{"product_id":"2940157851330","title":"Myths and Legends of China","description":"In spite of much research and conjecture, the origin of the Chinese\u003cbr\u003epeople remains undetermined. We do not know who they were nor whence\u003cbr\u003ethey came. Such evidence as there is points to their immigration\u003cbr\u003efrom elsewhere; the Chinese themselves have a tradition of a Western\u003cbr\u003eorigin. The first picture we have of their actual history shows us, not\u003cbr\u003ea people behaving as if long settled in a land which was their home and\u003cbr\u003ethat of their forefathers, but an alien race fighting with wild beasts,\u003cbr\u003eclearing dense forests, and driving back the aboriginal inhabitants.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSetting aside several theories (including the one that the Chinese\u003cbr\u003eare autochthonous and their civilization indigenous) now regarded\u003cbr\u003eby the best authorities as untenable, the researches of sinologists\u003cbr\u003eseem to indicate an origin (1) in early Akkadia; or (2) in Khotan,\u003cbr\u003ethe Tarim valley (generally what is now known as Eastern Turkestan),\u003cbr\u003eor the K'un-lun Mountains (concerning which more presently). The\u003cbr\u003esecond hypothesis may relate only to a sojourn of longer or shorter\u003cbr\u003eduration on the way from Akkadia to the ultimate settlement in China,\u003cbr\u003eespecially since the Khotan civilization has been shown to have\u003cbr\u003ebeen imported from the Punjab in the third century B.C. The fact\u003cbr\u003ethat serious mistakes have been made regarding the identifications\u003cbr\u003eof early Chinese rulers with Babylonian kings, and of the Chinese\u003cbr\u003e_po-hsing_ (Cantonese _bak-sing_) 'people' with the Bak Sing or Bak\u003cbr\u003etribes, does not exclude the possibility of an Akkadian origin. But\u003cbr\u003ein either case the immigration into China was probably gradual, and\u003cbr\u003emay have taken the route from Western or Central Asia direct to the\u003cbr\u003ebanks of the Yellow River, or may possibly have followed that to the\u003cbr\u003esouth-east through Burma and then to the north-east through what is\u003cbr\u003enow China--the settlement of the latter country having thus spread\u003cbr\u003efrom south-west to north-east, or in a north-easterly direction along\u003cbr\u003ethe Yangtzu River, and so north, instead of, as is generally supposed,\u003cbr\u003efrom north to south.","brand":"Readings LLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47075402875120,"sku":"2940157851330","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940157851330_p0.jpg?v=1764104427","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940157851330","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}