11/5/2023 0 Comments Shan hai jing childrenAnother must-have book for anyone with a passing interest in Chinese teratology. Like Meeting with Monsters it has a (relatively) narrow subject and it uses that to excellent effect. I can’t really sing the praises of this book enough. If it’s not academic enough for you, there’s always the massive Mathieu translation, which is extremely academic. As the Shan Hai Jing is itself an ur-reference, there is little need for more – but there is more! These range from folklore notes to Guo Pu’s commentaries and everything in between. As opposed to, you know, some teratologist with delusions of competence presenting a subjective interpretation…Īs mentioned above, there are references and notes for just about everything. With the geographical location of mountains and seas as longitude and the cardinal points as latitude, the. So what you’re seeing is what people at the time (or at least, one artist at the time) thought those creatures look like. The narrative strategies of Shan Hai Jing (or The Book of Mountains and Seas) show that they focused their attention only on objects that were useful to them and paid no attention to those whose usefulness was unknown to them. But it’s written clearly, thoroughly referenced and footnoted.īlack and white and simple enough, but most importantly they are the original illustrations. And I don’t read Chinese, so I can’t comment on how good of a translation it is (Chinese-reading ABC readers should feel free to chime in with opinions, if any). It’s a translation of a classic Chinese text. The text is broken up by region and by creature, with each notable creature having its own number to identify it in the illustration and (in most cases) commentary. Introductions and Notes frame the Shan Hai Jing translation, which is the meat of the book. Once more, this is not a complete compendium of mythical creatures nor does it pretend to be. It’s an English translation of the Guideways, with ample commentary and the original illusrations. Shi is happy that children appreciate the details in the pictures, such as swirling clouds. You can get your grubby mitts on it here and here. Shan Hai Jing has both a cultural and geographical account of China before the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC). This is where Strassberg’s A Chinese Bestiary (ACB) comes in, and it delivers in spades. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice.The Shan Hai Jing is the seminal Chinese bestiary, in fact one of the most creature-packed creature books in existence! (It’s also where Borges got his Chinese fauna from) And if you’re in the unfortunate position of being unable to read Chinese, like myself, you’re going to need a translation. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice.
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