Set on the eve of the Sino-Japanese war, this work recounts the exuberant misadventures of the hapless hero Fang Hung-chien, who after aimlessly studying in Europe at his family's expense returns to Shanghai armed with a bogus degree from a fake university. On the liner back, Fang's life becomes deeply entangled with those of two Chinese beauties.
Qian Zhongshu (1910-1998) was a novelist, poet, man of letters and one of China's most outstanding scholars and was seen by many in his country as the last link in an unbroken chain of geniuses stretching back to Confucius.
