In post-Cultural Revolution China, educational opportunities are hard to come by and Da Chen knows it. That's why, despite his fierce pride and loyalty to his rural Fujian Provincial roots, he's boarding a slow train to the Beijing Languages and Culture University. "Sounds of the River," the second of Da Chen's memoir trilogy picks up where his best-selling "Colours of the Mountain" left off, at the beginning of his Beijing University days.

Full of optimism and Yellow Stone naivete, Da Chen finds a cold Beijing welcome in his snobbish classmates and mocking professors.

"'Who taught you spoken English?'
'Professor Wei,' I said proudly.
'Who?'
'A dear friend from Yellow Stone.'
'No wonder.'
'She is a wonderful teacher,' I defended.
'I am sure she is. But the more she taught you, the more trouble we will have here.'
'Why is that?'
'It will take longer to unlearn what you have learned.'

I thought of the privelage that Professor Wei had bestowed on me. She had gotten me out of that dark hole, and the insult this hotshot was aiming at my idol was intolerable. Did she have any idea about anything beyond the pampered walls of this school? Did anyone have any idea? Try plowing the cornfield. Try carrying manure. My mind rattled on as if those chores were my only glory. What was amazing was that I used to despise everything that Yellow Stone stood for and couldn't wait to get out of that stinking hole. But now I was proud of it because a bunch of city folks had laughed at me. It turned me into an instant defender of everything I had left behind."

"My bundle of flash cards filled my schoolbag. There was not enough time ina day for me to regurgitate what I had learned. Only in the waning hours of the day, in the eerily quiet night, would I chew over the learned words of the day, relishing the real taste of pretty words and beautiful phrases such as nostalgia, willow bay, nip and tuck, nape of a neck, and tiptoe. But my favorite of all favorites was the phrase the whitee silence, London's coinage for Alaska. I often lost myself imagining that vast, snow-covered land across the mysterious Bering Strait."