Yes, I wrote my first business letter in Chinese, after months of extensive study and gruelling nights spent learning characters. By candlelight.

This would make a good April Fool’s Day post. No, I’ll be lucky if I can say a few polite words when I go to China next month, and I’m light years from writing anything but my Chinese name. But I have indeed signed and sent my first letter in Chinese, thanks to Guanxi associate editor Liz Steffey and our friend Frank YU in Beijing. I think it’s beautiful and can’t resist sharing it here. This accompanied a copy of the Libraries We Love, which we mailed to someone we met in Beijing and Frankfurt who is at the agency charged with developing China’s public library system.