论英文方面的专家，一位是辜鸿铭，传言他曾故意在英国人面前倒拿报纸阅读；一位是外交家顾维钧，他曾在巴黎和会力争山东主权。
国内以英文写书的极少，林语堂算一个。林语堂曾在哈佛大学，做过北京大学英文系主任，写有《My Country and My People》（《吾国与吾民》）、《Moment in Peking》（《京华烟云》）等。
不知道flag能立多久，管他呢。
序言里，林语堂对可能的争议做了预判，并给出他的办法：用材料面对争议（assist with very convenient material anyone who wishes to hold opposite theses. ），他自信真理终将取得胜利（truth is truth and will overcome clever human opinions.）
林语堂不惮于表露自己的不苟于世俗（for their god is not my god, and their patriotism is not my patriotism. Perhaps I too love my own country, but I take care to conceal it before them, for one may wear the cloak of patriotism to tatters, and in these tatters be paraded through the city streets to death, in China or the rest of the world.）
这是对国家的一种伟大感情，直白地面对她，无羞耻心地直面她的种种，无须粉饰。洗白者渺小而已。（I am able to confess because, unlike these patriots, I am not ashamed of my country. And I can lay bare her troubles because I have not lost hope. China is bigger than her little patriots, and does not require their whitewashing. She will, as she always did, right herself again.）