A few maps put Paul French’s “true crime” story in perspective.
Midnight in Peking and true crime fiction
Chungking: China’s heart of darkness
A brief history of travel in China and the challenges of inhospitality.
Out of the squalor and into the light: When the Shanghai wall came down
Glimmers of Shanghai’s modernity in a 19th-century courtesan novel.
Confucius and opium
An investigation of intoxicants in the time of Confucius.
The expat and the prostitute: Four classic novels, 1956–62
Reviews of McKenna’s The Sand Pebbles, Mason’s The World of Suzie Wong, Arsan’s Emmanuelle, and Reynolds’ A Woman from Bangkok.
Isham Cook on Twitter
Literary disruptions of an American in China.
Updating the great Chinese socialist realist novel
Satirical review of the latest addition to Chinese socialist realist fiction.
Living the Taiping
Historical novel set during Taiping Rebellion cultivates a richly textured English, while another captures Sir Robert Hart’s love for a Chinese woman.
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.
Macau and the writer: A photo essay
Photo essay of old Macau with nudes and choice literary quotations.
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.
Honesty, diligence, obedience: Why I support China’s Great Firewall
An openminded appreciation of the Great Firewall of China.
My lovely little oriental doll: On yellow fever
On the triteness of the “yellow fever” and “Asian fetish” clichés.
ISHAM COOK 