The streets of Shanghai rattled with revolutionary tremors as Chiang's armies came closer and closer. They entered Chekiang, his home province, and on February 17, 1927, took Hangchow and advanced to Kashing and Sungkiang. They were less than twenty-five miles from Shanghai.

Japanese anglophones—but not Chinese ones—often struggle with distinguishing /r/ and /l/.

[…] and further that a similar young local but dogless man should be sought out, against the day when the first local man should die, to take over and exploit, in the same way and on the same terms, the two surviving famished dogs thus left without a master, and without a home; […]

She held her grey felt hat in her hand, slapping the flat brim lightly against her leg as she walked, her tinted hair gleaming under the fluoros.