A Poetic Portal to Chinese Culture (revised illustrated version)

Crystal Tai ( ¿¿¿¿was born in Taipei and moved to San Francisco with her family as a teenager. She earned a Master's degree in Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies with coursework in Journalism from Stanford University in 2007. Since then, she has worked as a full-time news reporter for the Silicon Valley Community Newspapers and the Los Altos Town Crier. She has also been a regular contributor to Patch.com and the Palo Alto Weekly. Currently, she works as a communications specialist in the high tech sector, a bilingual talk show host for Chinese TV North America, and a freelance translator. She has translated former Google China president Kai-Fu Lee's and former Taipei Mayor San-Lien Wu's biographies as well as her own maternal grandfather Yu-Ting Chi's memoirs from Chinese into English. Among these translations, the family memoir book, Nine Memorable Decades, serves as research material in the archives of the Hoover Institution.

Poetry is the most concise and precise expression of a culture. A Poetic Portal to Chinese Culture is therefore your smartest start to learn everything deep down inside of the world's most populated country with the longest continuous history on earth.Each chapter of the book features four or five classical Chinese poems along with elegant English translations to portray a particular theme of Chinese culture. With 12 chapters named after the months of the year, this book takes the reader through an imaginary calendar year to experience one Chinese festival after another. It will familiarize the reader with all the Chinese holidays and seasonal customs through the year while presenting breathtaking photos as illustrations. It's definitely a delightful and insightful read!