I read this as a sort of introductory guide to the Chinese language, which sounds like it would be both fun and impossibly difficult for me to learn. Also includes some history of the Chinese language, and recent efforts to reform it, from the perspective of an author writing in 1984. It would have been nice to have had an updated epilogue that outlined subsequent developments in Chinese language reform. The introductory essay "The Singlish Affair" was also entertaining.