Description
Book SynopsisA riveting tale of danger, adventure, and connectionIn 1835 young Chinese scholar Cai Tinglan was caught in a typhoon while sailing across the Taiwan Strait. He and his shipmates spent a harrowing week at sea before drifting to the coast of central Vietnam. With an escort of Vietnamese soldiers, Cai traveled north along the famous Mandarin Road, meeting governors-general of each province he passed through along his overland journey to Fujian Province in China. Cai documented his experiences in Miscellany of the South Seas (Hainan zazhu), a vivid account of clothing, food, religious practices, government affairs, and other aspects of daily life in early Nguy?n dynasty Vietnam. Cai's encounters with diasporic Chinese show the Hokkien merchant community's penetration into Vietnamese society, while his warm embrace by Nguy?n officials illustrates a shared elite world of classical culture across international borders. In this first English translation, Kathlene Baldanza and Zhao Lu provide
Trade Review"This excellent translation by Kathlene Baldanza and Zhao Lu is simultaneously a pedagogical tool and a work of scholarship that contributes to our understanding of the historical connections between East Asia and Southeast Asia, specifically China and Vietnam…[H]ighly recommended to specialists and non-specialists alike."
* Journal of Chinese History *
"Baldanza and Zhao’s introduction, a precious addition to the original document, offers detailed information on the historical and cultural context, which helps readers understand Cai’s significance in Taiwan’s history and his interactions with local Vietnamese and Chinese immigrants. Altogether, this book is an invaluable source for researching and teaching the environmental history of Southeast Asia, the shared Confucian commonwealth spanning Vietnam and Qing China, and transnational migrants and trading communities, as well as precolonial Vietnamese society."
* H-Net Reviews *
