The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Medicine: A New Translation of the Neijing Suwen with Commentary

"This translation is a paraphrase at best, and contains some disturbing contradictions to other translations of the same text, including my own spot translations to check on these. While I'm not a classical scholar, some of these are fairly obvious. Also, a lot of interpolated material is not set off in any way. It is interesting to read this translation in the context of the two other main translations now available, Lianshang Wu's (which has the Chinese text, but has a poor English text which is closer to the original) and Veith's (which is more arbitrary, possibly because she had no background in TCM), but don't rely on this for clinical advice, it is spoon feeding you one man's opinion, and in this persons opinion, it isn't very good."
~ Written on 2003-12-07

"While this book is sometimes criticised for its lack of scholarly style, it is important to realize that the writer is approaching a 2,500 year old work, the seminal theoretical treatise of Chinese medicine, from the point of view of a clinician. It is frankly not much easier for native speakers of Chinese to approach the Neijing in its original form than it is for Westerners. Moreover, Mr Ni comes from a medical family spanning several generations of physicians. Being a practitioner myself, I can attest to the correctness of the decisions made in preparing this book. He has done a commendable job in making this ancient classic accessible to modern readers. Chinese physicians make use of this material during nearly every moment spent in the clinic. It is practical in a way that sinologists locked in their ivory towers can scarcely imagine.

Those who would prefer a dry, smugly academic translation with separate footnotes, devoid of historical context or cultural annotation, would do well to investigate Ilza Veith's translation of the Neijing; a valiant effort which inevitably fails as a result of its refusal to acknowledge the living traditions surrounding the text itself."
~ Written on 1999-04-22

"I expected a more, I don't know, historical? scholarly? treatment of the subject of the Suwen. I claim no skill at translation of ancient Chinese characters, nor interpretation of Chinese philosophical writings (ancient or otherwise) but I had hoped for at least some original text or side-by-side comparison of the text and the translation. Maoshing Ni provides neither of these things.

Some people may appreciate the lack of academic interruptions commonly affecting a work of this kind in the form of copious footnotes. Maoshing Ni goes to great pains to incorporate these footnotes directly into the text, but I find this practice more frustrating than the footnotes themselves. There's no indication what is actually translated text and what is explanation inserted by the translator. And while I agree that translations of ancient Chinese are difficult to bring to English, especially those by authors who prided themselves on brevity and multi-layered meanings, the readers' clues typical of most translations (e.g. footnotes, original text, clearly indicated guesswork) were not present in this book and made it a most disappointing read for me."
~ Written on 1998-11-30