Cards

Phone books In China are like our Yellow Page. They do not list people’s home phones.  Academics and business people carry small two-sided cards with their names, titles, and contact information.  Typically, one sides is in Chinese and the other is English—the international language.  I carry cards, too. A visiting Chinese scholar helped me with a translation.

In China, people are very conscious of rank, and it’s a very big deal that I’ve been promoted to full professor.  Back home, it doesn’t make quite as much difference .