Mandarin Express

Intermediate Level B

Student's Book

Book Aims

Access the rich 4000+ years literary treasures of the Chinese language
Discuss social and political events throughout Chinese history
Understand the transformations of Chinese culture and Chinese society

About This Book

This is the last book in the Mandarin Express series, featuring a nice selection of must-read classical Chinese texts and highly influential modern vernacular Chinese texts ranging from 2100 BCE to 1950s CE, including poetries, essays, journal articles, novels and philosophies. This anthology covers a time span of nearly 4000 years and is truly the essence of what learning Chinese can offer.

Understanding Classical Chinese is extremely helpful at this stage of learning. It will greatly improve students’ modern Chinese, as the more formal a text in modern Chinese, the more it resembles literary Chinese, such as abbreviations, choice of words, quotes, and so on. Moreover, students get to understand Confucius, Mencius, Sunzi and others in the original, and appreciate poetry from the Tang and Song dynasties, one of the world’s literary treasures.

Modern Chinese literature includes works from famous writers, such as Chen Duxiu, Lun Xun, Hu Shi, Liu Bannong. Their works open up the gate of the 100+ years of rich modern Chinese literature and explain the huge transformation Chinese society has had gone through, socially, culturally and politically.

The structure of the book consists of four units with each centring around a major theme, including classical Chinese literature, classical Chinese philosophy, modern Chinese literature and modern Chinese philosophy. Each unit presents multiple famous Chinese texts which have had a deep impact on Chinese society until today. One supplementary section is included in each unit to provide additional knowledge related to Chinese language.

The approach of the book is to have students fully involved in learning, searching for the social and political background of the readings, and sharing their interpretations and insights.

On completing the book, students will have participated in important debates, get a real grasp of Chinese language as a means of carrying cultural, social and political beliefs throughout the history, and develop cultural literacy.