Karen Christensen, the publisher of Guanxi: The China Letter, explains:
Berkshire is a small independent publishing company with a special focus on global issues and interest in China. We work with experts and scholars to develop educational resources that have won many awards. Guanxi is our first monthly publication, and we are proud to be working on project that will contribute to greater understanding and improved partnerships between companies and individuals.
Our company’s focus on China goes back to 1998, when we began creating the six-volume, 2.2-million-word Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. Our goal in creating it was to present Asia "from an Asian point of view." To do this, we enlisted 700 contributors in sixty-five countries, an unusual feat for any publishing company. We continue to work with many of those experts, and some of them are contributing to Guanxi.
When we began working on the Encyclopedia of Modern Asia, we also began planning a trip to Asia with our son and daughter, who were then twelve and nine. We wanted them to experience Asia for themselves, and you can read about the trips we took and our experiences in China in the first issue of our quarterly magazine, the Berkshire Savant, which you can read by clicking here. We attended conferences, met scholars and publishers, and visited major cities as well as the distant western provinces. Our son Tom is now twenty and is studying Chinese at university. He has studied in Beijing and worked in a law office in Shanghai last summer. This year he plans to do a research project in Shanghai, interviewing young people who have moved to the city from rural China.
I am also happy to say that two of my environmental books have been published in Chinese. (You can see these books at www.armchairenvironmentalist.com/blog/.) In addition to my two previous trips to China, I have also attended a technology conference, China-America Networking 2002, and have a continued interest in technology development in China. This year, I will be visiting Shanghai in August before going to the Beijing International Book Fair and then to Guangzhou. We are distributing a series of design books for a publisher in Guangzhou and will be launching an English edition next year for the Chinese New Year.
Please write to me with your ideas for Guanxi and comments on our first issues. We need to know what you think, and especially welcome the suggestions (and contributions) of Chinese friends and colleagues around the world. A project like this is the work of a large and varied network, and we look forward to your becoming part of it.
Karen Christensen
karen@berkshirepublishing.com