A Journey to the Outside World

About the Book

A young Chinese student meets an American woman of the Baby Boomer generation and falls in love with her. But, the woman cannot make the commitment now. They promise that they will meet again in eight years at the same place where they separated, Central Station, Brussels on May 31st, 1997. Will they be able to keep the promise?

Based on the author's own trans-Siberia experience, this novel presents a young Chinese student's journey to the outside world in the summer of 1989 against the background of the student demonstration in Tiananmen Square. On his Beijing-Moscow-Belgium trip, the narrator, Shao Wang, meets two secretive, combative communist officials, an alcoholic Chinese businessman who trades China-made PCs for Soviet tanks and attack helicopters, a Finnish drug addict and possible drug smuggler, a talkative Polish military officer, who doubles as a trader between a thriving China and the Eastern Bloc countries and whose wife keeps warning him to shut up, and a vivacious Australian girl who tells everyone that she has just found a $ 47,000 a year job as a nurse in California.

This young Chinese man, just coming out of a closed, conservative society, is shocked to meet a Belgium sex maniac who spends the whole trip making loud and lengthy love to an American divorcee he met on the train. Shao Wang will also find out that a newly met Chinese friend, on this trip to join his wife at University of Gent, is falling in love with another Chinese girl who happens to be his compartment mate. But for every piece of bad news, there is always a love story. Shao Wang also meets a retired Swedish naval officer whose love story with a German artist shows him the bright side of life, and a romantic marriage between a gregarious young Chinese woman and a shy, yet persistent, Swedish college graduate will add a pleasant flavor to the long trans-Siberian journey. In his own compartment, Shao Wang meets an English man, who has traveled in India for two and a half years and a Canadian woman. He watches them argue non-stop, yet in a civilized manner, as to where they should get married and settle down.

An old Chinese couple, whom Shao Wang first suspected of being Chinese/Soviet spies and whom he hated, will turn out to be a loving couple whose shocking secret will reflect their hard life in China and their ever-lasting affection for each other. They are superbly acting to prevent each other from being hurt. At the same time, a Christian couple who had been criminals raises questions for brain-washed, cynical Shao Wang: Who are we? Why are we here? And does God exist?

Most important, the rebellious young Chinese of the 1980s meets the mysterious Maryanne, who has been a student at the University at California, Berkeley, in the rebellious 1960s. It is from this American woman of the Baby Boomer generation that Shao Wang learns to share, to tolerate, and to love. Yet, both Shao Wang and Maryanne know that they are racing against time and against the difference between their ages. When Shao Wang learns the real purpose of Maryannes trip to China, their love blossoms while the train rumbles along in the quiet dark of the German Fatherland.

This is not THE BRIDGES OF MADISON, or NOTEBOOK, this is the story of the maiden voyage of a young Chinese, about his romantic passage to adulthood and his extraordinary journey to the outside world.

About the Author

Author Y.S. Wang is a developmental economist specializing in Asia who works at the U.N, the World Bank, and with the Japanese Government on projects in Asia. He now lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Boston, Massachusetts. His first thriller, Target Li Pen, was published in France. The book rights has also been sold in Thailand. Please check his website at www.hometown.aol.com/ywang88888 for more information about his other works, including Love and Power, also available to readers.