So much of the history of "common people" is lost, while history and journalism struggle to record the daily events of the notables. In The Lotus Lovers, Levy makes stars out of ordinary peasant women in China. He begins with the history of this intolerable practice, moves on to discuss the emancipation movements, then goes into the oral histories of the bound women. Any question one might have, from the method to the shoes, to the pain of life on bound feet, is answered in these riveting interviews. I highly recommend this book, as it gives significant insight to a culture so very different from our own. To see the types of shoes worn by these women, I suggest the book Splendid Slippers. Splendid Slippers is a "coffee table" summary of Levy's book.

The content of this book is more or less well-written. Each item is richly described and explained following the romanised Chinese, Chinese characters, and English translation of the entry. The unfortunate aspect of this publication is in its poor rendering of pinyin romanisation and the absence of simplified alternates to the full-formed Chinese characters. With regards to the pinyin, in practice, syllables of a given meaning unit are grouped as one, forming a polysyllabic word, and are not linked by a dash. Hence, "pinyin" and not "pin-yin", "huzi" and not "hu-zi", "qilin" and not "qi-lin", etc. This also applies to names and titles: "Mao Zedong" and not "Mao Ze-dong". There is a tendency in this book to apply Wades-Giles vowel renderings like replacing "-ong" with "-ung" and "-e" with "-o"; and there is a lack of tonal diacritics or an intermittent application of them when it have been better applied throughout, especially in the heading term to be defined. With regards to the characters, not only is there an absence of the simplified alternates in the head entries, there is an absence of Chinese characters in the following text where they would have been an excellent reference accompanying the pinyin. This is quite disappointing coming from a sinologist who spent years at Beijing University (why some people, including some at the university itself, use the old French postal spelling "Peking" to this day is a mystery to me) and should know better. Still, this is probably the only book of its kind available and you will be immensely rewarded if you are aware of its faults and learn to adjust to them.

This is a noteworthy volume from someone who for five decades had been one of the worlds preeminent Sinologists. The late Wolfram Eberhard, a former instructor at Peking National University, unfolds the story behind over 400 Chinese characters giving the reader a vivid insight to Chinese life and thought.

The book starts with a ten-page introduction to Chinese symbolism and how the Chinese conception of words differ from views held by the West. The remainder of the book is an alphabetical listing of important symbols written in the form of an English-Chinese dictionary. Each entry contains the English word for a particular symbol, the Chinese equivalent (using both Chinese characters and Peking romanization) and an explanation as to why the ideas behind the symbol are important. Many entries are multiple paragraphs long and are accompanied by black-and-white illustrations from Chinese texts. Among the entries are numbers, colors, plants and animals, mythological characters, the cardinal directions, body parts, bodily functions, and several concepts that are uniquely Chinese. While the title implies the book is a dictionary this is a bit of a misnomer. Eberhard uses the dictionary format as a vehicle to introduce the reader to the cultural symbolism that lies behind selected Chinese characters. You will not find any detail on radicals, stroke order, stroke counts, or pronunciation as you might in a more typical language-oriented Chinese dictionary.

It would be impossible to comprehensively survey even the most common elements of Chinese symbology. The author himself states that his selections follow from a few basic themes such as health, happiness, and longevity. For a volume of its size and given the level of detail that it contains, Eberhard's work is about as comprehensive as one can get. The only real detraction is the lack of an index. Language students might also be disappointed by the lack of pin-yin romanization. The book is wonderful as a stand-alone primer on Chinese culture or as an adjunct text for students of the Chinese language who desire an intimate knowledge of the latent symbology that accompanies many Chinese words.

I am half Chinese and lived in Taiwan for a few years. Growing outside Chinese culture, I found this dictionary very informative on learning about the meaning of many things I saw in Taiwan. For example, why fish are seen in many stores, why is there a phoenix and a dragon at every wedding, who are the different Chinese deities and gods, why is eight such a popular number, what does it mean to give oranges to someone, why you shouldn't wear anything white on your hair, etc. Until a better dictionary of symbols comes out, this one is essential to your understanding of Chinese culture.