So, this morning we want to convey some truths blasted out in a profusion of “news.” The first is not on CNN or Fox. It is the pair of birthdays, one today and one tomorrow, that has The Chairman wired up in memory. He was all smiles, telling the story of the Doctor who looked up from his work to ask if there was interest in having them on the same or different days. The decision on that Hawaiian evening was “Give them each their own.” So, they share this: both been born as what the locals call “Children of the Land,” or “Kama-Ainas.” They took their first breaths of gentle air on the placid island in mid-Pacific and will always share that status. The Chairman smiled, adding “But they retain their own days of celebration.”

Having shared his story, the Chairman wandered away and left us to a Sunday Production Session. Marlow is releasing some stories from his days hurtling across America. We have some significant events to report, though we don’t quite know what they mean.

It starts like this: “More documents are reported to have been found in storage places across the District, or in adjacent states.” Problem is that the documents are “classified,” from a time in which the holder was a private citizen. It is a curious thing, since there is another conflict in process about who is holding documents clearly marked “Top Secret.”

We don’t completely understand the conflict, and the Writer’s Circle is bemused. Why now, we wondered, and why this? Is it time for someone else to be the Chief Executive of our land? The parallel news is that the White House Chief of Staff is considering resignation after the two-year anniversary of his time in the office. Some have suggested it is not an unusual period of time. Others say this is really the beginning of the long campaign toward the next General Election in 2024. We laughed about that. It is going to be a long couple dozen months, you know?

That is why this came back, with China again a fulcrum on which world events pivot. We shared stories of “first trips” to the People’s Republic, and how things have changed. Here is a quick brush with a first impression, captured in memory:

“She lay there below me, enigmatic and lush. Her curves and contours lit by the full-silver moon. She was illuminated in a way that highlighted her charms. For a woman of her age she carried it well. The perspective showed the odd combination of her soft flesh and estate jewelry and the flashy brass of her new geometric jewelry. By her subtle shape she showed an elegance of an age we do not now know, though she intentionally showed it. She was an ancient tease, and she knew it. She had been all things to all people in her time, ravished but triumphant against a host of lovers. Tender or abusive as they had been, they were gone and she remained. She was triumphant.

She was Shanghai. I know what I had expected on this trip. Something from a Cultural Revolution World of Suzy Wong, a down-at-the-heels version of the Wanchai District of Hong Kong, circa 1980. Instead, I was vaulted across the century. Tonight, we had stopped in the Pudong New Area and took a high speed elevator halfway up the third tallest building in the world. We strolled along corridors of marble and glass and looked north across the Huangpu River to the The Bund, the three-mile stretch of riverfront that was the heart of the old European concession.

The solid European buildings along the river’s edge had been designed to show the dominance and eternity of the Western Empires. Now the Chinese kept them as a token of a stolen moment, a time when the Middle Kingdom did not rule all before it. As I looked at the decorative lights which outlined the stately colonial buildings I thought of Cho En-Lai, Mao’s great lieutenant from the Long March and later Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic:

“What do you think of the impact of the French Revolution, Mr. Secretary?” asked the Western press. Cho pulled enigmatically on a Salem filter cigarette. “Too soon to tell” he said. There was not an ironic bone in his body. Nor is there now, though of course they do not move nearly as well as they once did.

There will be a multitude of events this coming year. We will probably be able to figure them out once they have actually occurred, since hind-sight is usually more accurate that vague predictions of things to come. But this is a much more helter-skelter sort of history being made by nations and peoples with dramatically new views. Come on along for the ride! But keep your seat-belts fastened, please!

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com