Approaching The Jade Dragon

Is the lion the symbol of China? Or should it be the dragon or the phoenix? This book makes a provocative interpretation of the Chinese ancient totems such as the bear and the owl. Taking a mythological approach, it explores the origin of Chinese civilization using the quadruple evidence method, which integrates ancient and unearthed literature, oral transmission, and archeological objects and graphs. It testifies to the authenticity of unresolved ancient myths and legends from the origins of Chinese Jade Ware (6200BC-5400 BC) to the names of the Yellow Emperor (2698–2598 BC) and the legends from the Xia (2010BC-1600BC), Shang (1600BC-046BC), Zhou (1046BC-771BC), and Qin (221BC-206BC) Dynasties. The book lays the foundation for a reconstruction of Chinese Mythistory. With well over 200 photographs of historic artifacts, the book appeals to both researchers and general readers.

The "Time Stone Team" of Tina, Drax, and Mercedes are back with the Uplifted entity of James and their new friends Joshua and Bill the dragon who will work as a team to fight the evil forces of the Machination and the mysterious Shadow Blob force travelling throughout the world turning human beings into beasts. This is the first part of this dynamic and powerful sequel pitting friendship and virtuous wisdom against ultimate evil.

Zhou never seems to beat his brother, Cheng, at anything. But when Zhou finds a jade dragon, his luck changes. Soon, Zhou is beating Cheng at everything. Will Zhou and his jade dragon be able to keep up the winning streak, or will he lose his luck?

When a client gives seer Emerald O'Brien a statue of a jade dragon as payment, bad luck follows. To thwart its evil spell, she'll have to follow a trail of heartache to China's Ming Dynasty.

In the 1970s and 1980s many institutions, agencies and scholars believed that the Himalayan region was facing severe environmental disaster, due primarily to rapid growth in population that has caused extensive deforestation, which in turn has led to massive landsliding and soil erosion. This series of assumptions was first challenged in the book: The Himalayan Dilemma (1989: Ives and Messerli, Routledge). Nevertheless, the environmental crisis paradigm still commands considerable support, including logging bans in the mountain watersheds of China, India, and Thailand, and is constantly being promoted by the news media. Himalayan Perceptions identifies the confusion of misunderstanding, vested interests, changing perceptions, and institutional unwillingness to base development policy on sound scientific knowledge. It analyzes the large amount of new research published since 1989 and totally refutes the entire construct. It examines recent social and economic developments in the region and identifies warfare, guerrilla activities, and widespread oppression of poor ethnic minorities as the primary cause for the instability that pervades the entire region. It is argued that the development controversy is further confounded by exaggerated reporting, even falsification, by news media, environmental publications, and agency reports alike.

On the mountainous border of China and Tibet in 1708, a detective must learn what a killer already knows: that empires rise and fall on the strength of the stories they tell. Li Du was an imperial librarian. Now he is an exile. Arriving in Dayan, the last Chinese town before the Tibetan border, he is surprised to find it teeming with travelers, soldiers, and merchants. All have come for a spectacle unprecedented in this remote province: an eclipse of the sun commanded by the Emperor himself. When a Jesuit astronomer is found murdered in the home of the local magistrate, blame is hastily placed on Tibetan bandits. But Li Du suspects this was no random killing. Everyone has secrets: the ambitious magistrate, the powerful consort, the bitter servant, the irreproachable secretary, the East India Company merchant, the nervous missionary, and the traveling storyteller who can't keep his own story straight. Beyond the sloping roofs and festival banners, Li Du can see the mountain pass that will take him out of China forever. He must choose whether to leave, and embrace his exile, or to stay, and investigate a murder that the town of Dayan seems all too willing to forget.