Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming Man

I bought this book on a whim, partly because of interesting reviews. But once I got it, I got hooked. It is a very readable book about a man who lived in a very different culture from our own. It is organized by theme, rather than by date. That is, it is not so much a biography as a portrait of the man and his times and the culture in which he lived. There are mini-sketches of the struggle of the upper classes to pass the scholarly tests for admission to the bureaucracy (a struggle that sometimes consumed decades); of Zhang Dai's mini-adventure with a very special tea that he discovered; the role and prevalence of prostitutes in his culture; his trips to visit natural spots, shrines, and monasteries, and much more. I tend to dip into many books, but read very few cover-to-cover. This one I'm reading cover-to-cover and almost done. So on my scale of interesting-ness it rates high; much higher than I expected when I bought the book. It is a portrait of a very privileged but also a very human person. If the idea of spending a few hours with such a person appeals to you, then I think you'll enjoy this book. And if you're like I was -- only vaguely intriged -- I'd recommend that you give it a try. Give serendipity a chance to strike. :-)

This book is an evocative depiction of Ming society in China through the eyes of contemporary historian Zhang Dai. It's not a history book or a biography, but rather a snapshot of life in the late Ming dynasty. Particularly fascinating are the details of everyday gentry life, particularly in its varied and colorful amusements and hobbies, such as staging plays, tea connoisseurship, how people celebrated holidays, music, boating, antique collecting, poetry, etc., and in the duties expected of gentry, such as studying for and passing the bureaucratic exams to hold office. Also very interesting were the descriptions of Zhang's various relations (grandfathers, uncles and cousins) who varied to extremes in character and revealed much about different expressions of human nature within the social norms of the times. I felt this book truly brought ancient China alive for the reader and that alone makes this book a worthwhile read.

This book is very well written and well worth reading. It depicts the life and the world of Zheng Dai, a well-educated bureaucrat (who did not go very high in the hierarchy but still managed to write the history of the Ming dynasty till its overthrow by the Manchus), but also many other interesting characters. An extract will show how much this book, though supposed to happen in the 17th century, is still very relevant today. "Within five years (...) this tea that Zhang and his uncle had named Snow Orchid had ousted its rivals from the conoisseurs' circles. But it was not long before unscrupulous businessmen began to market inferior teas under the Snow Orchid brand name, and those who drank it seemed not to know they were being gulled. A short time later, even the water source itself was lost. First, entrepreneurs from Shaoxing tried to use the water for wine making or else opened tea shops right by the spring itself. Next, a greedy local official tried to monopolize the spring's water for his own use and sealed it off for a while. But that increased the spring's reputation to such an extent that rowdy crowds began to gather at the shrine, demanding food, firewood and other handouts from the monks there and then brawling when they were refused. At last, to regain their earlier tranquility, the monks polluted their spring by filling it with manure, rotting bambo and the overflow from their own drains." Professor Spence is a great historian and we are all in his debt.

Zhang Dai, the figure at the center of Jonathan Spence's latest book sits at the margins of his milieu and observes and comments upon family members, bureaucrats, art traders, poets and emperors. A member of the Ming elite, Zhang Dai inherits the fortune to come into his own just as the world that has given him his livelihood collapses. Spence chronicles the life of Zhang Dai and his period up to the collapse of the Ming dynasty in 1644. At that point Zhang Dai goes into hiding in different monasteries and his day to day traces disappear. His writings, however, remain. For the next thirty years Zhang Dai continues to write a history of the Ming dynasty as well as biographies and popular reminiscences. Spence's biography of successes, failures, family and forbearance in an age of competitive civil examinations, Yangzi River pirates, lantern parties, parsimony and excess gave me real pleasure. The narrative flows replete with appealing detail, patience, and admiration for the life its subject who took nearly all eighty of his years to discover his contribution to a tumultuous world. As a window into this changing world of imperial China and into the life of a figure possessing flair and fire, I recommend this book wholeheartedly.