Social Perspective is a course set over one academic year for intermediate learners of Chinese. In two volumes, it focuses on developing learners' language competency to a high advanced plus/advanced level (ACTFL/CEFR B2-C1) through exploring social issues in contemporary China. The textbook draws upon the discussion of a wide range of current social issues in China to provide students with a real-life background to increase their debating and written skills. Volume I explores five topics: gender equality, e-commerce, Internet culture, food and health, and environmental protection. The textbook is written in fluent, accurate and high-quality Chinese language which is conveniently broken down to highlight all the important language elements (expressions, vocabulary, phrases and grammar). This course will equip students with language production capability at an advanced level and prepare students for the transition from academic study to employment. Each lesson includes a wide range of language drills and exercises designed to quickly improve learners' oral expression and conceptual understanding through group discussions, essays, presentations, bidirectional translation and critical reflection. Online resources such as audio recordings, dictation exercises and supplementary reading material are also included. Written by a team of highly experienced teachers, Social Perspective is the ideal course to progress intermediate students to an advanced level. Academics and researchers with an interest in Chinese contemporary social issues will also find this a useful tool for further language study.

* highlights important language elements by utilising original and recent Chinese texts regarding social issues * Designed to progress learners' language competency to an advanced level through a natural connection between Chinese language learning and Chinese Social Studies. * Facilitates language learning and provides important insight for the formation of cross-cultural relationships. * Prepares readers for the transition from academic study to employment. * Written by a team of native and non-native speakers.

* highlights important language elements by utilising original and recent Chinese texts regarding social issues * Designed to progress learners' language competency to an advanced level through a natural connection between Chinese language learning and Chinese Social Studies. * Facilitates language learning and provides important insight for the formation of cross-cultural relationships. * Prepares readers for the transition from academic study to employment. * Written by a team of native and non-native speakers.

Social Perspective is a course set over one academic year for intermediate learners of Chinese. In two volumes, it focuses on developing learners' language competency to a high advanced plus/advanced level (ACTFL/CEFR B2-C1) through exploring social issues in contemporary China. The textbook draws upon the discussion of a wide range of current social issues in China to provide students with a real-life background to increase their debating and written skills. Volume I explores five topics: gender equality, e-commerce, Internet culture, food and health, and environmental protection. The textbook is written in fluent, accurate and high-quality Chinese language which is conveniently broken down to highlight all the important language elements (expressions, vocabulary, phrases and grammar). This course will equip students with language production capability at an advanced level and prepare students for the transition from academic study to employment. Each lesson includes a wide range of language drills and exercises designed to quickly improve learners' oral expression and conceptual understanding through group discussions, essays, presentations, bidirectional translation and critical reflection. Online resources such as audio recordings, dictation exercises and supplementary reading material are also included. Written by a team of highly experienced teachers, Social Perspective is the ideal course to progress intermediate students to an advanced level. Academics and researchers with an interest in Chinese contemporary social issues will also find this a useful tool for further language study.

From A to Z, the Penguin Drop Caps series collects 26 unique hardcovers--featuring cover art by Jessica Hische
It all begins with a letter. Fall in love with Penguin Drop Caps, a new series of twenty-six collectible and hardcover editions, each with a type cover showcasing a gorgeously illustrated letter of the alphabet. In a design collaboration between Jessica Hische and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, the series features unique cover art by Hische, a superstar in the world of type design and illustration, whose work has appeared everywhere from Tiffany & Co. to Wes Anderson's recent film "Moonrise Kingdom" to Penguin's own bestsellers "Committed" and "Rules of Civility." With exclusive designs that have never before appeared on Hische's hugely popular Daily Drop Cap blog, the Penguin Drop Caps series debuted with an 'A' for Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice," a 'B' for Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre," and a 'C' for Willa Cather's "My Antonia." It continues with more perennial classics, perfect to give as elegant gifts or to showcase on your own shelves.
X is for Xinran. In 1994, journalist and author Xinran met a Chinese woman with an extraordinary story. For over thirty years, since the 1950s, Shu Wen searched the mountains of north Tibet for her husband, a Chinese military doctor, who was missing in action. Her moving and unforgettable life story brilliantly recreated by Xinran, gives insight into the landscape, religion and people of Tibet. At the same time it illuminates the complex and emotional relationship and history between the Tibetans and Chinese. Traveling thousands of miles, and taken in by a Tibetan family, Shu Wen lived a nomadic life through numerous seasons with silence and simplicity, motivated by her search for her husband. An unforgettable and ultimately uplifting tale of loss, loyalty, courage and survival, above all, "Sky Burial" is an epic and enduring love story.

Xinran takes her readers to the heart of modern Chinese society in this delightful and absorbing tale of three peasant girls getting to grips with life in the big city.
The Li sisters don't have much education, but one thing has been drummed into them: their mother is a failure because she hasn't managed to produce a son, and they themselves only merit a number as a name. Women, their father tells them, are like chopsticks: utilitarian and easily broken. Men, on the other hand, are the strong rafters that hold up the roof of a house.
Yet when circumstances lead the sisters to seek work in distant Nanjing, the shocking new urban environment opens their eyes. While Three contributes to the success of a small restaurant, Five and Six learn new talents at a health spa and a bookshop/tearoom. And when the money they earn starts arriving back at the village, their father is forced to recognize that daughters are not so dispensable after all.
As the Li sisters discover Nanjing, so do we: its past, its customs and culture, and its future as a place where people can change their lives.

This hugely important and ground-breaking book -- an unprecedented oral history -- gives voice to a silent generation and tells the secret history of 20th century China.
In 1912, five thousand years of feudal rule ended in China. Warlords, Western businessmen, soldiers, missionaries and Japanese all ruled China, exploited and fought one another and the Chinese. In 1949, Mao Zedong came to power.
China Witness is both a journey through time and through the author's own country, and a memorial to an extraordinary generation of men and women who have survived war, invasion, revolution, famine and modernization -- to tell the story of their times. It is an extraordinary personal testimony from a normally silent generation who, in their lifetimes have seen China transformed from a largely peasant, agricultural country of more than 1.3 billion people into a modern state. These are ordinary people -- a herb woman at a market, retired teachers, a legendary "bandit" woman, Red Guards, oil pioneers, an acrobat, a naval general, a shoe mender, a lantern maker, taxi drivers, and others -- from west to east, across the vast country, now in their seventies, eighties and nineties, and whose memories will soon die with them.
Here, for the first time many of them speak out about their lives and private thoughts about what they witnessed. Together their intimate stories are perhaps the only accurate record of modern Chinese history.

"From the Hardcover edition."