MEMOIR / CHINA"This is John Blofeld's intimate and heartfelt
personal account of a life spent in the old China we have all heard
and dreamt about, but which is gone forever. As such it should be
savored as a first-class treasure, for it is like a long-lost gem
recovered for the world to appreciate. What makes John Blofeld's
memoir so uniquely special is the man himself, who, as
international traveler, sinologist, translator, and scholar
embodied the perfect balance of Yin and Yang; an ideal synthesis of
the meeting of East and West."--Chungliang Al Huang, author of
Embrace Tiger, Return To Mountain and founder of the Living Tao
Foundation
"The discovery of a missing manuscript of Mozart could not bring
greater joy than John Blofeld's memoir of his journey through a
China that is barely visible nowadays but brought to life once more
in this most welcome translation. To read this book is to travel
again with this marvelous man on the path he walked so well: the
path of the translator, the path of the pilgrim, the path of a
stranger in a strange land. The bodhisattvas must be
singing."--Bill Porter (Red Pine), translator and editor of The
Collected Songs of Cold MountainThe reveries and remembrances
contained in the travel diaries of English-born John Blofeld cover
every aspect of his life in China. Perhaps best known for his
translation of the I Ching, the Book of Change, this renowned
scholar and prolific author spent over fifteen years of his adult
life during the 1930s and '40s traveling the country and immersing
himself in its incredibly rich culture. His favorite city was
Peking, and his eloquent discourses on the wonders of this ancient
city include riveting experiences of itsopium dens and singsong
houses. Believing from an early age that he had a preordained link
with China, John Blofeld was fascinated with its cultural past and
developed a deep understanding of its three great
philosophies--Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. He became a
devout Buddhist whose journeys throughout the country included
sojourns in the Buddhist monasteries and Taoist hermitages of the
country's sacred mountains, where he often studied with spiritual
masters and received their sacred teachings. He also visited
Guilin, Yulin, Chufu, and Chusien as well as many remote villages
where no foreigner had ever traveled before.Here is a vivid glimpse
of "old" China as it existed in elegance and grace for three
thousand years before the Communist Revolution. Originally written
in Chinese for a Chinese audience, Blofeld's travel diary reveals a
beautiful, rare, and uncensored view of pre-communist China to
which few Westerners have been exposed.JOHN BLOFELD (1913-1987) was
an eminent sinologist and humanist who authored numerous books on
Buddhism and Taoism, including The Zen Teachings of Huang Po and
Taoist Mystery and Magic. As a speaker of Chinese and master of
that language, he brought a unique interpretation to his
translation of the I Ching, the Book of Change, one of the seminal
translations of this work in the twentieth century. He lived in
China from 1932 until 1949, when the Communist Revolution forced
him to relocate to Thailand, where he remained for the rest of his
life. DANIEL REID, translator, met and became close friends with
Blofeld at his home in Bangkok during the last year of his life.
After his death, Reid lived and worked in Blofeld's own study
translating this, Blofeld's last work, into English.
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