The Four Seasons of Rascal

This the story of a Westerner who didn’t just visit China — he lived inside it. For nearly two decades, Todd Cornell built a life in Harbin, Beijing, Taiwan, and beyond, navigating language, culture, and belonging in ways outsiders seldom attempt.

And through all of it, there was Rascal: a West Siberian Laika purchased at a Harbin street market for a handful of yuan — small enough to fit in one hand — and large enough to change lives.

Told through the four seasons of a life — 春夏秋冬 — this memoir follows one man and his dog in China, and across the American West.

This is a book about cultural immersion, about what it means to truly belong somewhere foreign, about love expressed without a shared language, and about the particular grief of loving an animal across a lifetime.

No expat memoir has told this story from the inside. Not through a dog. Not with this depth.