我出生於上世紀四十年代中期,在美國東南地區佛羅里達州一個叫克雷斯特維尤(Crestview)的小鎮長大。當我的眼界只是局限於居住在小鎮裡的我的家人和鄰居時,外面的廣闊世界對我而言仍然遥遠而抽象。記得在我七年級的時候,班上準備籌畫一個派對,一個女孩提議了中國幸運餅乾。這對那個年代的美國農村來説,是一個既異乎尋常又非常陌生的事物。而我當時對中國的全部了解也僅限於這是一個在地球另一端,離我的世界極其遥遠的國度。那麽這個土包子是如何認識並熱愛中國,將他的人生奉獻給中國歷史與思 Born in the mid-1940s, I grew up in a small town in Crestview, Florida, in the southeastern United States. When my horizons were limited to my family and neighbors living in small towns, the vast world outside was still distant and abstract to me. I remember when my seventh grade, the class prepared to plan a party, a girl proposed Chinese fortune cookies. This was an unusual and strange thing to the American countryside of that era. And all I knew about China at that time was only that it was a country far away from my world, at the other end of the earth. So how does this earthy buns recognize and love China and dedicate his life to Chinese history and thought?