David Hawkes was a person who studied China and its culture. He liked to read old stories and poems that were written a long time ago in China. He also helped other people understand these stories and poems by translating them into English. This means he used his special skills to turn the words from Chinese into English so that people who didn't know Chinese could understand them too. He was really good at this and people all over the world use his translations to learn about China's culture.