I really enjoyed meeting Bill, and would like to have the chance some time to chat for longer. The day after the talk he was due to fly to Urumqi as guide for a group of tourists. Of course, the day of his talk was the day things got bad there, so I wonder whether they were allowed to go or not….

Do you mean Jarek of “China from the Inside”? If so, what happened to that? It’s a great resource, but hasn’t been updated for years… In fact, it seemed to me that he stopped updating it when Brian Preston’s book came out… While I enjoyed the book, it did seem that it piggybacked on Jarek a lot, and I wondered if maybe he’d been offended… In fact, that’s the book that got me thinking maybe *I* should write one

Glad to hear that Bill made it to Beijing safely. He doesn’t live that far away from me. I’ve been by his house a number of times to have “Zen Baggage” and other books autographed for friends. Last time I saw him, we chatted together with Jarek . . . they are going to try to connect later during Bill’s trip.

I just finished Bill’s translations of Han Shan’s poems last month. The notes are especially helpful.

Thanks for going to the reading and supporting Bill’s work.

cheers,

Tom