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DON QUIXOTE IN CHINA:
The Search for Peach Blossom Spring
 
This book is dedicated to two extraordinary men: Peter TanShilin, a scholar and freethinker living in Zhong Shan,Kwangtung Province; and to Guo Tongxiao, a farmer andvisionary living in Longting Village, Yangxian County,Shensi Province. 
“What is the meaning of this trip?” Hunter Thompson
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
 “Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escapethose who dream only by night” Edgar Allan Poe “What a travel it is indeed that is recorded in this book, andwhat a man he is who experienced it”Basho
The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches
 
 
 
 A Note on Romanization Systems
When I first began studying Chinese at Monterey’sDefense Language Institute, I used the Yale System ofromanization of Chinese characters, a modest,unpretentious, by-the-numbers sort of romanization. Later,at various universities, I began using the Wade-Gilessystem, you know, the one with the elegant apostrophes --genteel and aristocratic. There is also the communistpinyin system in use on the mainland since the mid-50's,which you can recognize by the plethora of godawful z’s andx’s -- unbecoming, unsightly -– dare one say -- uncouth.There are also a few other systems lollygaging aboutincluding the one created by the late scholar Lin Yutangand his friends, not to mention the old postal spellings ofplace names. In this book, I may have in a few cases evenmerged one or two systems with my own ideas. If you are aChina scholar you will easily tell how the Chinese wordsare pronounced; if not, you won’t.My advice is not to worry about it because most of theromanization systems in use seem to have been developed bypeople who have the same mindset as those who built the
 
Great Wall -- i.e., to keep foreigners out. However, onefavor: please note that the “j” in “Beijing” is pronouncedexactly as the “j” in “jack” or “jump.” Newsreaders whoinsist on pronouncing the “j” as if it were a French “j”(as in “je”) seem to have been misled by the
 pinyin
’s“zh.”As for snatches of poems which have been translated byme or by others, please remember what a wise man once said:“translations are like mistresses; they can be beautiful orfaithful, but not both.” With few exceptions, thatcertainly applies to translations of Chinese poetry and toany English translation of literature of a tonal language.As the late scholar, H. A. Giles, wrote, “translations maybe moonlight and water while the originals are sunlight andwine.”
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DON QUIXOTE IN CHINA:
 
THE SEARCH FOR PEACH BLOSSOM SPRING Introduction
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