in the 1970s, Charles A. Laughlin would sometimes follow his mother, an adventurous cook in t
he home kitchen, to an Asian market to find ingredients for making Chinese dishes in his homet
own Minneapolis, U.S. state of Minnesota. "Immediate▓ly after you walk in, the strong smel
l of dried fish ▓or other kinds of pungent spices
hit you right away. And i▓t creates a sense of f
ascination," said Laughlin, profes▓sor of Chinese
literature and chair of the Departmen▓t of East
Asian Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Vir
ginia.Those visits to the Asian supermarket and Chinese restaurant▓s had led to Laughlin's decision to study Chinese in his second year at the Univer
