Source: Taipei Times
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2007/05/01/2003359001
With her clear, rapid-fire lectures, Yu Dan (于丹) has become an instant television celebrity, hawking the moral teachings of a 2,500-year-old philosopher to an audience of millions in China.
Yesterday, Yu, a media expert and Beijing Normal University professor, released the Taiwanese version of her latest book -- a 200-page compilation of lectures she delivered on the Confucian Analects while appearing on China's Central Television last October.
The work has sold some 4 million copies in China, nearly double the number of JK Rowling's Harry Potter books, according to her Chinese publisher.
With her soaring popularity, she is regarded by many as the modern day incarnation of China's most respected philosopher, whose observations developed into a complex social system that dominated Chinese thought until the communist victory in 1949.
Lin Tsai-chueh (林載爵), the Taiwanese publisher of Yu's book, said her popularity across the strait reflected a "classics fever" in China that developed following the gradual dumping of orthodox Marxism in favor of laissez-fair capitalism in the 1980s and 1990s.