Frank Ching brings to life 900 years of Chinese history through his own fascinating family tree. Beginning with his search for the grave of his first-recorded ancestor, the 11th-century poet Qin Guan, and ending with a moving account of his relationship with his father, a victim of China's historic upheaval, Frank Ching introduces a colorful cast of characters. His unbroken family line includes—among many others—a lovelorn concubine, a traitor, a military hero, an imperial ghost-writer, a minister of punishments, and a woman noted for her skills in both verse and martial arts. There is scarcely an aspect of Chinese life, from shamanism to violent rebellion, that Ching doesn't touch upon in this fascinating work. Through his vivid and personal portraits of his ancestors, the history of China itself unfolds: from the days of the ancient empire to its radical transformation today.

Frank Ching is a journalist and writer who has reported and commented on events in Asia, particularly China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, for many years. He worked for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Far Eastern Economic Review.

He opened The Wall Street Journal’s bureau in China in 1979, after the normalization of U.S.-China relations, thus becoming one of the first four American newspaper reporters to be based in Beijing since 1949.

His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, World Policy Journal, China Quarterly, Current History, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications.

Currently, he appears weekly in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan. He also has a monthly column in The Diplomat.

He also teaches Chinese foreign relations in the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

He is the author of “ANCESTORS: 900 Years in the Life of a Chinese Family,” (Morrow, N.Y. 1988 and Rider 2009). Using his own family as a vehicle, he presented a history of China from the Sung dynasty to the present. He is also the author of “Hong Kong and China: For Better or For Worse,” published jointly by the Asia Society and the Foreign Policy Association in New York and “The Li Dynasty: Hong Kong Aristocrats,” published by Oxford University Press.