Iron and Silk by Mark Salzman

About this book

Iron & A young American encounters swordsmen, bureaucrats and other citizens of contemporary China describes the author's experiences living in China as an English teacher in the early 1980s. Salzman grew up in Ridgefield, Conn., the oldest child of a piano teacher mother and a social worker father. He studied Chinese Language and Literature at Yale University. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude in 1982 and spent the next two years in Changsha, Hunan teaching English at Hunan Medical College (湖南医学院) and studying martial arts with Pan Qingfu, a Chinese martial arts teacher and kung fu movie actor.