The man who can answer any question on China you might have, and why 'Have you looked in Wilkinson?' will remain the common response to a Chinese historical query

To dip into the book is to be drawn into the Chinese world, with one inquiry often leading to another, until hours have gone by, much like a teenager following links and suggestions on Instagram. To wonder what Wilkinson has to say on the topic of whether is really a picture of a pig under a roof as commonly claimed is to risk being drawn into a discussion of the impact of wrong characters and misprints, errors in the classics, the fact that there are 30 characters for pigs, and the sounds of ancient Chinese cities at night, in which porcine grunting was only part of a bedlam described in detail. "I'm rather pleased with that one," says Wilkinson, "Because it's not something that people have addressed. The history of sound and how that changed - why is that not germane to a deeper understanding of the past? Why on earth are Chinese poems full of the beauties of the silence of the night? It didn't exist." It leads to all sorts of questions, he points out, such as, "When did Chinese food culture become what we would recognise as being Chinese? If you had a Song dynasty lunch or dinner would you have called it Chinese food as we understand Chinese food today?". Nor does he hold back on correcting the errors of others, such as one historian who claimed that Chinese armies were marching in step 2,000 years ago. A box explains that the error is the result of a mistranslation, and that Chinese armies did not march in step until the late 19th century, which leads to further discussion of the speed of Chinese armies compared to those of Alexander the Great and the Romans. The common response to any Chinese historical query will remain, "Have you looked in Wilkinson?".