The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic silently started in early 2020, and no one was prepared for it. Unlike the outbreak of SARS in 2002-2003, a similar coronavirus, it was less contagious than COVID-19, but tended to be more deadly. The COVID-19 virus is much more contagious with a relatively lower chance of causing death. Nevertheless, it is still one of the most dangerous viruses in human history. Studies of COVID-19 have attracted tremendous attention from academia and governments. However, they tend to focus on the fields of biology, virology, public health, and psychology instead of the politics, policies, and political attitudes related to the pandemic. Of course, it is critical to understand the nature of this virus and seek proper policy remedies to stop the pandemic and help citizens to regain their everyday lives, but how the pandemic has affected the public and their views toward politics is equally important as it will determine political outcomes in the near future. We compare the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public opinion, the dynamics of party politics in Taiwan, and some of its strategic neighbors.

People. Leader. Reading. Writing. Revolution. Grassroots. Through these and other common vernacular words and phrases, Yu Hua - widely regarded as one of China's greatest living writers - frames powerful personal stories of the Chinese experience from the Cultural Revolution to the 2010s. With wit, insight and courage, he presents a refreshingly candid vision of the 'Chinese miracle' and its consequences, and reveals a unique perspective on the world's most populous yet misunderstood nation.

This book presents the state-of-the-art work in terms of searchable storage in cloud computing. It introduces and presents new schemes for exploring and exploiting the searchable storage via cost-efficient semantic hashing computation. Specifically, the contents in this book include basic hashing structures (Bloom filters, locality sensitive hashing, cuckoo hashing), semantic storage systems, and searchable namespace, which support multiple applications, such as cloud backups, exact and approximate queries and image analytics. Readers would be interested in the searchable techniques due to the ease of use and simplicity. More importantly, all these mentioned structures and techniques have been really implemented to support real-world applications, some of which offer open-source codes for public use. Readers will obtain solid backgrounds, new insights and implementation experiences with basic knowledge in data structure and computer systems.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Autonomic and Trusted Computing, ATC 2007, held in Hong Kong, China in July 2007, co-located with UIC 2007, the 4th International Conference on Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing.

The 55 revised full papers presented together with 1 keynote lecture were carefully reviewed and selected from 223 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on cryptography and signatures, autonomic computing and services, secure and trusted computing, autonomic models and architectures, trusted models and systems, intrusion detection, access control, trusted computing and communications, key management, worm detection and data security, secured services and applications, as well as fault-tolerant systems.

A rare book of China's Kwongsai Jook Lum Temple Praying Mantis Kungfu and Unicorn Culture. Included are: Origins, history and practices of China's Kwongsai Mantis, rare and exclusive historical photographs never published before, the hometown of Kwongsai Mantis-Pingshan Town, how Wong Yuk Kong came to learn Hakka Mantis, why Wong Sifu went "mad" after a spell was cast, why Hakka Mantis is divided into "three orders" and what they are, three Wong Brothers who inherited Kwongsai Mantis, what Kwongsai Mantis boxing was taught early on and now, what happened when Kwongsai Mantis and Chu Gar first met, Hakka Mantis descending the mountain on horseback in 1917, English and Chinese translation of how Master Chung blossomed Hakka Mantis in South China, Hakka Culture along the East River, extensive interviews with inheritor Wong Yu Hua about sensitive topics, rules and regulations of Wong Yuk Kong's Mantis School, a Hakka Feast in Pingshan Town, valuable Hakka Mantis resources online and off, Hakka Mantis boxing maxims and proverbs, dozens of Kwongsai Mantis boxing postures, staff, and sword pictures, rare never before published Jook Lum Mantis reliquary photographs, the Bamboo Forest Temple true heritage Dit Da liniment prescription and more.

A soaring literary achievement from internationally acclaimed writer Yu Hua, whose novels are now appearing in English for the first time, Chronicle of a Blood Merchant provides an unflinching portrait of China under Chairman Mao, as a factory worke must sell his blood to overcome every crisis.
Xu Sanguan is a Chinese everyman--a cart-pusher in a silk mill struggling under the cruelty and hardships of Mao's leadership. His meager salary is not enough to sustain his family, so he pays regular visits to the local blood chief, followed by stops at the Victory Restaurant, where he pounds on the table and demands his ritual meal: "A plate of fried pork livers and two shots of yellow rice wine. And warm the wine up for me."
But fried pork livers and yellow rice wine are not enough to restore Xu Sanguan. With the country in the throes of the Cultural Revolution, his visits to the blood chief become lethally frequent and his obligations to his family press against him mercilessly. At the height of famine, the Xu family lies motionless in bed, rising twice a day to consume increasingly watery rations of corn gruel. Xu Sanguan's wife is forced to stand on a stool in the center of town wearing a sandwich board that reads "prostitute." Yile, his wife's bastard son, forever haunts Xu Sanguan's sense of honor. And when Xu Sanguan sells his blood so he can take his family out to a proper meal, he does not invite Yile, who paces the town, famished and in tears, offering himself as a son to any man who will buy him a bowl of noodles.
In a series of heartbreaking reversals, Xu Sanguan decides to risk his own life to save Yile and comes to understand that in a society ravaged by suspicion,hostility, and poverty, blood money not only pays debts, but forgives them as well. With rare emotional intensity, grippingly raw descriptions of place and time, and clear-eyed compassion, Yu Hua gives us a stunning tapestry of human life in the grave particulars of one man's days.

"From the Hardcover edition.

Yu Hua's beautiful, heartbreaking novel "Cries in the Drizzle" follows a young Chinese boy throughout his childhood and adolescence during the reign of Chairman Mao.
The middle son of three, Sun Guanglin is constantly neglected ignored by his parents and his younger and older brother. Sent away at age six to live with another family, he returns to his parents' house six years later on the same night that their home burns to the ground, making him even more a black sheep. Yet Sun Guanglin's status as an outcast, both at home and in his village, places him in a unique position to observe the changing nature of Chinese society, as social dynamics -- and his very own family -- are changed forever under Communist rule.
With its moving, thoughtful prose, "Cries in the Drizzle" is a stunning addition to the wide-ranging work of one of China's most distinguished contemporary writers.

An award-winning, internationally acclaimed Chinese bestseller, originally banned in China but recently named one of the last decade’s ten most influential books there, To Live tells the epic story of one man’s transformation from the spoiled son of a rich landlord to an honorable and kindhearted peasant.

After squandering his family’s fortune in gambling dens and brothels, the young, deeply penitent Fugui settles down to do the honest work of a farmer. Forced by the Nationalist Army to leave behind his family, he witnesses the horrors and privations of the Civil War, only to return years later to face a string of hardships brought on by the ravages of the Cultural Revolution. Left with an ox as the companion of his final years, Fugui stands as a model of flinty authenticity, buoyed by his appreciation for life in this narrative of humbling power.

A rare three volume book of China's Hakka Kwongsai Jook Lum Temple and Iron Ox Praying Mantis boxing.

China Southern Praying Mantis Kungfu Survey VOLUME TWO: CHINA MANTIS REUNION includes: Three Orders of Som Dot's Shaolin Mantis revisited, Hakka Mantis blossoms in Huizhou, Elder Lok Wei Ping a Chu Gar and Kwongsai Sifu, Chung Yel Chong teaches one form, Kwongsai and Chu Gar clash in the 40s, Sifu Wong Gok Hong takes the lion head away, Lau Say Kay Sifu plays non-standard Kwongsai Mantis, Sifu Lai Wei Keung first Instructor in 1948, One Kwongsai form originally taught, Two methods of beggar hands, Sifu Cho Gum, Sifu Wong Yu Hua, Fairy hands cause a slap on the rear, Lok Sifu plays 34 Plum Blossom Staff, All Mantis is one family, Lai Sifu plays 34 Plum Blossom staff.

VOLUME THREE - KWONGSAI MANTIS / IRON OX INTERVIEWS includes: Records of the elders and knowledge lost, Sifu Yao Kam Fat, Wong Yuk Kong opens Kwongsai Mantis in Hong Kong, Wong Yuk Kong visits Lao Sui's Chu Gar school, Wong Yuk Kong defeats 10 assailants, Yao Sifu plays three steps-three scissors old form, Similarities in Hakka Mantis, Yao Sifu plays 34 Plum Blossom staff, Spirit Shrine of Wong Yuk Kong, Elder Sifu Chung Wu Xing first disciple of Chung Yel Chong, Iron Uncle Chung friend of Lam Sang, Iron Uncle Chung smokes opium with Lam Sang and Master Chung in the 1930s, Sifu Yang Gun Ming student of Chung Yel Chong, Dit Da Doctors by lineage, Hakka Mantis prohibited in the Cultural Revolution, Sifu Xu Men Fei Iron Ox Hakka Mantis, Iron Ox taught only 2 months a year, Xu Sifu plays Iron Ox Second Door form-Red Flag Staff-and Third Door form, Iron Ox challenges Wong Yuk Kong's Kwongsai Mantis, Iron Ox Secret Drill Hand not taught.

VOLUME FOUR - ON MONK SOM DOT'S TRAIL / CHUNG YEL CHONG FAMILY INTERVIEWS includes: Sifu Chung Wei Fei grandson of Master Chung, Master Chung Yel Chong as a boy accepted by Monk Lee, Chung Go Wah son of third ancestor Master Chung, Master Chung's boxing and Dit Da Medicine books, Third Ancestor Chung teaches Kwongsai Mantis in Hong Kong 1920s, Master Chung kills a man in self-defense, Master Chung's three generations under one roof, Sifu Lee Kok Leung outlines his Kwongsai Mantis teaching, Sifu Patrick Lee plays Mantis in Pingshan Town, Lee Sifu's History of Kwongsai Mantis, On Som Dot's Trail - Shanxi Jook Lum Temple, Oldest of the Temple Halls, Chung and Monk Lee return South six months on horseback, Kwongsai Dragon Tiger Mountain of Shaolin boxing and spiritualism, The bottom line about Kwongsai Jook Lum Temple, Lam Sang's Kwongsai spiritualism and amulet, Monk Lee Siem looks like a ghost, Jook Lum Temple in Hong Kong, Jook Lum Temple in Macau, Map of Jook Lum Temples in China with Hakka Mantis boxing, Abridged China Hakka Mantis history, Guang Wu Tang Martial Hall of Wong Yuk Kong in 2012, Mission statement of Guang Wu Tang Kwongsai Mantis, Sifu Wong Yu Hua in 2012, Miscellanies, Resources, Train in China. Kwongsai Mantis and Iron Ox Boxing and staff forms in sequence, Hardcover, full color, 330+ photographs.

A bestseller in China, "Brothers" is an epic and wildly unhinged black comedy of modern Chinese society running amok.
Here is China as we've never seen it before, in a sweeping, Rabelaisian panorama of forty years of rough-and-rumble Chinese history, from the madness of the Cultural Revolution to the equally rabid madness of extreme materialism. Yu Hua, award-winning author of "To Live," gives us a surreal tale of two comically mismatched stepbrothers, Baldy Li, a sex-obsessed ne'er-do-well, and the bookish, sensitive Song Gang, who vow that they will always be brothers--a bond they will struggle to maintain over the years as they weather the ups and downs of rivalry in love and making and losing millions in the new China.
Both tragic and absurd by turns, "Brothers" is a fascinating vision of an extraordinary place and time.

From one of China's most acclaimed writers: a unique, intimate look at the Chinese experience over the last several decades.
Framed by ten phrases common in the Chinese vernacular, "China in Ten Words" uses personal stories and astute analysis to reveal as never before the world's most populous yet oft-misunderstood nation. In "Disparity," for example, Yu Hua illustrates the expanding gaps that separate citizens of the country. In "Copycat," he depicts the escalating trend of piracy and imitation as a creative new form of revolutionary action. And in "Bamboozle," he describes the increasingly brazen practices of trickery, fraud, and chicanery that are, he suggests, becoming a way of life at every level of society. Witty, insightful, and courageous, this is a refreshingly candid vision of the "Chinese miracle" and all of its consequences.