Beck was born in 1962 and grew up in Chicago, Illinois. He was working as a computer scientist in Brazil in 1992, when he got a job offer and decided to move to Hong Kong. In 1995, he moved to Shanghai with his wife, a Chinese Malaysian.

In 2013, he and Sun, a passionate story-teller with a master's degree in English literature from Fudan University, decided to start a part-time job, and work on some books that tell cultural stories. They named it China Simplified, and a friend came up with a slogan for the new project, "Untangling the Noodles", inspired by Beck's favorite Chinese food as a child back home in Chicago.

Beck decided that the best way was to first create a website and test his ideas and articles, get feedback and refine his thinking. "I think that's the best way to do it," Beck says.

Their work started with heated discussions. Beck and his Chinese co-authors, Sun on the history book, Lu Haiyan on Language Empowerment and Yang on the illustrations, would argue about what Western audiences might be interested in, and what were too important to miss. If they believed the story was best presented in pictures, they would leave out the verbal description.

It was difficult to reach agreement. It was only after "fierce battles" that they picked the stories and figures to be presented in the book. Sometimes what Sun thought interesting did not spark any light of interest in Beck, and a lot of names and facts had to be eliminated in order not to confuse their readers.

They took their time, worked on the stories and eventually accumulated plenty of good content to make the books.

In this age of social distancing, quarantine and isolation, a series of books to keep us connected seems to be the perfect companion, according to Beck and Sun, who are both confined to their homes in Malaysia and Shanghai respectively.

zhangkun@chinadaily.com.cn