President lauds expat professor in Xiamen

William N. Brown, a United States professor at Xiamen University, Fujian province, was taken by surprise when he received a letter from President Xi Jinping ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year.

The letter came after Brown, who began teaching within the university's MBA program in 1989, delivered his newly-published book Off the Wall: How We Fell for China and a letter to Xi days ago.

The book, consisting of 47 private letters that Brown wrote to his family and friends in the US over the past three decades, records and displays China's changes amid the historic campaign of the country's reform and opening-up process from a perspective of a US expat living and working in China.