City of China : In Red Embroidered Shoes Sipping the Essence of Suzhou

During the 2012 London Book Fair (LBF) , set to open at London's Earls Court on April 16, the English version of the book "In Red Embroidered Shoes: Sipping the Essence of Suzhou" will be presented to an international audience and have readers enjoy the past and present essence of Jiangsu province's water cities.

As China has just begun to fully engage with the world, western readers would like to know more about China and Chinese culture from a local perspective.

To allow world audiences to take a closer look at China's second-tier cities, Foreign Languages Press (FLP) cooperated closely with local governments and assigned several foreign authors to visit the cities and write a series of books about them in English.

David Ferguson, an author and editor with FLP, explained to China.org.cn the concept of writing about Chinese cities. His first book about Chinese cities was about Nantong (a city twice the size of the country he came from and practically unknown to the West).

"There are a large number of second tier cities in China which are very big and have very interesting stories to tell," he said, "but they are almost unknown to the West."

He thinks it will be a great opportunity for these wonderful cities to promote themselves on an international stage..

"With China being the 2012 Market Focus, there will be audiences specifically checking out the Chinese publishing industry. It will be a great opportunity for FLP to show its publishing workings to a more international audience."

He looked into Suzhou, an ancient city of China, with his unique perspective and developed it into a book. In his perspective, Suzhou is more than a tourist destination and is very important to Jiangsu's overall economy.

"It's more than a tourist destination." Ferguson said. "It's a prosperous place with a high GDP and industrial output, plus a motivated and high-tech industry. These aspects are also being discussed in the book."