A Trip to China was first published in 1996 and has been adopted by many institutions.In the process of using this book, we discovered a few errors and a few insufficientexplanations, which we have now taken the opportunity to correct in this revised edition.Moreover, we have written five new lessons to replace old lessons whose content isalready partly inconsistent with the circumstances in China today. These additions resultin the book better reflecting the situation of contemporary China.

The main focus of this revision has been rearranging and reformatting the layout of thebook. In the old edition, "Text" and "Vocabulary, Grammar Notes & Exercises" weredivided into two volumes, while in the new edition they are combined into one.Furthermore, the revised edition juxtaposes the simplified character text and vocabularywords on adjacent pages and includes the traditional character text at the end of eachlesson. This change makes it much more convenient for students to prepare the lesson,while at the same time it reflects the growing trend of using simplified characters ininternational Chinese language education.

Although we have actually increased the number of vocabulary words and examplesentences in the revised edition, due to changes in formatting and font size, this editionhas fewer pages than the last, making the book easier to flip through and carry.

Ms. Chen Gao undertook the revision of this book. In addition to writing the vocabularylists, model sentences, and exercises for the five new lessons, she also coordinated thesupplementation of vocabulary words and example sentences throughout the entire text.Ms. Cara Healey proofread the entire English portion of the manuscript and also providedmany valuable suggestions. To her we extend our sincere thanks. Of course, any errorsin the final manuscript are the authors' own.

Chih-p'ing ChouDer-lin ChaoChen GaoMay 10, 2011