Pearl Lam (林明珠) meets Charles Li, linguist and author, for a conversation shaped by history, culture, and lived experience. Their discussion traces modern China’s political and cultural transformations, while reflecting on how enduring figures such as Lord Guan and Confucius continue to influence values in a globalised world.
Charles Li is a Chinese-American linguist known for his work on Mandarin Chinese grammar and linguistic typology. A former professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he co-authored Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. His research on topic-comment structures has influenced modern cross-linguistic studies worldwide.
