Trained in both Chinese and Southeast Asian history, he has written on such topics as Chinese settlers in seventeenth and eighteenth century Vietnam and the emergence of the concept of nation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Vietnam. He is the author of the book Beyond the Bronze Pillars, Envoy Poetry and the Sino-Vietnamese Relationship, from which most of his translations on MountainSongs come.The photo of Liam is at Hai Van Pass, between Hue and Danang in Vietnam.