24 January 2004 - 16:44
Chinese New Year
The pigeons were absent this year. Perhaps they were down with flu? It made the grounds outside the temple quieter, for no longer were there screams of chasing kids, eager with exerting all their forms of childish domination. Seems that was the theme of the past twelve months. Taught by parental greed, these same children drool at the living room blackjack table.
But waiting with patient desperation outside the gates of the palace, just as his father waited for his turn at power, is the ultimate white horse, naked but for the sunglasses protecting his irises from the unrelenting day, never likely to receive his grandfather's red packet.
Otherwise we have never seen before a white man in the forbidden city, but imagine a Jesuit monk standing in the sacred emperor's court, teaching the counting of days and moons and eclipses and stars.
Yet they could never invent a Chinese spelling bee, for that would be true lunacy.
