Frederick O'Neill, an Irish Presbyterian missionary, lived for forty-five years in Faku, a small town in Manchuria, northeast China. From 1897 until his expulsion by the Japanese army in 1942, he witnessed and reported the extraordinary events that convulsed China - the Boxer Rebellion, the Great Manchurian Plague, the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. He also served with the China Labour Corps in France in World War One.

Born in Britain in 1950 and educated at New College, Oxford University, Mark O'Neill has worked in Asia since 1978, in Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, China and Japan, for BBC, Reuters, the South China Morning Post and other media. Since 2006, he has lived in Hong Kong. He has written three books, including Tzu Chi: Serving with Compassion. He lived Beijing and Shanghai for more than sixteen years, giving him the opportunity to visit Faku and collect the material for this book. Now he works as an author, journalist and teacher, based in Hong Kong. He speaks and writes Chinese but not with the learning and eloquence of Grandfather.