上周五，南加州大学美中学院举行了一场“中国特色 - 概述在一個快速變化的大地上快速改變的生活”研讨会。

　　研讨会由美中学院诙谐幽默和谈笑风生的杜克雷院长主持。他首先表示了对与会者热情地欢迎，并向大家介绍了出席会议的嘉宾和演讲者。美国华裔教授专家网姜镇英教授、骆思典教授、许明芳教授、王纪成博士、和博士研究生朱颂宇、王维等也参加了本次研讨会。

左起：姜镇英教授, Dr. Jeff Wasserstrom（UCI）, 骆思典教授（USC）,  杜克雷院长（US-China Institute）& 王纪成博士

　　研讨会上，加州大学尔湾分校Jeff Wasserstrom 教授、聖約瑟夫大學James Carter Angilee Shah教授、和Angilee Shah等分别就他们汇集十多位著名学者、专家和记者对中国研究的新书作了介绍。

　　研讨会的提问讨论和互动交流十分热烈。南加州大学教授Stanley Rosen（骆思典）、美国国家肿瘤研究中心研究员王纪成博士等先后提出了自己的看法和评论。部分专家学者也阐述了不同的理念和建设性的意见。会议自始至终是在专业和友好的气氛中进行的。会后，主持方招待了茶点供专家和学者们作了进一步的沟通和了解。

Chinese Characters - The Profiles of Fast-Changing Lives in a Fast-Changing Land

Joining editors Angilee Shah and Jeffrey Wasserstrom and contributor James Carter for a discussion, followed by a reception.

An artist paints landscapes of faraway places that she cannot identify in order to find her place in the global economy. A migrant worker sorts recyclables and thinks deeply about the soul of his country, while a Taoist mystic struggles to keep his traditions alive. An entrepreneur capitalizes on a growing car culture by trying to convince people not to buy cars. And a 90-year-old woman remembers how the oldest neighborhoods of her city used to be. These are the exciting and saddening, humorous and confusing stories of utterly ordinary people who are living through China's extraordinary transformations. The immense variety in the lives of these Chinese characters hints at China's great diversity.

Chinese Characters is a collection of portraits by some of the top people working on China today. Contributors include a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, a Macarthur Fellow, the China correspondent for a major Indian newspaper, and scholars. Their depth of understanding is matched only by the humanity with which they treat their subjects. Their stories together create a multi-faceted portrait of a country in motion. This volume contains some of the best writing on China today.

Contributors include：Alec Ash, James Carter, Leslie T. Chang, Xujun Eberlein, Harriet Evans, Anna Greenspan, Peter Hessler, Ian Johnson, Ananth Krishnan, Christina Larson, Michelle Dammon Loyalka, James Millward, Evan Osnos, Jeffrey Prescott, Megan Shank, with cover photos by Howard French

Click here for advance reviews.

Angilee Shah is a freelance journalist and editor in Los Angeles. She has reported from across Asia, including China, Thailand, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka, and was a South Asian Journalists Association Reporting Fellow in 2007-8. She is a former editor of the online magazine AsiaMedia and a consulting editor to the Journal of Asian Studies. Her writing has appeared in the Far Eastern Economic Review, Mother Jones Online, Pacific Standard, the LA Weekly, TimeOut Singapore, and Global Voices. She is the co-editor of Chinese Characters：Profiles of Fast-Changing Lives in a Fast-Changing Land（UC Press, 2012）.

Jeffrey Wasserstrom is the author of four books on China and the editor or co-editor of several more, including most recently Chinese Characters：Profiles of Fast-Changing Lives in a Fast-Changing Land, which contains chapters by both fellow academics and such acclaimed journalists as Peter Hessler, Leslie T. Chang, Evan Osnos, and Ian Johnson. Wasserstrom is a Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine and the Editor of the Journal of Asian Studies. He is also the Asia editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, an Associate Fellow of the Asia Society, and a co-founder of the "China Beat" blog.

James Carter is Professor of History at Saint Joseph's University. He has lived and traveled widely in China, is the author of a history of Harbin and of Heart of China, Heart of Buddha：The Life of Tanxu, a Twentieth Century Monk（Oxford 2010）, and is the editor of the journal Twentieth-Century China. He is a past president of the Historical Society for 20th-Century China and a Public Intellectuals Program fellow of the National Committee on United States-China Relations.