Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming Man Paperback – November 25, 2008

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.

I understand the concerns of reviewers who expected an historical analysis of the Ming dynasty or of the context and milieu of 16th and 17th century China. I came to this book with no such expectations. I found a small work of art evoking sites and sounds of a place far off in time and space as seen through the eyes of one man. There is just enough analysis to give context without breaking the stream of images, just enough history to bring it together. I enjoyed it very much. It made me wish that all of the Chinese writings of Zhang Dai (the Ming Man of the title) were available in translation.

As usual, Memories is a well researched Spence book. However, this reads more like a compilation of graduate student papers that were edited by Spence. It could also serve as a very long preface to the actual works. There are very few translated/paraphrased passages and a lot of interpretation and overview. We are told that the works themselves are huge and highly nuanced with important references to (for most western readers) obscure literary figures.The translated passages are evocative. The analysis is dry. I kept wishing for more first person memories.

I read this book many years ago and recently re-read it again (2019) and realized how much I have missed. The book was about Zhang Dai, a scholar who was born during the last years of Ming dynasty and witness its collapse. Zhang wrote his version of Ming history as well as his life and family history, not as much trying to make sense of what happened to Ming, but rather to leave a faithful record for future generations.What can we learn? As the author pointed out if you pay attention to details in his family story, it's not hard to pick out the clues that lead to the fall of a mighty regime: rampant corruptions, upper class's ignorance of the lower class, the inherent incompetence of a highly centralized regime ran by elites in their own echo chambers, severe over populations (Zhang has dozens of children, dozens of uncles, dozens of grand uncles,).. if you do the math China's got a classic Malthus population problem that a few years drought in a local region can soon balloon to national scale peasant uprising. In the end Ming capital Beijing was felled by peasant army of 200,000, this is only 0.1% of Ming's population 200M which can easily field 1M army if it has the will or organization skills, but the state machinery was so corrupted it couldn't marshal its resources, and Manchu from the north with only 100,000 army was able to conquer China.

Being a fan of later Ming dynasty painting and porcelain, it is easy to like a book that describes the life of a wealthy family in the late Ming dynasty. Just as the dynasty's coffers had plenty of money at the end, average Chinese especially in the area described in the book were getting very rich from business and trading and therefore could spend a lot on art, music and leisure. While the dynasty was getting weaker so imperial art was declining just as folk art was booming. This book is not for the average reader but more for Chinese history and culture fans. It is a bit slow and tedious but that is what is takes to get into this subject. Highly recommended for specialists.

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.