Meet William N. Brown – a Tennessee-born academic who’s become as much a part of Xiamen as its iconic Gulangyu Island 🏝️. For nearly four decades, this Xiamen University professor has called China home, riding the wave of the country’s reform and opening-up while collecting enough warm memories to fill a bestseller 📖.
'I’m just a Xiamen native from far away,' Brown jokes, his Southern US drawl now layered with Fujianese inflections. From mastering local tea ceremonies 🍵 to decoding Minnan dialect slang, he’s gone full ‘when in Rome’ – if Rome had delicious oyster omelets and 24/7 street food markets 🥡.
What keeps him hooked? Brown points to Xiamen’s blend of maritime heritage and modern hustle: 'It’s like watching history and innovation dance together – sometimes awkwardly, but always passionately.' His secret to cultural immersion? 'Treat every misunderstanding as a inside joke waiting to happen.' 😄
