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The Years That Were Fat: Peking, 1933 1940
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For seven years, from 1933 to 1940, George N. Kates--a native American--immersed himself in the inner world of Peking by living a simple and leisurely life in a traditional house inside the old Imperial City in Peking. Consciously reconstructing the lifestyle of the vanished scholar class, Kates came to know China as few other Westerners have known it.
Kates offers in this ...more
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Paperback
Published
March 17th 1989
by Oxford University Press, USA
(first published June 15th 1967)
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amazing account on the life in beijing in the years before the 2nd world war. the life of the disappearing mandarin class. so interrsting
It is fascinating that China was so different from the west in the 1930's and so quickly it is changing, but make no mistake it is also staying the same. This book is by a man who lived in a small community where only Chinese was spoken. He lived there for about 6 years and was tutored on the language by an old professor. His insights about the country are unique. He only left when the war started.
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A lovely book, well-written, full of glimpses of a way of life now long-gone. Here was a man born for the life of a Chinese gentleman scholar. To find this near-perfect way of life, then have it taken away so completely must have been such an enormous heart-break.
Back in the days of the most excellent A Common Reader Catalog, the editor's description of this memoir of an expatriate living in pre-Communist China had me completely fascinated. The author goes to China to live and completely immerses himself in the life of a Chinese mandarin of the times. He lives in a typical Chinese house with a walled compound, studies the language, adopts Chinese dress and runs his household along Chinese lines. This is a fascinating looking at cultural immersion in a cu
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Ex-pat in China, pre WWII. Heavy in detailed, descriptions. I didn't read every word, but it would be good for reference material.
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