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Iron and Silk (平装)
by Mark Salzman
| Category:
China, Culture & history |
| Market price: ¥ 148.00
MSL price:
¥ 138.00
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| Stock:
In Stock |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Here is a story that will charm and captivate you - insightful, funny, and full of respect for the often strange customs of traditional Chinese culture. "Salzman demonstrates with skill and subtlety just how Chinese society works." |
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AllReviews |
1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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A America reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-05-06 00:00>
For a couple of years the early 1980s, Mark Salzman was an English teacher and a martial arts master who went to a poor city in China to teach English. Salzman recalls his many episodes and adventures there with vignettes in his book Iron and Silk. He reveals much about the contrast of the Chinese culture from western culture.
The poverty in this region of China struck me with surprise. Some of the places Saltzman describes as living conditions seem medival for the 1980's. I was also touched by the politeness and respect shown to Salzman, a white man, by the inhabitants of China. Americans could certainly use a few pointers from the Chinese. Overall, the poignant accounts in Iron and Silk will stay with the reader.
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Liz (MSL quote), USA
<2007-05-06 00:00>
This fabulous book is about the author's experiences teaching English and learning martial arts in China after finishing university. Able to speak both Mandarin and Cantonese, Salzman penetrates deeper into the society around him than other foreigners could, and picks up friends and teachers along the way. Besides his numerous Masters, all of whom coach him in a different type of wushu, or martial art, he also has guides for calligraphy and even fishing. The characters he meets, all impeccably mannered, are hospitable and eager to exchange skills. Readers will greatly enjoy this book and the author himself, a slightly eccentric teacher and avid learner who writes well, among his many talents.
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Mark (MSL quote), USA
<2007-05-06 00:00>
Mark Salzman's adventures while teaching English as a second language to medical students in rural China are retold with remarkable detail. Each tale reads like a proverb of right living. Salzman's writing is a testament to the many lessons he learned from the special relationships he developed behind the cold wall of communism and socialism. In Iron & Silk westerners catch a glimpse of the real people of China.
This is more than a book of travel adventures, it is a spiritual journey of one man's search for meaning in the ordinary, only to find that the ordinary is often what makes life extraordinary. Here East meets West on the playing field of daily living, with the West always looking outward for more, while the East focuses more inwardly. In Iron & Silk the reader is able to understand the adage, less is more. After finishing the book I found myself wanting more, nonetheless.
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Jacky (MSL quote), USA
<2007-05-06 00:00>
Salzman captures post-cultural revolution China through his adventures as a young American English teacher in China and his shifu-tudi (master-student) relationship with China's foremost martial arts teacher.
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The Washington Post (MSL quote), USA
<2007-05-06 00:00>
Salzman demonstrates with skill and subtlety just how Chinese society works. |
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Charles (MSL quote), USA
<2007-05-06 00:00>
This is a book full of China, full of wonder. Salzman taught English in Changsha, Hunan, for two years, studied Chinese boxing with a master, helped his Chinese friends, and perceived Chinese life with the writerly eye of a young Hemingway. Although, or because, he flies no political banner and takes no ideological stance, he gives us a bouquet of sketches which distill a range of Chinese people into essences and scenes we immediately understand and feel. Some scenes are sharply, unpretentiously funny; others start the tears to which China reduces (elevates?) her friends. For those who see "China" as an abstraction, whether as enemy, hope of the future, or market, this book is the cure. Read it and get your friends and patrons to read it too. A quiet classic, not to be pigeonholed as a China book. |
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Rita (MSL quote), USA
<2007-05-06 00:00>
YA This anecdotal record of a young man's encounter with the Chinese and their way of life offers unique insights to readers. Salzman had majored in Chinese literature at Yale, and his first job after graduation in 1982 was teaching English to students and teachers at Hunan Medical College in Changsha. He met this considerable challenge with sensitivity, humor, and imagination, and was quickly regarded with respect and affection. Salzman had studied martial arts since he was 13, and he continued his practice in Changsha, where one of China's foremost experts, Pan Qingfu, accepted him as a pupil. Readers will become aware of the many styles of the sport, and, incidentally, the real meaning of ``kung fu.'' The personalities encountered range from Salzman's students and teachers to calligraphers, peasants, fishermen, and bureaucrats. Each fascinating episode illuminates the way to a deeper understanding of Chinese culture and character. This book is also notable for its unusually attractive design: the handsome calligraphy on the binding and chapter headings was done by the author. |
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Andrew (MSL quote), USA
<2007-05-06 00:00>
This was such a great movie. Very down to earth. Based on the author's own real life, his performance as the staring role is actually quite good for being an unknown actor. The whole movie is very low budget, but with such a great story and such intriguing, real characters that it blows away many bigger films that try to do more.
As a young 20-some year old that wants to visit the orient with many of the same expectations, I related very well to the main character and so this movie touched me more than most, but still a movie I would recommend to everyone.
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Bayer (MSL quote), USA
<2007-05-06 00:00>
I discovered this movie about 10 years ago in a college library and was thrilled to find it on DVD. It is a tremendous slice of life that opened my mind, a true story that I still enjoy, and a cultural eye-opener everyone should have.
Iron & Silk is not a glossy Hollywood production, which makes the experience much more visceral. There is no dramatic training montage, no series of Wushu fights leading to a climactic confrontation. There is plenty of heart and soul in the characters. The conflict/resolution is of the every-day style and reminds one that our world is small only when our minds aren't.
Remember the idealism we had in our early twenties, that we could make things right by sheer force of will, or becoming self-defined iconoclasts? Mark Salzman's story captures that spirit without indulging in vainglorious self-aware examinations. And it holds true to the dreams of being something more, for the sheer joy of it.
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Michael (MSL quote), USA
<2007-05-06 00:00>
You know I play the "bumbling mute illiterate" card when I write about China. Salzman doesn't. But, he's not a hard core journalist or political commentator like Ian Johnson. Salzman's love of martial arts brought him to China. Like me, he loved David Carradine in Kung Fu. But, unlike me, he speaks fluent Chinese. He's also quite gifted at writing in English. Get this one.
This guy didn't have to come to China to write a great book. In fact, he's written quite a few that aren't set in China. Fiction, memoirs, whatever. I love this book enough to order some of his others, and pay the exorbitant shipping costs Amazon imposes on poor old expats in China.
{I learned later that this isn't even his best autobiographical work. LOST IN PLACE is. His novels are also excellent and I am sick with jealousy.}
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1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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