Doll adds the city's foreigners are more engaged with local culture than others living in megalopolises, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

He recalls attending a Nanjing bar open mic night at which a young foreign woman, who spoke fluent Mandarin, performed erhu (two-stringed bowed instrument) and displayed exceptional skill at Chinese calligraphy.

The next week, he traveled to a Shanghai bar's open mic night, where "the foreigners could only speak a handful of Chinese words and it was like you picked up a handful of people from Portland, Oregon, and airlifted them to China."

The linguistic appeal of expat life in Nanjing was a great lure to his job. Editorial meetings are conducted in Mandarin and 60 percent of MAP's readership is Chinese.

The American started learning Chinese in 2005 at Middlebury College in Vermont, where he took a nine-week pledge to speak only Mandarin under penalty of expulsion.

But Doll didn't know a word of Chinese when he made his oath.

"When you don't speak the language, the language pledge is mostly about silence," he says. "I hated it because it was so hard but it's amazing what you learn."

After working in publishing in Seattle, he joined the Peace Corps in 2003, largely in the hope of coming to East Asia. He was delighted when he was assigned to Sichuan's provincial capital, Chengdu, but as the country was then gripped by SARS, he was instead sent to Romania for two years.

Soon after finishing his Eastern European stint, he pursued his fascination with China.

"I like Beijing and Shanghai, but I think that if you can experience living somewhere else, you should," Doll says. "Beijing is more aware of itself and documented by the media. I liked the idea of living somewhere less explored and self-conscious."

And, he says, he has never regretted his decision to dwell in Jiangsu's capital.

"Nanjing is possibly the most livable city in China," Doll says. "How lucky I feel to have had this experience."

(China Daily August 31, 2009)