Maghiel van Crevel is professor of Chinese language and literature at Leiden University. A specialist of contemporary poetry, he has published a dozen books in English, Dutch, and Chinese, including scholarly monographs and edited volumes, literary translations, and language textbooks.Lin Chin-hui is lecturer in Mandarin at the University of Göttingen.

• PrefaceUser's guideAbbreviations of grammatical termsLesson 1 Paint feet on a snakeLesson 2 View flowers from horsebackLesson 3 Community first, self secondLesson 4 Three at dawn, four at duskLesson 5 Losing a horse might just be a lucky thingLesson 6 The fox that borrows the tiger's mightLesson 7 The man from Qi who worried about the skyLesson 8 Pretend to play the yu to make up the numbersLesson 9 A frog at the bottom of a wellLesson 10 Self-contradictionLesson 11 Amaze the world with a single cryLesson 12 Bright kids don't always make brilliant grown-upsVocabulary indexGrammar index