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.