What In The World Were The Chinese Thinking?

Ever Wonder What In The World Were The Chinese Thinking?

For two thousand years, China and the outside world looked at each other across deserts, oceans, and negotiating tables, each convinced the other was the barbarian. This book tells the story of those encounters: not as dry diplomatic history, but as fifty true stories of the people caught in the middle: envoys, brides, monks, merchants, generals, and translators, and of what each side thought was happening, which was rarely the same thing.

What really happened when China met the world? — Wars, weddings, tribute giraffes, and two thousand years of mutual understanding and at times, misunderstanding.

Inside this book:

• The princess brides sent to marry steppe khans and buy peace
• Xuanzang's illegal walk to India — and the 657 books he smuggled home
• The Roman embassy that may (or may not) have reached the Han court
• Treasure fleets that reached Africa before the Portuguese reached India
• The monk who crossed a continent disguised as a camel trader
• Empires negotiating in Latin at gunpoint on the frozen Amur

The banquets, blunders, and letters home from people caught between two worldsAward-winning novelist Vann Chow introduces in What In The World Were The Chinese Thinking? a series of important inter-nation, inter-ethnic events from the past centuries that shaped the relationship between Chinese people and the world. The book is sure to be as informative as it is entertaining.