Perspective

In "Iron & Silk," author Mark Salzman writes an account of his own experiences in the Hunan Province of China. He accepts a position to teach English to doctors, teachers, and medical students at the Hunan Medical College. The work is written in the first-person narrative and given that Salzman is relating his own experiences, he is naturally the best person to write about them.

Salzman has admired China and its culture since he is very young, having enrolled in a Kung Fu school at thirteen where he began studies in martial arts, calligraphy, and ink painting. He furthers his knowledge and enhances his admiration for the culture by majoring in Chinese Language and Literature at Yale. When he accepts the teaching position, he is fluent in both the Cantonese and Mandarin languages. Therefore, no one can be better prepared to make an easy transition to that culture and...