Foreign writers publish book series on cities of China

Einar Tangen, a United States (U.S.) investment banker and president of a U.S.-based company, has released a book of stories on Wednesday about the eastern Chinese city of Kunshan.

Kunshan's nearby metropolis, Shanghai, is attracting millions of foreign visitors to China for the World Expo, entitled "Better City, Better Life."

In China, Kunshan is one of over 100 cities with more than 1 million people. Its proximity to Shanghai and the collection of innovative approaches and methods to business has created a path to transform the community from just a township to the number one county-level city in the country, by GDP, during the past 20 years.

Tangen, former chair of the Wisconsin International Trade Council in the U.S., first visited China in 1999 and now writes a bi-weekly business article on China for the American business magazine Biz Times.

"Everyday issues about China are discussed in general but we know little about its specifics," said Tangen, "It is a different perspective to talk about details of the country."

"My book was titled The Kunshan Way, and in it I tried to give people the basic knowledge to make their own decision about the reality of China's system and the way it works, but not the way that they thought it worked."

Apart from The Kunshan Way, two other books, Nanjing--Life on the Water's Edge and Meet with Wuxi, were also among the initial offerings in the book series, entitled "Cities of China."

Bobby Brill, author of Nanjing--Life on the Water's Edge, first came to visit China from the U.S.in 2003 and now works in photography, cinematography and multi-media content production in China.

"Eastern culture and western culture are so different and foreign to each other," said Brill, "so I had to look from the Chinese perspective during my interview and writing to better understand the Chinese culture."

Huang Youyi, chief editor with the China International Publishing Group, publisher of the series, said each of these cities presents a window to look at China and the idea of having foreigners write about China's cities was to present these cities' different features to international readers.

Books on Beijing, Qingdao, Hangzhou, Nantong, and Changzhou were also under consideration, according to Huang.X "The city may be small, but the story is big," Huang said.

Source:Xinhua