Description: In a small Taiwanese seaside resort, a rotund, excitable high-school English teacher receives word that 300 U.S. soldiers are coming from Vietnam for a weekend of R & R. He persuades the owners of the Big 4 brothels that they will all take in more U.S. dollars if the pleasure girls can talk a little English; his plan is to train fifty specially selected disciples in a "Crash Course for Bar Girls".

In this fresh translation of a ribald satire, a village loses all sense of proportion amid the prospect of fleecing a shipload of lusty and lonely American soldiers.

The teacher, Dong Siwen (his name means "refinement") enlists the eager support of local Councilman Qian and the managers of such elite establishments as Night Fragrances and Valley of Joy. "If the girls learn how to say three things in English -- Hello, How are you? and Want to do you-know-what? -- everything is A-OK!" But what begins as a simple plan to teach a few English phrases quickly becomes absurdly elaborate: courses will include "Introduction to American Culture", a crash course on global etiquette, and Dr. "Venereal" Wang will teach a workshop in personal hygiene.

Siwen, a virgin who has never been with a prostitute himself, dreads any bad P.R. from "Saigon Rose" (slang for herpes) and so demands only the finest in conveniences and sanitary conditions for "servicing the Yanks". "Sanitation above all.... Do you think U.S. dollars will float out of their pockets in crummy rooms like that?" The Americans must not leave with a poor impression of Taiwan; the entire nation would lose face.

One of the most carefully wrought narratives in contemporary Chinese literature, Rose, Rose, I Love You will appeal not only toreaders of fiction but to those interested in Taiwanese identity in the shadow of greater China and the effects of Westernization on Asian society.

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