Kirjahaku

The father of Chinese landscape poetry in time and placeDuring the dark centuries between the fall of the Han dynasty in 220 CE and the golden age of reunified China under the Tang and Song dynasties (618–1279), the shi poetic form embraced new themes and structure. In this meticulously constructed study, Ping Wang traces the social conditions that sparked innovation and marked a significant turn in intellectual history. Using biography, social history, and literary analysis, she demonstrates how the shi form came to dominate classical Chinese poetry, making possible the works of the great poets of later dynasties and influencing literary development in Korea and Japan.Focusing on the life of poet Xie Lingyun (385–433), she traces the exile of aristocratic families in the wild south, which led to their thematic use of "mountains and water" (shanshui) landscapes over the pastoral ones of earlier writers and artists. Changes in poetic form moved away from genres associated with aggrandizement of the imperial court and, through innovative use of meter and syntax, created a new style of varied, fluid cadence. In Xie's redesigned five-syllable-line poetry, couplets balanced contradictions that the poet used to capture principles of the natural world.Wang shows how this literary form enabled exiled scholars to make meaning of their tentative existence in the southland, in which the mountains and water imaged the yin-yang principle underlying existence. The post-Han intelligentsia thus used the dilemma of southern exile to craft literature that was revolutionary in both content and form.

The father of Chinese landscape poetry in time and placeDuring the dark centuries between the fall of the Han dynasty in 220 CE and the golden age of reunified China under the Tang and Song dynasties (618–1279), the shi poetic form embraced new themes and structure. In this meticulously constructed study, Ping Wang traces the social conditions that sparked innovation and marked a significant turn in intellectual history. Using biography, social history, and literary analysis, she demonstrates how the shi form came to dominate classical Chinese poetry, making possible the works of the great poets of later dynasties and influencing literary development in Korea and Japan.Focusing on the life of poet Xie Lingyun (385–433), she traces the exile of aristocratic families in the wild south, which led to their thematic use of "mountains and water" (shanshui) landscapes over the pastoral ones of earlier writers and artists. Changes in poetic form moved away from genres associated with aggrandizement of the imperial court and, through innovative use of meter and syntax, created a new style of varied, fluid cadence. In Xie's redesigned five-syllable-line poetry, couplets balanced contradictions that the poet used to capture principles of the natural world.Wang shows how this literary form enabled exiled scholars to make meaning of their tentative existence in the southland, in which the mountains and water imaged the yin-yang principle underlying existence. The post-Han intelligentsia thus used the dilemma of southern exile to craft literature that was revolutionary in both content and form.

High-speed turnouts, a key technology for high-speed railways, have a great influence on the safe and stable running of high-speed trains. Design of High-Speed Railway Turnouts: Theory and Applications, comprehensively introduces the technical characteristics and requirements of high-speed turnouts, including design theories and methods of turnout layout geometry, wheel and rail relations, track stiffness, welded turnout, turnout conversion, turnout components, and manufacture and laying technologies of turnouts. Analyzing the operational problems of China’s high-speed turnout in particular, this book discusses the control of structure irregularity, state irregularity, geometrical irregularity and dynamic irregularity during the design, manufacture, laying, and maintenance of turnouts. At the end of this reference book, the author provides high-speed turnouts management methods, maintenance standards, testing and monitoring technology, and maintenance technology. Design of High-Speed Railway Turnouts: Theory and Applications will enable railway technicians all over the world to develop an in-depth knowledge of the design, manufacture, laying, and maintenance technology of high-speed turnouts.

Owing to its massive state sector, public procurement in China is a critical element of public policy. At the same time, because of its considerable market size, public procurement is of increasing importance for international trade, and thus subject to enacted regulations in most countries and has been put on the agenda of international and regional trade organisations, such as the WTO. This book examines China’s public procurement regime since the launching of market-oriented reform in 1978. It outlines the development of the relevant national laws and their implementing regulations, which have evolved from scratch since the onset of economic reform. It considers the impact of WTO membership, and the steps China has taken to initiate negotiations on accession to the WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) by the end of 2007. It also provides a detailed picture of the current legal framework, assessing the impact of key legislative measures including the Tendering Law of 2000 and the Government Procurement Law of 2003. While both laws were drafted with the help of international experts and organisations such as the EU, there remain a number of inconsistencies in China’s public procurement regime, such as the overlap between the scope of application in laws and jurisdiction of government agencies. This book shows how these issues, that are hard for the international community to understand, will have a profound impact on China’s domestic policy agenda and its integration into the global trading system. Overall, this book is important not only for those who want to understand China’s procurement regime and public policy, but also for business people requiring a detailed picture of the current legal and regulatory environment.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) contains an extensive knowledge that the Chinese nation has accumulated through practical experimentation and theoretical research in treating diseases and promoting health over a period of thousands of years. Throughout the history, many TCM theorists, experts, and pharmacists have contributed valuable works. The most representative of them was Li Shizhen with his Ben Cao Gang Mu (Compendium of Materia Medica), which was praised by Charles Darwin as an "encyclopaedia" of ancient China and was selected into Memory of the World Register by UNESCO in 2011. This book is divided into two parts: the introduction and the selected reading of the original work of Ben Cao Gang Mu. In the introductory part, the life story, academic characteristics and main contributions of Li Shizhen are illustrated, and suggested learning methods of the book are recommended. In the selected reading part, five aspects are mainly discussed: original preface and memorial to the throne, essence of Li Shizhen's medical theories, treatment of various diseases, Li Shizhen's medical records and medical notes, and health preservation. Apart from the selected reading from Ben Cao Gang Mu, theoretical exposition and modern application are supplemented in each chapter so as to improve readers' theoretical knowledge and ability of practical problem-solving.