Book excerpt: A. C. Scott's first visit to China in 1946 marked the beginning of a personal involvement with that nation's people and culture that would prove singular in its intensity, intimacy, and joy. Now, more than three decades later, an eminent Western authority on Asian theatre looks back on those early years of discovery in a memoir that is at once compelling drama and vividly etched history. This is an explorer's impressions of a world which few foreigners have ever seen and a scholar's unique depiction of pre-liberation China, its society, customs, and theatre, before the final curtain fell. For anyone interested in Chinese culture, history, or drama, or intrigued by the increasingly rare genre of travelogue, Scott's achievement will prove both enjoyable and invaluable.