In my father's generation there was a scholar of Mongolian on the oriental faculty of LeningradUniversity who suggested that I do research on oriental literature. He told me to start with Chinese culture because, if I wanted to understandMongolia, Central Asia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and a number of other cultures, I would first have to know about the Chinese culture which had such a powerful influence on all of them.
我的父執輩中有位列寧格勒大學東方系畢業的蒙文學者，他建議我研究東方文學，並告訴我由中國文化著手，因為若要瞭解蒙古、中亞、日本、韓國、越南等地的文化，首先要知道對這些地區有很大影響的中華文化。