An abridged and adapted version Jeffrey Wasserstom’s introduction to Chinese Characters will appear in this month’s China Economic Review. Here’s how it starts:

Each time I go back to China, I prepare myself to hear stories of the surprising ways that the country has changed since I was last there. I also expect to hear equally surprising reports of personal transformations.

The text will go online later this month and we’ll share the link when it does. Here’s the text online.

James Carter, Angilee Shah and Jeff Wasserstrom, contributors to the anthology, Chinese Characters: Profiles of Fast-Changing Lives in a Fast-Changing Land, will give a reading and discuss their work at Pomona College (scroll down the events page for exact location and contact information). Carter is professor of history at St. Joseph’s University in Pennsylvania and his chapter in Chinese Characters looks at the life of a religious figure who has moved between China and the U.S. Shah is a journalist whose work has been featured in LA Weekly, the Far Eastern Economic Review and Mother Jones, among other outlets. Wasserstrom is professor of history at UC Irvine and author of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know (2010).