How boredom made a best-seller

In 2007, Liao Shinchung arrived in Shanghai to take up a job, but he became unemployed a year later as a result of the global economic crisis.

To stave off boredom, Liao began writing recollections of his childhood in Taiwan and posting them on Tianya, one of the mainland's biggest Internet forums. To Liao's surprise, his stories about his experiences in Taiwan and in the mainland gained a huge following among mainland netizens.

Describing his first trip to Beijing in 1999, he wrote: "The cabin door opened, and I heard the ground crew talking with strong Beijing accents. I understood every word they said, but their Chinese was so different from ours ... I will never forget the shock ... On my way to Peking University, I was also shocked. My God! Beijing actually has roads that are wide and straight. The city has so many tall buildings."