…. to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.

––Ludwig Wittgenstein

(Philosophical Investigation, 1953)

Whatever specific goal motivated people who study Chinese at first eventually dissolves into the larger Chinese world, and that world—its loves and joys, its stings and frustrations, in any case its incapability of being boring—takes over.

This is a fascinating, insightful collection of essays by some of the world’s most renowned China experts, who share personal recollections of their time in China—often beginning in the 1970s, when foreigners were just beginning to navigate the linguistic and cultural terrain of that country—and reflect on what learning Chinese has meant to them in their careers and lives. These ten native English speakers share rare and, at times, humorous and intimate moments, of how learning and speaking Chinese has removed barriers, built rapport, opened doors and sometimes led them down entirely unexpected roads that have changed the course of their lives.

Perry Linkis Emeritus Professor ofEast Asian Studies at Princeton Universityand Chancellorial Chair for TeachingAcross Disciplines at the University ofCalifornia, Riverside. He is well-known both asan innovative scholar of modernChinese literature and as an authorityon contemporary Chinese politics andintellectual life. He edited and publishedmany important works, includingAnAnatomy of Chinese: Rhythm, Metaphor,Politics(Harvard University Press, 2013),Liu Xiaobo’s Empty Chair: Chronicling theReform Movement Beijing Fears Most(New York Review of Books, 2011),TheUses of Literature: Life in the SocialistChinese Literary System(PrincetonUniversity Press, 2000),Evening Chatsin Beijing: Probing China’s Predicament(Norton, 1992), andButterflies: PopularFiction in Early Twentieth-Century ChineseCities(University of California Press, 1981).