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Joseph Rock was born in Vienna in 1884 to servants of a nobleman. From a young age he was insatiably curious about the world, teaching himself Chinese by using books from his father's employer's library. Even though his father intended for him to join the clergy, upon graduating from school in 1905 he signed on as a steward on a ship bound for New York. Arriving in America with no possessions, he sold his steward's uniform and began supporting himself by working various odd jobs. Suffering from Tuberculosis he decided to leave the North East for warmer climates, and wound his way to Hawaii by 1907. Despite never having attended college, in Hawaii he assumed the title of Dr. Rock and was able to teach himself the science of botany quickly enough to become the first Botanical Collector in the US Division of Forestry in the Territory of Hawaii, and ultimately a professor at the College of Hawaii (now the University of Hawaii). He was naturalized as an American Citizen in 1913.

It was in his role as botanist that he was first contracted to go to China in 1922 by the US government, and it was in China where he would stay for the better part of the next twenty-seven years. He established his base of operations in the remote Yunan Province, from which he conducted expeditions to study the geography and flora of the area, which was at the time little known to western nations. Rock also was fascinated with the culture and religion of the local Naxi people and devoted decades to creating the only existing dictionary of their pictographic language.