In the 1990s, legal studies in Germany were quite conservative. Law student Bjoern Ahl sometimes felt like an outsider in this world. He had a keen interest in China and Chinese law, a subject that few around him shared. „Back then, when I tried to discuss Chinese law with the professors at my university in Heidelberg, they didn’t take it seriously at all,“ he recalls. „For them, the law was primarily German law.“ Ahl had a different perspective. He believed that understanding Chinese law was a crucial element in comprehending China.