities in common with young maidens.” “Maybe”, said Olga. “Although I am not sure how you mean it. Maybe you mean it even as a compliment.” (The Castle)

Es ist als hätte der behördliche Apparat die Spannung, die jahrelange Aufreizung durch die gleiche vielleicht an sich geringfügige Angelegenheit nicht mehr ertragen und aus sich selbst heraus ohne Mithilfe der Beamten die Entscheidung getroffen. (Das Schloss)

It was as if the small question, quite unimportant in itself, had totally worn out the patience of the administrative organization over the years, and the organization had reached a decision all by itself without any participation by the officials. (The Castle)

On shame and guilt:

Und was taten wir unterdessen? Das Schlimmste was wir hätten tun können, etwas wofür wir gerechter hätten verachtet werden dürfen, als wofür es wirklich geschah – wir verrieten Amalia, wir rissen uns los von ihrem schweigenden Befehl, wir konnten nicht mehr so weiter leben, ganz ohne Hoffnung konnten wir nicht leben und wir begannen, jeder auf seine Art, das Schloß zu bitten oder zu bestürmen, es möge uns verzeihn. Wir wußten zwar, daß wir nicht imstande waren etwas gutzumachen, wir wußten auch, daß die einzige hoffnungsvolle Verbindung, die wir mit dem Schlosse hatten, die Sortinis, des unserem Vater geneigten Beamten, eben durch die Ereignisse uns unzugänglich geworden war, trotzdem machten wir uns an die Arbeit.

And what did we do in this situation? Wir did the worst thing we could have done, and it would have been more justified to despise us for this rather what we actually were despised for – we abandoned Amalia, we tore ourselves away from her silent command, we could no longer live that way – without hope – and we all started to beg in our various ways for the Castle to forgive us. But we knew that we could not achieve anything, and we knew also that our only promising contact with the Castle, the officials Sortini who were positively inclined towards our father, were now unreachable due to what had happened. But we still made the effort.

Der Vater begann, es begannen die sinnlosen Bittwege zum Vorsteher, zu den Sekretären, den Advokaten, den Schreibern, meistens wurde er nicht empfangen und wenn er durch List oder Zufall doch empfangen wurde, – wie jubelten wir bei solcher Nachricht und rieben uns die Hände – wurde er äußerst schnell abgewiesen und nie wieder empfangen. Es war auch allzu leicht ihm zu antworten, das Schloß hat es immer so leicht. Was wollte er denn? Was war ihm geschehn? Wofür wollte er eine Verzeihung? Wann und von wem war denn im Schloß auch nur ein Finger gegen ihn gerührt worden? …er beklage sich ja nicht wegen der Verarmung, alles, was er hier verloren habe, wolle er leicht wieder einholen, das alles sei nebensächlich, wenn ihm nur verziehen würde.

Father started the futile begging rounds with representatives, secretaries, lawyers, scribes; for the most part they did not receive him, and when he sometimes got an audience by chance or negligence – how we celebrated such news and rubbed our hands – he was promptly dismissed and never received again. It was also easy to answer him, the Castle has it always easy. What did he want? What had happened to him? What did he want forgiveness of?  When and by whom from the Castle had he been harmed in any way? …he was not complaining about the poverty, all that he had lost he could easily gain again and that was beside the point; all he wanted was to be forgiven.

Aber was solle ihm denn verziehen werden? antwortete man ihm, eine Anzeige sei bisher nicht eingelaufen, wenigstens stehe sie noch nicht in den Protokollen, zumindest nicht in den der advokatorischen Öffentlichkeit zugänglichen Protokollen, infolgedessen sei auch, soweit es sich feststellen lasse, weder etwas gegen ihn unternommen worden, noch sei etwas im Zuge. Könne er vielleicht eine amtliche Verfügung nennen, die gegen ihn erlassen worden sei? Das konnte der Vater nicht. Oder habe ein Eingriff eines amtlichen Organes stattgefunden? Davon wußte der Vater nicht. Nun also wenn er nichts wisse und wenn nichts geschehen sei, was wolle er denn? Was könne ihm verziehen werden? (Das Schloss)

But what could be forgiven to him? it was said to him. No official notice had been given, or at least such a notice had not been recorded in the official protocols, at least not in the protocols accessible by the lawyers, and therefore it could be concluded that no examination or trial against him had been conducted nor was in process. Could he perhaps name some official action that had been taken against him? No, father could not. Or had some office taken measures concerning him? Father did not know of any. Well, if he knew of none and nothing had happened, what did he want? What could be forgiven to him?

Now having finished “Das Schloss”, I had an idea that a lot of the book’s themes could be connected to chapter 22. Lots of stuff happens there that sort of tie up loose ends in the narrative and give the reader a climax that then tapers off towards the end of the book. At least this was my experience. It would be interesting to start reading the whole thing at chapter 22 then just proceed to the previous chapters one by one… Thus unraveling the book from the wrong end. One more question remains of course: what did Gerstäcker’s mother say?

Modern Chinese writers and literature

My random collection.

Shou Huo 收获, a literary magazine http://www.qikan.com/gbqikan/mag.asp?issn=0583-1288

Beijing Wenxue, Zhongpian Xiaoshuo Yuebao 北京文学 中篇小说月报, literary magazine from Beijing which I am exploring right now.

Qiao Ye 乔叶, a writer who has a nice fresh style! http://www.qikan.com/gbqikan/view_article.asp?titleid=rmwx20060102&yuedu=1

Oldest extant philosophy

Text borrowed from Stanford University. Please pardon me for the moment. Planning to gather some relevant intercontinental philosophical texts here.

Plus links to Laozi resources

Chinese Ancient Texts Database http://www.chant.org

National Digital Library of China http://www.nlc.gov.cn

One version of Laozi Daodejing 唐 易 州 龍 興 觀 道 德 經 碑 本 http://ef.cdpa.nsysu.edu.tw/ccw/01/lg0.htm

Searchable database of Laozi and other ancient texts http://210.69.170.100/s25/index.htm

Impressive collection of Laozi originals and translations http://home.pages.at/onkellotus/TTK/_IndexTTK.html

A Laozi database project http://www.aai.uni-hamburg.de/MPC/datab.html

Very interesting Chinese text reading interface, not only for Laozi http://zhongwen.com/dao.htm

Another Laozi text online http://www.cnd.org/Classics/Philosophers/Lao_Zi/

Guodian bamboo slip Laozi online http://bamboo.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/

Guoxue http://www.guoxue.com/

www.chinapage.com/laozi.html

www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Daoists/daojia.html

Until recently, the Mawangdui manuscripts have held the pride of place as the oldest extant manuscripts of the Laozi. In late 1993, the excavation of a tomb (identified as M1) in Guodian, Jingmen city, Hubei province, has yielded among other things some 800 bamboo slips, of which 730 are inscribed, containing over 13,000 characters. Some of these, amounting to about 2,000 characters, match the Laozi (see Allan and Williams 2000, and Henricks 2000). The tomb is located near the old capital of the state of Chu and is dated around 300 B.C.E. Robbers entered the tomb before it was excavated, although the extent of the damage is uncertain. The bamboo texts, written in a Chu script, have been transcribed into standard Chinese and published under the title Guodian Chumu zhujian (Beijing: Wenwu, 1998), which on the basis of the size and shape of the slips, calligraphy, and other factors divides the Laozi material into three groups. Group A contains thirty-nine bamboo slips, which correspond in whole or in part to the following chapters of the present text: 19, 66, 46, 30, 15, 64, 37, 63, 2, 32, 25, 5, 16, 64, 56, 57, 55, 44, 40 and 9. Groups B and C are smaller, with eighteen (chs. 59, 48, 20, 13, 41, 52, 45, 54) and fourteen slips (chs. 17, 18, 35, 31, 64), respectively.

On the whole, the Guodian “bamboo-slip Laozi” is consistent with the received text, although the placement or sequence of the chapters is different and there are numerous variant and/or archaic characters. Particularly, whereas chapter 19 of the current Laozi contains what appears to be a strong attack on Confucian ideals — “Cut off benevolence (ren), discard rightness (yi)” — the Guodian “A” text directs its readers to “cut off artificiality, discard deceit.” This has been taken to suggest that in the course of its transmission, the Laozi has taken on a more “polemical” outlook. However, the Guodian “C” text indicates that ren and yi arose only after the “Great Dao” had gone into decline, which agrees with chapter 18 of the current Laozi.

It is not clear whether the Guodian bamboo manuscripts were copied from one source and were meant to be read as one text divided into three parts, whether they were “selections” from a longer original, or whether they were three different texts copied from different sources at different times. The “A” and “C” texts give two different versions of what is now part of chapter 64 of the Laozi, which may suggest different sources. One scholar at least has suggested a chronology to the making of the Guodian Laozi bamboo slips, with the “A” group being the oldest of the three, copied around 400 B.C.E. (Ding 2000, 7-9). It is possible that the Guodian texts only furnished some of the textual “raw material” or “building blocks” that were used later to create the Laozi (Boltz 1999). In other words, they were independent writings and not versions of or excerpts from the Laozi, which in this scenario did not yet exist when the Guodian texts were made. Nevertheless, taking into account all the available evidence, it seems likely that a body or bodies of sayings attributed to Laozi gained currency during the fourth century B.C.E. They may have been derived from earlier, oral or written sources. By the mid-third century if not earlier, the Laozi probably reached more or less its final form and began to attract commentarial attention.

…

The Guodian and Mawangdui manuscripts are certainly older than the received text of the Laozi, but this does not necessarily mean that they are therefore closer to the “original,” if there was an original. As opposed to a linear evolutionary model, it is conceivable that there were several overlapping collections of sayings attributed to Laozi from the start, each inhabiting a particular interpretive context, from which different versions of the Laozi were derived. Although some key chapters in the current Laozi that deal with the nature of Dao (e.g., chs. 1, 14) are not found in the Guodian corpus, the idea that the Dao is “born before heaven and earth,” for example, which is found in chapter 25 of the received text is already present. The critical claim that “being [you] is born of nonbeing [wu]” in chapter 40 also figures in the Guodian “A” text. This seems to argue against any suggestion that the Laozi, and for that matter ancient Chinese philosophical works in general were not interested or lacked the ability to engage in abstract philosophic thought, an assumption that sometimes appears to underlie evolutionary approaches to the development of Chinese philosophy.

The Guodian and Mawangdui finds are extremely valuable. They are syntactically clearer than the received text in some instances, thanks to the larger number of grammatical particles they employ. However, they cannot resolve all the controversies and uncertainties surrounding the Laozi. Perhaps the two approaches identified above are not mutually exclusive. Different written collections of Laozi sayings, leaving open the time and the way in which they were first formed, circulated during the fourth century. Overlapping in some cases and with varying emphases in others, they address both the nature of Dao and Daoist government. These were then developed in several ways — e.g., some collections were combined; new sayings were added; and explanatory comments, illustrations, and elaboration on individual sayings were integrated into the text. The demand for textual uniformity rose when the Laozi gained recognition, and consequently the different textual traditions eventually gave way to the received text of the Laozi.

Federico Garcia Lorca

Was reading Federico Garcia Lorca’s Poema del Cante Jondo (Andalusian Spanish for “deep song” or “grand song”) and Romancero gitano while sipping beer with a light lunch on Sunday. Great way to spend an afternoon Lorca bases his writings on Andalucia, its places and culture (region in southern Spain on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean)

I was thinking, these poems have been written in the 1920’s and by 2020’s a hundred years have passed. Right now, in the beginning of the new century, 1920’s is still no so far away and it is still possible to identify with what went down 80 years ago in Andalucia. The feelings, sounds, passions, lives… I felt sad at the passing of time which carries the past inevitably further and further away… in 2030 the Andalucia of 1920’s will perhaps be something exotic, a remote footnote of history such as the Great Goldrush or the Congress of Vienna? Too far apart for feeling…

“El ROMANCERO GITANO (1928) es, con justicia, uno de los libros más célebres de la poesía en lengua española.”

Baladilla de los tres ríos

El rió Guadalquivir
va entre naranjos y olivos.
Los dos ríos de Granada
bajan de la nieve al trigo.
 
¡Ay, amor
que se fue y no vino!
 
El río Guadalquivir
tiene las barbas granates.
Los dos ríos de Granada,
uno llanto y otro sangre.

¡Ay, amor
que se fue por el aire!
 
Para los barcos de vela
Sevilla tiene un camino;
por el agua de Granada
solo reman los suspiros.

¡Ay, amor
que se fue y no vino!

Guadalquivir, alta torre
y viento en los naranjales.
Dauro y Genil, torrecillas
muertas sobre los estanques.

¡Ay, amor
que se fue por el aire!

¡Quién dirá que el agua lleva
un fuego fatuo de gritos!

¡Ay, amor
que se fue y no vino!

Lleva azahar, lleva olivas,
Andalucía, a tus mares.

¡Ay, amor
que se fue por el aire!

Andalucian terrain… the Sierra Morena mountains to the north and the Bética ranges to the south. The Guadalquivir with its tributary, the Genil River, physically define Andalucia. The Sierra de Cazorla. The south-west marshlands of Doñana National Park. “Fifty percent of the Andalusian territory is mountainous, one-third is found at an altitude above 600 metres, including an extensive high plateau and 46 peaks higher than 1,000 metres. For its altitude – Mulhacén and Veleta both measure over 3,400 metres high – the Sierra Nevada, in the heart of the Penibética Range, rises as queen of the heights.”

Andalusia is divided into eight provinces named after the capital cities of these provinces: Sevilla, Granada, Córdoba, Cadiz, Málaga, Huelva, Jaén, Almería.

Andalucía: Tema y visión (from Poema del Cante Jondo – Romancero gitano, Edición de Allen Josephs y Juan Caballero, CATEDRA Letras Hispánicas, 2004)

Es indispensable distinguir aqui entre la Andalucía que Lorca ve, descubre y emplea, y aquella otra pseudo-romántica Andalucía de macetas y elementos “populares”. Quizá en esa misma palabra “popular” sea donde resida gran parte del problema de distinguir entre la Andalucía verdadera y la falsa de “pandereta”, de la “españolada”, de la época de Bizet, esa Andalucía zarzuelera que ha ejercido influencia hasta dentro de Andalucía, y que, fuera de ella y fuera de España, ha creado un estereotipo lamentable.

It is indispensable to distinguish between the Andalusia that Lorca sees, discovers and employs, and the other pseudo-romantic Andalusia of flowerpots and “popular” elements. Perhaps in that same word “popular” it is where a great part of the problem resides to distinguish between true Andalusia and the false one of “tambourines”, of “españolada”, of the time of Bizet, that “zarzuelised” Andalusia that has exerted influence even within Andalusia itself, and which, outside of Andalusia and Spain, has created a lamentable stereotype.

Ortega lo apuntó bien en abril de 1927, en el artículo que todavía hoy se discute, “Teoría de Andalucía”, al afirmar: “Lo admirable, lo misterioso, lo profundo de Andalucía está más allá de esa farsa multicolor que sus habitantes ponen ante los ojos de los turistas”.

Ortega – hombre del norte, como él mismo dice, y filósofo – enfoca con originalidad este “problema” de identidad andaluza, tan necesitado de aclaración para nuestros fines. Aunque no estamos de acuerdo con la segunda parte del artículo donde enuncia su “ideal vegetativo”, sí creemos que en la primera parte – la historia – ha acertado al señalar la autoconciencia andaluza y lo que ella puede significar.

Ortega pointed it out well in April 1927 in his article “Theory of Andalusia”, which is discussed still today, affirming: “the admirable, the mysterious, the profound of Andalusia is beyond that multicoloured farce that their inhabitants put before the eyes of the tourists”.

Ortega – a man of the north, as he himself says, and a philosopher – views this “problem” of Andalusian identity with originality, a needed clarification for our purposes. Although we are not in agreement with the second part of the article where it enunciates the “vegetative ideal”, yes we think that in the first part – the history - it has guessed right when indicating the Andalusian self-awareness and what it can signify.

Philip K.Dick (science fiction writer)

I used to be an active scifi reader. In fact this was almost exclusively the type of literature I read from around 10 to around 16 years old. Even considered myself bit of an expert on the subject. And I think scifi is a grossly underrated type of craftmanship & influence on the society. The same standards that might hold for “belles lettres” (Fine arts literature (fiction, poetry, drama, etc.) as distinguished from scientific/technical writing, as defined by www.trussel.com/books/glossary.htm) do not apply to scifi. Science fiction is imagination let loose on a field that does not necessarily cater to literary sensibilities, but can still be valuable future oriented social commentary. Or an engineer’s brush with literature.

Despite that, I never managed to run into Philip K. Dick before a couple of years back (which is my only literary regret besides the fact that I never got into belles lettres until I was around 20;a huge regret)  I don’t know how that happened, but after reading a couple of his books, I could only wonder why I never had the luck to run into this treasure trove of wacky ideas in my teens. Things might have turned out even wackier for me =)  www.philipkdick.com  www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.12/philip.html No belittling the great Stanislaw Lem meant here www.lem.pl  For some tickling scifi humor, try “Cyberias” by Lem.

Georg Simmel on the city, fashion, money etc.

Simmel seems to be better known in Europe & German speaking areas than in the US for example. I wonder why… Anyway, here an intro from Switzerland in English. http://socio.ch/sim/biographie/

I picked a collection and read some eye-opening esseys on fashion, the big city, and money. These sociological essays or just observations were written around the start of the 1900’s but they seem valid to this day… Here some picks.

On the modern city:

Large cities have always been dens of monetary economy, because the complexity and concentration of economic exchanges increases the significance of money as a medium of exchange.This does not happen in the countryside because of the lesser intensity of exchanges. Monetary economy and the supremacy of reason are in fact most closely intertwined. What they have in common, is a strict prudence in relation to things and to people; often formal justice goes hand in hand with ruthless cold-heartedness.

Money is only interested in that which is common to all phenomena; namely the exchange value which evens out all qualities and special characteristics to quantitative values.

In primitive environments goods are manufactured for the particular customer who has made the order, and the manufacturer and buyer know each other. The large modern city on the other hand lives almost exclusively from manufacturing for markets; goods are made for strangers, whom the maker will never meet.

New year, new blog, special day!

This will be an extension & my new tool for learning. Initial list of all kinds of things I like:

• French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Cantonese, Korean etc. languages
• Literature & thoughts springing from books
• Sociology & anthropology or whatever you would call those lines of investigation..
• Science, tech & cool gadgets
• Geography, news, developments around the world
• Random ramblings connected or unconnected to any of the above

I won’t be writing very personal stuff in this blog, I guess. Maybe will start a blog like that later. Haha, cool, now starting!

Reading right now: 

• Das Schloss (Franz Kafka)
• Selected Poems and Pictures of the Song Dynasty (China Intercontinental Press)
• Shuo Guangdonghua (textbook on Cantonese by Yuanfang publishing co.)
• Shou Huo (Chinese literary bimonthly formerly edited by the late Ba Jin)

Kafka das Schloss was a nice (or weird) surprise which he often is. I was expecting some long and tedious reading but in fact there is some crazy stuff in this book… Looked up some link to this book, this is what came up (not meant as an ad for Amazon, but they had some good commentaries on the page) www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805210393/103-7495648-1472665?v=glance&n=283155

As for who is (or was) Ba Jin, see here http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/people/A0930476.html