Years of letters

An American teacher at a Chinese university releases a new book, Cheng Yuezhu reports.

Xiamen University professor William Brown has released his new book, Off the Wall-How We Fell for China, which is a compilation of around 50 letters he wrote to his family and friends between 1988 and 2017. The letters recount his past three decades living and working in Xiamen, Fujian province, which the American academic calls home.

"Xiamen is my 'first hometown' because, in the United States, the longest I lived in one place was seven years but I've lived in Xiamen for 30 years," Brown says.

The book, launched in December, has been published by China's Foreign Languages Press in both English and Chinese, and includes Brown's family photos, images of his original printed letters and hand-drawn illustrations. Brown says part of the title, "off the wall", is a phrase that means "eccentric or unconventional" that faithfully captures his experiences in China.

In the book, Brown talks of buying vanilla at a paint store, buying a pedicab for his daily travel and learning the taboos of Xiamen culture, among other stories, narrated with much wit.

The Chinese title, Wo Bu Jianwai, translates as "I am not an outsider".