Dear Colleagues, While I am writing email to the group, I would also like to note that the high-risk (if I may say so) conference on Middle Period China just finished at Harvard was a huge success. I would like to thank not just Pat Ebrey and Peter Bol (and Nathan Vedal for his hard work as the facilitators’ facilitator) for organizing it but also to all of our colleagues who served as “facilitators” at the events and to our colleagues and graduate students who contributed so much to the conversation. Yours truly, Michael