The Spirit of the Chinese People

I must have given 50 or 60 copies of this book away to all my Western friends who want to understand more about Chinese people. I explain to them that understanding the Chinese is just like how you would try and understand a tree. It is not just the leaves and the branches – you have to understand the roots as well. We are like plants: you need to understand our environment to understand our culture.

我一定已经向那些希望了解中国人的西方朋友们赠送了50到60册书。我向他们解释说理解中国文化就好比你尝试理解一棵树的过程；其中并不止包括枝叶，你还必须去理解周围的环境以认识我们的文化。