Donald Mainfort is a writer, photographer, and longtime observer of Chinese culture. He first traveled to China in 1992 and spent nearly five years living and teaching there during a period of rapid social, economic, and cultural change. These experiences became the foundation for Waving My Hands in the Clouds: A Memoir of 1990s China.

Rather than approaching China as a distant observer, Mainfort became immersed in everyday life—forming lasting friendships, studying taijiquan, photographing ordinary and extraordinary moments, and documenting encounters with university students, scholars, skeptics, and practitioners of traditional arts. His memoir combines personal narrative, photography, and historical observation to portray China as it was experienced by those living through a remarkable period of transformation.

He does not consider himself a writer so much as "a witness who happened to write."

In addition to his memoir, Mainfort produced the four-part video series Taijiquan at West Lake and has authored articles for martial arts journals. His work on Chinese medicine, qigong, and pseudoscience has also appeared in Skeptical Inquirer and Skeptic. Throughout his writing, he has sought to examine extraordinary claims while preserving the humanity of the people behind them.

Today, he lives in Bradenton, Florida, where he continues to write, photograph wildlife, enjoy the sport of horseshoe pitching, and explore the unexpected connections between people, history, and ideas.

More than an expatriate memoir, Waving My Hands in the Clouds chronicles the intersection of ordinary lives with extraordinary historical change, showing how history often unfolds not only through famous figures, but through the experiences of those who simply happened to be there.