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How a crazy monk led me to enlightenment

China's four classic novels - A Dream of Red Mansions, Journey to the West, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Outlaws of the Marsh - are mandatory reading for any expat who wants to get a better handle on the mysteries to the Middle Kingdom.

They offer more insight into the Chinese psyche than any guidebook can ever reveal. But be warned. Each novel is about 1,500 pages. In between working, learning Chinese, traveling and being distracted by the million other curiosities here, it took me more than a year to nearly read them all.

Journey to the West is one of the funniest books I have ever read and is a marvelous mix of folklore, religion and anti-bureaucratic satire.

A Dream of Red Mansions is a Romeo and Juliet-style tragedy set in the declining years of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Think of Desperate Housewives and Entourage with Chinese characteristics.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms reminds me a lot of Lord of the Rings - poems scattered between narrative and lots of amazing characters. One king rides into battle on a red ox wearing a little bit of rhino armor and not much else.

My favorite is Outlaws of the Marsh, which tells the story of warts-and-all heroes who fight for the people's rights against the corrupted Song government.

There is Yang Zhi the Blue-faced Beast, Ruan Xiao Wu the Reckless Rash, and Xuan Zan the Ugly Son-In-Law. Wu the Elder is called Three Inches of Mulberry Bark, because he's short and ugly, and there's a guy called Dried Pecker Head who is no Brad Pitt look-alike.