Guo Xiaolu's novel is written from the perspective of a young Chinese woman who goes to London to study English. She knows nothing about life in Europe; her ideas about the West are a bizarre mixture of fragmentary facts from the school curriculum and Hollywood clichés. Therefore, from the very first day, life in London becomes for her an understanding of a new, alien world, where everything is different: food, grammar, and relationships between people. Love comes to her aid. She seems to find her happiness, her future, her “home” in a handsome, lonely middle-aged Englishman. But her lover is a very difficult person. He has his own, long-established system of values, in which many things contradict the worldview of young Zhuang. And here’s the paradox: the better lovers get to know each other, the higher the wall of misunderstanding grows between them... Language is another main character of this book. Wading through the thorns of English grammar, Zhuang comprehends Western culture and way of life, the picture of the world of Western man.