Modern renaissance man in China
Mark Salzman was an avid martial arts practitioner and spoke fluent Mandarin when he moved to China to become an English teacher to doctors and medical students in the city of Mao's birth, a city with few other distinguising qualities. With his sense of adventure, language facility, self-discipline, and his willingness to adapt to the culture, Mark's two years in China became a defining event in his and his readers' lives. It inspired me to visit China.
This is a wonderful book that I have recommended to teenagers and adults and all have loved it. My ladies reading group and my summer-school reading class both found much to love in his style of writing and description of interactions with local Chinese. He is really funny, but more than that , he is an ambassador to China that the USA could clone to improve our relations with that enigmatic country.
