Mark Salzman

Author Mark Salzman has great admiration for China and its culture from a young boy on. At thirteen years of age, he begins his studies on China and Chinese culture in his homeland of America. He studies marshal arts, calligraphy, and ink painting. Salzman majors in Chinese Language and Literature at Yale University where he becomes fluent in the Mandarin and Cantonese dialects as well as classical Chinese. He wins the Williams Prize for the best paper on Eastern culture during his senior year at Yale.

It seems natural for Salzman to accept the opportunity to visit and live in the land he loves and knows so much about after graduation. He, along with several other Yale classmates, accept positions at the Hunan Medical College in South Central China in the city of Changsha in the Hunan Province. They are assigned to teach English to doctors, teachers...