Historical novel set during Taiping Rebellion cultivates a richly textured English, while another captures Sir Robert Hart’s love for a Chinese woman.
Living the Taiping
Isham Cook
American essayist and novelist based in China since 1994. Writing philosophy: downmarket, big concept, provocative, discriminating, outrageous. Ballard, Beckett, Borges, Dick, Kafka, Hesse, Melville, Mishima, Sade are influences.
From Van Gogh to the Camino de Santiago: Symbolic travel and the modern pilgrim
The exponential growth in international tourism seen in the context of European travel and tourism stretching back a millennium.
The literature of paralysis: The China PC scene and the expat mag crowd
What happens to writing when it’s fed through the political correctness machine.
John Dowland and the lost English Consort School of chamber music
England was home to the first great school of classical chamber music, preceding the Viennese School of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven by two centuries.
Why Airbnb ain’t my cup of tea
The ambiguous host/guest boundary in many Airbnb households makes for most inhospitable stays.
Macau and the writer: A photo essay
Photo essay of old Macau with nudes and choice literary quotations.
American rococo
The rococoesque beauty of the American ghetto and the obese.
The question of breeding (why foreign men get the “ugly” Chinese girls)
Tongue-in-cheek explanation (with more than a grain of truth) of why it’s so hard to land a Chinese beauty.
At the Teahouse Café: Essays from the Middle Kingdom
What decades of living in China have taught this American expat.
The many faces of Chinese “face”
Chinese “face” and Chinese “apathy” reconsidered in dynamic relationship.
The breast etiquette project
A civilized approach to men’s obsession with the breasts.
Honesty, diligence, obedience: Why I support China’s Great Firewall
An openminded appreciation of the Great Firewall of China.
Massage and the Writer: Essays on Asian Massage
What if the antagonistic aspects of the massage practice—the therapeutic and the erotic—were seen as inseparable?
A massage school
There is no such thing as strictly nonsexual massage: massage is always already erotic.
The curious benefits of neurosis
Crucially, she has the “touch.” Love in her hands.
ISHAM COOK 