It all started in 1999

• Little did I know that in 1999 I would set foot on a path that would lead to Mainland China several times; edit several bestselling novels; write a historical novel and eventually end up being as a China expert on more than a dozen radio talk shows broadcasting from hundreds of radio stations across North America as a China expert. In 1999 I was far from being an expert on anything.

• In the summer of 1999, I met Anchee and we started dating. During that period of time while we were dating she suggested that I might be interested in Robert Hart. "Who is Robert Hart," I asked. "He was important to China," she replied. "There were streets named after him in Shanghai and Beijing. The Emperor had a statue erected on the Bund in Shanghai in his honor."

• I knew little to nothing about China at this time. While we were dating, I checked Anchee's books out of the library and read them. The first one I read was Red Azalea and the second Katherine.

• I knew nothing about the Cultural Revolution. To me China was Mao's army crossing into North Korea to enter the conflict there in the 1950s. My image of China saw everyone dressed the same and thinking the same. I was soon to learn how wrong and ignorant I was about China. That was 1999.

• My Introduction to China was reading Anchee's first two books. Red Azalea is her memoir about growing up during the Cultural Revolution. She was born in Shanghai. As a teenager, she joined the Little Red Guard. Later she would end up in the labor camps where she injured her back. If you want to know more, I recommend that you read Red Azalea. It was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and earned the Carl Sandburg Award for Literature.

• It didn't take long before I was hooked and wanted to know more about the land Anchee came from. As we dated and fell in love, I looked into Robert Hart. I bought Entering China's Service, Robert hart's journals, 1854-1863; The I.G. In Peking (both volumes), Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritmie Customs 1868-1907. These books were published by the Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard Universeity Press. Hart's original letters and journals are archived at the Universitiy of Belfast in Ireland.