The Land Drenched in Tears is a moving history of the tumultuous years of modern China under Mao's rule, witnessed, experienced, and told through the personal lens of an ethnic minority woman, who endured nearly 20 years imprisonment and surveillance regime as a result of her political activism in Xinjiang, or East Turkistan, located in the far west of China. Writing her autobiography as an extraordinary melange of diary and memoir, which oscillates between first-hand narrative and flashback, the author, Söyüngül Chanisheff, traces her unfortunate youth from her university years, when she founded the East Turkistan People's Party as a result of her anger and frustration with communist China's devastating mishandling of the socio-economic life of the people of her native land, through her subsequent imprisonment in China's notorious labour camps as well as under the surveillance regime, to her emigration to Australia. Chanisheff's autobiography is a rare, detailed, and authentic account of one of the most poignant and most fascinating periods of modern China. It is a microcosmic reflection of the communist regime's tragic realities presented through the suffering and hope of a young woman who tied her fate to that of her beloved homeland.

Enka, a sentimental ballad genre, epitomizes for many the nihonjin no kokoro (heart/soul of Japanese). To older members of the Japanese public, who constitute enka's primary audience, this music--of parted lovers, long unseen rural hometowns, and self-sacrificing mothers--evokes a direct connection to the traditional roots of "Japaneseness." Overlooked in this emotional invocation of the past, however, are the powerful commercial forces that, since the 1970s, have shaped the consumption of enka and its version of national identity. Informed by theories of nostalgia, collective memory, cultural nationalism, and gender, this book draws on the author's extensive fieldwork in probing the practice of identity-making and the processes at work when Japan becomes "Japan."

My intention in writing this book is to show the reader how important our life is in this world. In the Bible it is written that everything was created and determined by God; we know we are here on this earth just passing through, we have been on a pilgrimage for a while, and taking advantage of this time I write here the facts that happened to me from my childhood until pass sixties; Life experiences with God and Jesus Christ. I also tell stories with examples of how to live life trusting God based on the Bible, which teaches us to live with faith, hope and love; with prudence, valuing what is most important in our life such as moral, spiritual and divine principles, its commandments and its laws. Thus, our life will become smoother and lighter, less tiring. At the end of this pilgrimage we are hoping for faith, the divine promises. An eternal abode in heaven with God and the Lord Jesus Christ and all his angels and all the redeemed. Revelation 21:1