synopsis of
When Dining with Tigers
(ISBN 0 9585805 2 9)
(published by Indra Publishing 2000)

When Dining with Tigers centres on a young English teacher, Moby, who is sent from Beijing by the Chinese government in the mid-80s on a one-year scholarship to Sydney to study how English is taught as a second language in Australia. He billets at the home of retired journalist, Wilson. Through Wilson, he soon gets to know the neighbours, the Lams and the Hunters. He becomes involved in street demonstrations protesting against the Australia card. After his sojourn in Sydney ends, he returns to Beijing, to his wife, Zhenzhu and son, his parents and brother, Lanjing. Wilson visits him and together they are caught up in the Tiananmen demonstrations.

Interwoven into Moby's adventures and misadventures in Sydney and Beijing are analysis and commentary provided by the 16th century Chinese scholar and writer, Wu Cheng-en and the heroes of his epic novel Journey to the West—the Tang priest, Tripitaka, Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy. Scholar Wu, who narrates the story of When Dining with Tigers, and his four friends use classical Chinese folk tales, myths and legends and Chinese philosophy to illustrate moral principles and cultural behaviours which are challenged by the circumstances in which Moby and Wilson find themselves. The five friends, sitting in Scholar Wu's pavilion in the middle of a lake somewhere in heaven, conduct lively discussions about the merits of how Moby, Wilson and the people among whom they live and work in Sydney and Beijing live out their roles in life.