Lin Yutang – författare

Lin Yutang (1895–1976), author of more than thirty-five books, was arguably the most distinguished Chinese American writer of the twentieth century. In Chinatown Family, he brings humor and wisdom to issues of culture, race, and religion as he tells the engrossing and heart-warming story of an immigrant, working-class Chinese American family that settled in New York City during the 1930s and 1940s. Tracing their sometimes troubled and sometimes rewarding journey, Lin paints a vivid portrait of the wonder and the woe of settling into a new land. In an era when interracial marriages were frowned upon and it was forbidden for working-class Chinese men to bring their families to America, this story shows how one family struggled to become new Americans by applying their Taoist philosophy to resist peacefully the discriminatory laws and racism they encountered.Beyond the quest for acceptance and economic success, Chinatown Family also probes deep into the heart of the immigration experience by presenting the perils of assimilation. The burgeoning tensionbetween the desire for material wealth and the traditional Chinese belief in the primary importance of family poses the question: Is it possible to attain the American dream without damaging these primary ties? For each family member, the answer to this question turns out to be different. Through the varied paths that each character takes, the novel dramatizes the ways that Chinese immigrants have negotiated between the competing interests of economic opportunity and traditional values.

Written during the second world war as a bitter plea for the west to change its perspective of the world order. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

In this classic book Yutang Ling does a fantastic job of describing Chinese people, customs and culture in an understandable way for the Western reader. this book was the first of it''s kind, Ling being a rarity as he was fluent in both English and Chinese, having been born in China but growing up in America. This extremely popular book will prove to be a fascinating read, and is highly recommended on the bookshelf of anyone with an interest in different cultures and societies.

In this classic book, Yutang Lin does a fantastic job of describing Chinese people, customs and culture in an understandable way for the Western reader. This book was the first of it's kind, Lin being a rarity as he was fluent in both English and Chinese, having been born in China but growing up in America. This extremely popular book will prove to be a fascinating read, and is highly recommended on the bookshelf of anyone with an interest in different non-Western cultures and societies.

A tremendous bestseller when it was first published in 1937, The Importance of Living has been a classic for over sixty years. Intended as an antidote to the dizzying pace of the modern world, Lin Yutang's prescription is the classic distillation of ancient Chinese wisdom: revere inaction as much as action, invoke humour to maintain a healthy attitude, and never forget that there will always be plenty of fools around who are willing - indeed eager - to be busy, to make themselves useful, and to exercise power while you bask in the simple joy of existence. Now, more than six decades later, with our lives accelerated to unbelievable levels, this wise and timeless book is more pertinent than ever before. In an era when we're overwhelmed with wake-up calls, it's an entertaining innovation to savour life's beauty, its endless fascination and its slow, sure, simple pleasures.

Now sorrowful, now joking, but always in deadly earnest, the Chinese philosopher faces the grim facts of war and the grimmer prospects of peace. Dismayed by the materialism of the West, he offers not a “blueprint” for the postwar world, but an approach to thinking about it, that is new to us but not new at all to the Orient, wise in the ways of Man.This book is a positive contribution from the store of Chinese political philosophy to the vexed question of world peace. More important than the Four Freedoms, says Lin, is Freedom from Humbug. The changes in our thinking must be basic if we are to be saved from utter disaster. We cannot be saved by science, by mathematics, by modern mechanism. We need deep draughts of the wine of wisdom, matured through four thousand years by Asiatic thought and experience in learning how man must deal with man.Confucius and Lao-tse, the ancient Greeks and the Hindus, join forces with Lin Yutang in his thrusts at such topics as: The White Man’s Burden, American Isolationism, British Imperialism, Nazi Geopolitics, the Crimes of Europe, The Future of Asia, and The Crux of the Modern Age.No citizen of the Western world can ignore this wisdom and this warning except at his own peril.“A powerful and relentless warning.”—Boston Herald“If you think a gentle, well-mannered philosopher can’t deliver a punch, you’d better read this book. It’s out-and-out sensational, no less, enormously, provocative.”—San Francisco Chronicle“He gives us, mixed with the tolerance and humor of the philosopher, some of the plainest speaking we have had in a long time on the issue of the war and the peace.”—The New Yorker