a very personal story. [this ‘language biography’ is written by a younger academic who teaches in a well-known mainland chinese university, who grew up in a time of great difficulty and change, in which he often felt caught between ideologies, cultures, languages, and literatures, in the course of which however english became a deeply personal possession. in order to retain the authentic voice of the text, editorial ‘smoothing out’ has been kept to a minimum. – editor.]