Born in South China before 1949 brought up and educated in Southeast Asia and Australia and having worked in Southeast Asia Australia and Hong Kong Professor Yen has a unique personal experience in telling the fascinating stories of the encounter and clashes of cultural and social values between East and West. Imbued with many traditional Chinese cultural values such as diligence perseverance resilience and determination in this book he tells his life story of how he was determined to climb the pinnacle of scholarship. As an ethnic minority in Australian society he devoted himself to fight for the interests of the the Chinese diaspora and help promote multiculturalism in Australia.This book also provides firsthand source materials for the study of intellectuals from the Chinese diaspora studying and working in a Western university through his eyes his initial problem of adjusting to a new western environment his experience of cultural dislocation the clashes of cultural values and social mores his experience of racial discrimination and his pursuit of academic excellence.