Welcome to Author Dori Jones Yang! Last month I read and reviewed her book Daughter of Xanadu. Today I'm thrilled to be taking part in a blog tour for her book.
A former foreign correspondent, I aim to build bridges between cultures, especially between China and America. My new book, Daughter of Xanadu, reveals my greatest passions: to explore exotic locales, celebrate strong women, seek wisdom, and make history come alive.
Daughter of a bookseller, I grew up in Youngstown, Ohio. My childhood was spent reading like crazy and writing stories. In high school, I fell in love with foreign travel, starting with a summer in France.
My father suggested a career in journalism. My first job was a summer internship with my hometown newspaper, where I wrote obituaries! At Princeton, I majored in history but spent most of my waking hours at the college newspaper.
After graduation, I went to Singapore for two years to teach English and study Mandarin Chinese. I traveled all over Asia on a shoestring and returned home through Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, six months before the Shah fell. My next step was a master’s at Johns Hopkins in international affairs, with a focus on China.
The most exciting move of my journalism career was the day Business Week sent me to Hong Kong to be a foreign correspondent. I loved that job for eight years, covering the Sino-British negotiations over Hong Kong’s future and the Tiananmen Square crisis in Beijing. During these years, I met and married Paul Yang. Our three children are Steve, Serena, and Emily.
Since 1990, I have lived near Seattle. I covered Boeing and other Northwest companies for Business Week and later worked for U.S. News & World Report covering Microsoft, Silicon Valley, and the dot-com boom.
In 1995, I began writing books: business, children’s, young adult, oral history. You can read about these books on this website. Daughter of Xanadu tells a story of cross-cultural romance: something I know about personally!
Learning languages brings me joy: I speak Mandarin Chinese and also studied French, Cantonese, Japanese, and Malay. Playing music also makes me happy: piano, violin, cello, and the Chinese zither, called the guzheng. I have traveled widely, including many parts of China, Mongolia and the Silk Road.
Interview:
If you could travel in a Time Machine would you go back to the past or into the future?
Oh, the past, for sure! I would travel straight to Xanadu, with its marble palace and meandering gardens, and I would stand very quietly in the background while Marco Polo bowed before Khubilai Khan. I would soak up every detail about clothing, food, music, customs, flowers, trees, brooks, meadows. Then I’d fly back to the present and scribble down everything I could remember.
If you could invite any 5 people to dinner who would you choose?
Hmm, they’d all be authors, that’s for sure. I’d start with Amy Tan, Lisa See, Tracy Chevalier, Susan Vreeland, and Margaret George. Wouldn’t that be some dinner conversation!
If you were stranded on a desert island what 3 things would you want with you?
A tablet, a pen, and a pair of fuzzy socks.
If you could have any superpower what would you choose?
I’d choose to underst
4 Comments on Blog Tour: Author Interview & Book Giveaway: Daughter of Xanadu by Dori Jones Yang, last added: 1/14/2011
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I've seen this around but never looked into it. I read the description and this looks dang good! I've been vowing to read more historical fiction, too, so this'd be perfect! Thanks so much for the contest!
Thank you for the interview. I must say, I wish I can speak all languages in the world. How cool is that? I went to Beijing a few years back and it's a great place with loads of delicious food. but I never found that stinky tofu!
Thank you so much for the interview! I love learning languages myself. Although, I am only fluent in two. In the process of learning two more so hopefully I can be as amzing in languages as she is. Thank you once again!
Thanks for the giveaway and this opportunity to enter.