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���ۣ�is a member of the Chinese Writers' Association and a renowned scholar of Han River culture.Like many urban educated youth in the 1960-70s, Wang Xiong was sent to work in the countryside for a couple of years before he was employed as a train driver. He served successively as head of the Communications Department of the CPC Committee of Zhengzhou Railway Bureau,deputy head of the Communications Department of the Political Department of the former Ministry of Railways,deputy head of the Communications Department of China Railway Corporation, and Party secretary and president of People's Railway Daily. He is currently chairman of the Chinese Railway Writers' Association and adjunct profes-sor at Southwest Jiaotong University. Wang Xiong began writing literary works in 1989. His output includes short stories, essays, reportage and academic works. Several of his short stories have been reprinted in noted magazines such as Selected Stories. His best known stories include Yin/Yang Monument, The Time-honored Patina, and The fingui Silver Chamber, which are known collectively as \"Han River Culture Trilogy.\" The Time-honored Patina won first prize in the Eighth Annual Chinese Railways Literature Awards, and its English version was published and dis-tributed by Foreign Languages Press within and beyond China. His long reportage work China Speed: Development of China's High-speed Rail was published by Foreign Lan-guages Press in eight languages, namely Chinese, English,French, German, Russian, Japanese, Spanish and Arabic.