A Walk Across Dalian

In the tradition of his "Everyday Dalian" photobook, the Municipal Government of Dalian originally commissioned SongLi to produce his second photography book about the city. The intended purpose was as an international promotion for the 2009 Davos World Economic Summit.

However, SongLi evolved that inspirational vision into a new and unique visual expression with the timeless book, "A Walk Across Dalian." This rare artistic perspective offers a photographic guide to the city unlike anything done before. Based on his 2008 Coast-To-Coast Trek across the city of Dalian, this journey of images shows the city through the eyes of a resident foreign expert. It also offers a personal introduction to the history and culture of the famous and historical seaport.

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ISBN: 1442114088 / 9781442114081

Under The Dragon Flag

James Allan recounts his misadventures in Northeast Asia during the 1894-95. After gambling away his fortune in Monte Carlo Allan signs up as a sailor and sets out for the seas. He eventually finds himself aboard the freight ship "Columbia" smuggling military cargo to China at the time of the county's ill-fated conflict with the Japanese Empire.

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Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun

The Russo-Japanese War grew out of the rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea. Harry Collingwood provides a personal narrative of this conflict, that served as a prelude for the following two World Wars of the Twentieth Century.

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1904: An Officer's Journal During the Russo-Japanese War

In 1904-1905, Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton was the military representative of the Indian Army serving with the Japanese Army in Manchuria. Among the several military advisors from Western countries, he was the first to arrive in Japan after the start of the war. As the earliest, he would be recognized as the dean of multi-national observers in this conflict.

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Dalian Ghost Stories

The city of Dalian has always held secrets. Its foreign colonization and occupation brought external cultures and languages to Northeast China. Great Britain, Russia, and Japan took turns dominating the region for nearly a century, influencing local folklore and religious superstitions. When the city was finally returned to native hands, China experienced numerous waves of political and social upheaval. These events made local ghost stories a taboo subject. This compilation is the first historic research of supernatural events and sightings in Dalian from 1858 to 1958. It also combines vintage colonial images with the modern photographic vision of SongLi.

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ISBN: 1441472800

Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House)

In 1590 the Hojo clan was defeated during the Battle of Odawara by the Taiko Hideyoshi. As a result of the victory, the Hojo provinces were awarded to the warlord Tokugawa Iyeyasu. In the years of continued harsh warfare that followed, the castles of these captured areas became the setting of terrible and mysterious disasters for the Tokugawa clan, who would rule all of Japan as Shogun.

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Gleanings in Buddha-Fields

This collection of stories takes the reader on a journey into the soul of Japan and enters into the spirit of Buddhism. The accumulation of experience over numerous lifetimes and rebirths is a central theme, as the Japanese belief of reincarnation directly shapes their thinking and culture. This edition was written a hundred years ago by Lafcadio Hearn, the author credited with opening up Meji Era Japan to the world through his insightful books.


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The Radish and the Girl with Long Hair

Another classic folklore re-imagined into an original fairy-tale, "The Radish and the Girl with Long Hair" takes the reader on a fantastic journey to a distant Asian land. Farmers had moved near the high mountain to live because it provided everything they needed to prosper. But the fertile soil mysteriously turns barren. Crops wither and the people suffer from lack of water. One day while searching for food on the high mountain, a young girl with long hair makes a fantastic discovery. A magic radish stands as gatekeeper of a treasure that will save the land. However, before she can reveal the secret that will free her village, Long Hair Girl is captured by the god of the mountain.

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Everyday Dalian

A former colony briefly founded by Russia but later developed over two generations by Japan, Dalian has always been a strategic hub for control of Northeast China. SongLi's photography collection about the city and its population has won multiple international awards. Each image captures the richness and color of the modern-day Manchurian metropolis, documenting its transition over six years. The "slice of life" presentation, a hallmark style of SongLi, offers a new depth to the environments and people living in this historic port. These pictures also present an original artistic and realistic view of a community shaped by the turbulent legacy of its foreign occupation, and the aftermath of the bitter Chinese Civil War, to emerge as one of the leading cities in the country.

This book also comes with a foreword by Phil Borges. The humanitarian photographer is famous for his signature black and white portraits with hand tinted skin tones of endangered cultures around the world.

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ISBN: 0-9763168-5-4

Brave Little Mongolian Sisters

An original fairy-tale inspired by true events from the 1960s, "Brave Little Mongolian Sisters" is the heroic tale of two young nomadic girls in Northern Asia. Blossom and Jade provided for their sick parents by raising their poor family's sheep herd. Living in the desolate wilderness, the animals offered their only source of income. One winter their hard life becomes even more desperate, when the frail girls and their flock are attacked by an evil and hungry witch. The sisters struggle against many hardships and the icy elements to protect their sheep, and defy the menacing threat that continues to chase them. Xuemei Han brings this childrens' story to life with her unique and inspirational hand drawn illustrations. Her internationally award winning style is an innovative blend of traditional Chinese cultural paintings and Japanese Manga comics. This magical combination is the perfect match for a new generation of young readers interested in fables and fantasy stories from Asia.

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Some Chinese Ghosts

This is a collection of ghost stories based on Chinese old tales and legends. They are rich in atmosphere, authentic in tone, and almost without exception very good stories. They are an interesting contrast to Western lore, since ghosts in China are not evil but remain behind to fulfill their duty. This collection was written a hundred years ago by Lafcadio Hearn, the author credited with opening up Meji Era Japan to the world through his insightful books.



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The Awakening of China

China's period of isolation is over. To understand its future, look to its recent past. A century ago, China was considered a theatre of the greatest movement taking place on the face of the globe. Efforts of all other developing nations shrink to insignificance - for it was not political, but social. Its object was not a changed dynasty, nor a revolution in the form of government, but the promise of nothing short of the complete renovation of the oldest, most populous, and most conservative of empires. Is there a people in either hemisphere that can afford to look on with indifference to the development of China? These words still ring true all these decades later.

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On the Great Highway

James Creelman became the first American journalist to interview the Pope, accompanied the Japanese in their war with China in Manchuria, visited Tolstoy at his home in Russia, got wounded in the Philippines as a correspondent in the Spanish-American War (he was taunting the Spanish after the Americans had seized their flag), pow-wowed with Sitting Bull, and reported on the death of President McKinley at the hands of an assassin. With the sharp, clipped writing of a master journalist, Creelman tells the story of his times, and of the part he played in that story.

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New Forces In Old China

This book from 1909 describes the development of change within old, conservative, exclusive China by the three great transforming forces of the modern world - Western trade, Western politics and Western religion. These forces are producing stupendous changes in China with its sluggish reform policies. The full significance of these changes both to China and to the world cannot be comprehended now. There is something fascinating about a nation numbering nearly one-third of the human race slowly and majestically giving way to its old dogma and embracing the influence of new and powerful revolutionary forces. No other movement of our age is so colossal with more meaning.

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Notable Women of Modern China

During a stay of some months in China during 1909, Margaret E. Burton had an opportunity to see the educational system of the country for women. She was greatly impressed, and compiled profiles of some of the most notable female figures she came to know. It was a time of an emerging New China in which women were trying to break free of centuries of tradition and enslavement by means of education. This book details their efforts to mould both their personal future and their country's.

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The Civilization of China

Herbert Allen Giles (1845-1935) was a British linguist who modified a Mandarin Chinese Romanization system established by Thomas Wade earlier, resulting in the Wade-Giles Chinese transliteration system. Giles was a diplomat to China (1867-1892) who later became a Chinese professor at Cambridge. This book "The Civilization of China" is his classic detailed history of China, beginning in the Feudal Age and continues until 1911, long before the Communist Revolution.

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Memoir of a Chinese Princess

In 1903, Princess Der Ling became First Lady-in-Waiting to Tzu-Hsi, the Empress Dowager, who was fascinated by the young woman's travels and experiences in places the Empress would never see. Der Ling served her Empress for two years inside the walls of Gu Gong, Peking's Forbidden City, a walled palace built in the year 1407, and which had been the seat of government for 24 Chinese emperors. Her intimate observations of court life under the Empress Dowager, aunt to China's last emperor, P'u Yi, allow a rare look into life in a time and place still shrouded in mystery, into the last years of imperial Chinese rule, and most importantly, into the character of the remarkable woman who ruled China for more than 40 years.

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Court Life in China

One woman ruled China for nearly half a century, The Empress Dowager. An unequaled historical figure, the Empress has often been misunderstood and misrepresented. From her participation in the Boxer movement to failing to modernize China in defense against Western Powers, she has been both praised and critisized, but rarely understood. This personal account of the Empress Dowager was written by a family doctor and close personal friend. This very intimate perspective details the womans life and influence on China, the effect of which can still be felt in the country today. A must read for anyone studying Chinese history.

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China and the Manchus

Herbert Allen Giles (1845-1935) was a British linguist who modified a Mandarin Chinese Romanization system established by Thomas Wade earlier, resulting in the Wade-Giles Chinese transliteration system. Giles was a diplomat to China (1867-1892) who later became a Chinese professor at Cambridge. This book "China and the Manchu" is his classic detailed history of the Manchu Empire and its 300 year reign in China.

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China and the Foreign Powers

The relationship between China and the world is a complex one of economic cooperation and political mistrust. This book give a detailed account of the turbulent times in Asia at the turn of the century. Plus, its historic perspective sheds light on the damaging effects caused by Japan and interfering Western Powers. It is set at a time when China is surrounded by outside forces, while being torn apart by inner ones. There remain many parallels to the condition of China then and now, and the resulting global effects. The future of China remains deeply rooted in its past, and to understand its course, we must first review its previous directions

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Dairen: 1936

The South Manchurian Railway Company, formerly the largest economic enterprise in Manchuria and the main agency of Japans penetration, was organized shortly after the Russo-Japanese War. It undertook construction of towns, harbors, mining, utilities and trade. When a competing Chinese railway network threatened their monopoly, the Japanese Kwantung army staged the Manchurian Incident and set up the state of Manchukuo. At the end of World War II, China expropriated the company's vast property.

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