Yin-Yang

China has become one of the largest study and teach-abroad, travel, and business destinations in the world. Yet few books offer a diversity of perspectives and locales for Westerners considering the leap. This unique collection of letters offers a rarely seen, intimate, and refreshingly honest view of living and working in China. Woven through this correspondence is the compelling theme of outsiders coping in a culture that is vastly foreign to them and the underlying love-hate struggle it engenders. These tales of trials, successes, and failures offer invaluable insight into a country that remains endlessly fascinating.

Alice Renouf has been the executive director of the Colorado China Council since the late 1970s. Mary Beth Ryan-Maher is a freelance writer who taught in Kunming, China, and co-led the Colorado China Council's Shanghai Summer Institute for new teachers.

Chapter 1: China Arrival: Settling In Can Be So Unsettling Chapter 2: Teaching: A Seriously Exhausting Endeavor! Chapter 3: Cross-Cultural Experiences: Which Side of the Mirror Am I On? Chapter 4: Day-to-Day Living: Think Chinese, Be Chinese Chapter 5: Travel: From Shanghai Skyscrapers to the Bamboo Houses of Xishuangbanna Chapter 6: Families Coping: Babies, Rabies, Scabies, and Flu, No Problem Chapter 7: Going Home: Manzou, Zhongguo! (Take It Easy, China) Chapter 8: Epilogue: Looking Back