A Tale of Two Cities/双城故事

presents the stories of Tianwa, a Chinese national living and working in Germany, and Rabea Maria Glotz, a German who has long resided in China. With candor, humor, nuance, objectivity, and openness, they share their encounters with cultural differences across a wide range of domains-marriage, friendship, society, education, interpersonal relations, and even the universal experiences of birth, aging, illness, and death-offering readers valuable insights that foster mutual understanding.

Though human experiences are infinitely diverse, they are woven together by common threads. In venturing into the unfamiliar terrain of another culture, misunderstandings can spark new discoveries, and the strange can gradually become familiar. Culture not only shapes how we perceive the world but also how we perceive ourselves.

In an era where global mobility is commonplace and cross-cultural interaction has become part of everyday life, this book is more than a collection of stories about cultural differences-it is a meditation on identity, belonging, and the human capacity for adaptation and connection. Whether or not we have personally experienced cross-cultural encounters, this book opens a window onto an experience that is at once deeply personal and increasingly universal in our interconnected world. Above all, it offers us a renewed appreciation for the richness of culture and the resilience of the human spirit.

在德国工作、生活的中国人天娃和长居中国的德国人李碧雅（Rabea Maria Glotz） 分别讲述她们在德国和中国碰到的因中西方文化差异产生的故事，她们以坦诚、 幽默、细腻、客观和开放的态度，谈及婚姻、友情、社会、教育、人际交往和生 老病死等多方面的差异，帮助我们增进彼此了解。 人类的经历虽多种多样，但都由一些共同的线索相连。 深入未知文化的世界，误解可以产生新的发现，陌生可以变得熟悉。 文化不仅塑造了我们看待世界的方式，也塑造了我们看待自己的方式。 在一个全球流动司空见惯、跨文化交流成为日常生活一部分的时代，这本书不仅 包括一个个关于文化差异的故事，更是对身份认同、归属感以及人类适应和建立 联系能力的思考。 无论我们是否有过中外跨文化交流经历，这本书都会为我们打开一扇窗，看到一 种既非常个人化的，又在如今这个互联互通的世界中日益普遍的经历。无论如何， 我们都会对文化的复杂性和人类精神的韧性有新的认识。