Looking Glass Observatory

Jess Nevins, on Yellow Peril Thrillers

obvadmin — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 05:12:44 +0000

The Yellow Peril figure has, without question, been a negative one in Western culture. As recent events involving American spy planes have shown, anti-Asian & anti-Chinese bias continues to remain close to the surface of the American psyche, over 80 years after the introduction of the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu. One of the most interesting examples of this bias is the Yellow Peril/Fu Manchu figure, which has appeared in several forms over the decades. What most people do not realize, however, is that the Yellow Peril figure significantly predates Arthur “Sax Rohmer” Ward’s writings; Fu Manchu, while the most archetypal of the Yellow Perils, stands as the high point for the stereotype, neither at the beginning nor at the end of the stereotype’s history.

The Yellow Peril or Sinister Oriental stereotype begins in the late 19th century. Before the advent of the Yellow Peril Americans stereotyped Chinese men & women in several ways: as physical, racial, & social pollutants (from the mid-nineteenth century), as drug-using sexual deviants (from the 1860s & 1870s), as coolies (from the 1870s & 1880s), & as a threat to overrun white American & European countries (from the 1880s). There were positive portrayals of Chinese men & women, but they were presented as simple, sentimental peasants.

The first true Yellow Peril figure — that is, an intelligent, evil mastermind intent on destroying the West — did not appear until 1892. The dime novel Nugget Library, home to the character Tom Edison, Jr., published a story entitled “Tom Edison Jr.’s Electric Sea Spider, or, The Wizard of the Submarine World.” The story featured Kiang Ho, a Mongolian or Chinese (the story refers to him as both) warlord & pirate who controls a port in China & prowls the seas, using a fleet of ships & a super-submarine to capture & sink all Western shipping. Kiang Ho is also Harvard-educated & more literate & articulate than one would expect. He is eventually defeated & killed by Tom Edison, Jr., but for most of the story poses a significant threat. “Tom Edison Jr.’s Electric Sea Spider” was credited to “Philip Reade,” but “Reade” was a house name for Street & Smith, the publishers of the Nugget Library, & so Kiang Ho’s true creator might never be known.

The Yellow Peril characters following Kiang Ho displayed different aspects of what the West most feared. In 1896 Robert Chambers published a series of stories in The Maker of Moons about Yue-Laou, the undisputed ruler of an empire in the middle of China as well as a sorcerer of the blackest magics. Yue-Laou is in one respect an updated version of the evil magician character which had appeared in various forms through the 19th century, but usually as an Italian or an Egyptian. But Yue-Laou is also the first Yellow Peril sorcerer, a character type that would appear again, as in Allen Upward’s The Yellow Hand in 1904 & Robert E. Howard’s “Skull Face” serial in Weird Tales in 1929.

The next significant Yellow Peril character was a military leader, reflecting the Western fear of the supposed “limitless hordes” of Chinese overrunning white countries. In 1898 M.P. Shiel wrote The Yellow Danger, which featured the character Dr. Yen How. Shiel, best remembered today for his languid, drug-taking Decadent detective Prince Zaleski, was from Montserrat, in the Caribbean, & was half-white, but tried to hide his ethnic background and, perhaps as overcompensation, took on several of the bigotries common to the era, especially against Jews & Asians. Dr. Yen How is one example of Shiel’s bigotry. He is a half-Japanese, half-Chinese warlord who connives his way to power in China, unites China & Japan, manipulates the European Great Powers into warring with each other, & then unleashes the armies of Japan & China on the West. Naturally, Dr. Yen How is eventually defeated, but through the course of the novel he is presented as a very worthy opponent for the doughty White hero.

Between Yen How & Fu Manchu the only significant Yellow Peril character was Quong Lung, who appears in Dr. C.W. Doyle’s The Shadow of Quong Lung (1900). Quong Lung is a merciless crime lord & the evil ruler of San Francisco’s Chinatown. He is also a Yale graduate & a “barrister of London’s Inner Temple.” But Quong Lung has no higher aims than to rule the underworld of San Francisco, & so is not in the same league as Yen How or Fu Manchu or even Yue-Laou.

Neither Kiang Ho nor Yen How started the craze of Yellow Peril characters, however. It was Arthur Sarsfield Ward, via Fu Manchu himself, who did that, & Kiang Ho & Yen How must be seen as forerunners of the enthusiasm for the Yellow Peril stereotype rather than influences on its use. It is true that Fu Manchu did not spring from nowhere. Interest in China & the Chinese, much of it racially biased, developed in America & the United Kingdom in the 19th century, & during the Edwardian years there was an enthusiasm among British readers for tales set in London’s Limehouse district, as seen in Thomas Burke’s stories, especially his excellent “Quong Lee” stories & poems. But Fu Manchu was immediately popular & spawned numerous imitators, characters who did not exist before The Insidious Doctor came along.

Fu Manchu, of course, was the creation of “Sax Rohmer” a.k.a. Arthur Sarsfield Ward, & first appeared in The Mystery of Fu Manchu (1913: American title, The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu), with numerous appearances following over the next few decades. Fu Manchu is in many respects the Yellow Peril archetype. Admittedly Fu Manchu was not the first Yellow Peril stereotype, nor was he even a Victorian character. But Fu Manchu was the high point for the Yellow Peril stereotype, & the versions which followed were mostly modeled, consciously or unconsciously, on him, rather than on his Yellow Peril predecessors.

A short list of Fu Manchu-styled & -modeled characters from before World War Two will indicate the breadth of influence of the character:

Gustave LeRouge’s Dr. Cornelius Kramm, from the 18 Le Mysterieux Docteur Cornelius, beginning in 1913.

Li Ku Yu, M.P. Shiel’s reprise of Dr. Yen How, in “To Arms!” (1913), later published as The Dragon & The Yellow Peril; Wu Fang, from the Exploits of Elaine serial in 1914.

Sax Rohmer’s Mr. King & the Golden Scorpion (the latter an agent of Fu Manchu himself), from the “Gaston Max” stories beginning in 1915.

The villain in the serial Neal of the Navy, in 1915.

Jean de la Hire’s Leonid Zattan, from the French “Nyctalope” series of novels, beginning in 1915.

Wu, from the 1916 comic strip “Captain Gardiner of the International Police.”

The Silent Menace, from the 1916 serial Pearl of the Army.

Ali Singh, from the 1916 serial The Yellow Menace.

The Blue-Eyed Manchu, from Alexander Romanoff’s The Blue-Eyed Manchu in 1916.

H. Irving Hancock’s Li Shoon, from Detective Story Magazine in 1916 & 1917.

A.E. Apple’s Mr. Chang, from 33 stories & two collections, beginning in Detective Story in 1919.

Chung, from a Dutch dime novel published in 1923.

Ssu Hsi Tze, the “Ruler of Vermin” from “The Spider” novels, in the mid-1920s.

Fing Su, from Edgar Wallace’s The Yellow Snake in 1926.

Wu Fang, from the serial Ransom, in 1928.

Ming the Merciless, from Flash Gordon, beginning in 1929.

Fing-Su, from Edgar Wallace’s The Yellow Snake in 1929.

Kong Gai & the Nameless One, from Sidney Herschell Small’s “Sgt. Jimmy Wentworth” stories in Detective Fiction Weekly beginning in 1931.

Botak, from the 1932-1933 radio serial The Orange Lantern.

Wu Fang, from Norman Marsh’s Dan Dunn comic strip.

Chang, from F. Van Wyck Mason’s The Shanghai Bund Murders in 1933.

Carl Zaken, “The Black Doctor,” & Chang Ch’ien, from T.T. Flynn’s “Valentine Easton” stories in Dime Detective in 1933 & 1934.

Iskandar, from Jack Williamson’s “Wizard’s Isle” in the May 1934 issue of Weird Tales.

Wun Wey, in Anthony Rudd’s The Stuffed Men, in 1935.

Wo Fan, in Bedford Rohmer’s “Wo Fan” stories in New Mystery Adventures in 1935 & 1936.

Wu Fang, in Robert Hogan’s The Mysterious Wu Fang from in 1935 & 1936.

Doctor Yen Sin, in Donald Keyhoe’s Dr. Yen Sin in 1936.

Doctor Chu Lung, from Robert J. Hogan’s “Skies of Yellow Death,” in the October 1936 issue of G-8 & His Battle Aces..

Red Dragon, in Detective Comics starting with issue #1 early in 1937.

“Fui Onyui,” in Jerry Siegel’s Slam Bradley story, “The Streets of Chinatown,” in Detective Comics #1 in early 1937.

The Griffin, from J. Allen Dunn’s stories in Detective Fiction Weekly in the late 1930s.

Gorrah, a Chinese cyclops, in Action Comics, starting in 1939.

Shiwan Khan, the “Golden Master,” in Walter Gibson’s The Shadow, beginning in 1939.

Pao Tcheou, specifically identified as a cousin of Fu Manchu, from Edward Brooker’s French “Le Maitre de L’Invisible” novels beginning in 1939.

Moto Taronago, the Yellow Vulture, from Frederick Davis’ Operator #5, beginning (but never finished) in 1939.

And so on, after World War Two, with “Monsieur Ming” in Charles-Henri Dewisme’s “Bob Morane” stories, from 1959 onward, & through the 1970s, with the hilarious moment in James Blish’s The Day After Judgment (1971) when Satan is mistaken for Fu Manchu, & into the 1990s, where Hark, in Warren Ellis’ critically-acclaimed comic Planetary, is a member of a pantheon of pulp immortals.

While Fu Manchu is not the first of the Yellow Peril characters, he was historically the most important of them, so much so that the stereotype came to be named after him.

Can the I Ching fix your sex life? Philip K. Dick has some insights…

obvadmin — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 05:12:28 +0000

It’s time to take another look at Philip K. Dick’s agonized coming-to-terms with the I Ching. He wrote his essay, Schizophrenia and the Book of Changes in 1965. It’s a forgotten classic of imaginative non-fiction. The essay we’re discussing below is available in the book The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick available from Vintage Press.

Dick begins with a sweeping attempt at universal anthropology–this is the first, most pervasive, and last paranoid delusion which helps him generate his invaluable reading of the I Ching. In the following essay, we will provide what clarification we can of his grasp of the Chinese classic.

In many species of life forms, such as the grazing animals, a newborn individual is more or less thrust out into the koinos kosmos (the shared world) immediately. For a lamb or a pony, the idios kosmos (the personal world) ceases when the first light hits his eyes–but a human child, at birth, still has years of a kind of semireal existence ahead of him: semireal in the sense that until he is fifteen or sixteen years old he is able to some degree to remain not thoroughly born, not entirely on his own; fragments of the idios kosmos remain, and not all or even very much of the koinos kosmos has been forced onto him as yet. The full burden of the koinos kosmos does not weigh until what is delightfully referred to as “psychosexual maturity” strikes, which means those lovely days during high school epiotmized by asking that cute girl in the row ahead of you if she’d like to go get a soda after school, and she saying “NO”. That’s it. The koinos kosmos has set in. Prepare, young man, for a long winter. Much more–and worse–lie ahead.

This is where sex, and perhaps repression, gets involved and begins to inform his take on the I Ching.

The preschizophrenic personality is generally called “schizoid affective”, which means that as an adolescent he still hopes that he won’t have to ask the cute chick (or boy) in the next row for a date. Speaking in terms of my own schizoid-affective experience, one gazes at her for a year or so, mentally detailing all possible outcomes; the good ones go under the rubric “daydreams,” the bad ones under “phobia.” This bipolar internal war goes on endlessly; meanwhile the actual girl has no idea you’re alive (and guess why: You’re not). If the phobias win out (suppose I ask her and she says, “With you?” etc.), then the schizoid-affective kid physically bolts from the classroom with agoraphobia, which gradually widens into true schizophrenia avoidance of all human contact, or withdraws into phantasy, becomes, so to speak, his own Abe Merritt [a popular SF writer of the 1920s and 1930s]–or, if things go further wrong, his own H. P. Lovecraft. In any case, the girl is forgotten and the leap to psychosexual maturity never takes place, which wouldn’t be bad in itself because really there are other things in life besides pretty girls (or so I’m told, anyhow). But it’s the implication that’s so ominous. What has happened will repeat itself again and again, wherever the kid runs head on into the koinos kosmos. And these are the years (fifteen years old to twenty-two) when he can no longer keep from running into it on almost every occasion. (Phone the dentist, Charley, and make an appointment to get that cavity patched, etc.) The idios kosmos is leaking away; he is gradually being thrust out of the postwomb womb. Biological aging is taking place, and he can’t hold it back. His efforts to do so, if they continue, will later be called “an attempt to retreat from adult responsibility and reality,” and if he is later diagnosed as schizophrenic, it will be said that he has “escaped from the real world into a phantasy one.” This, while almost true, is just not quite correct. Because reality has an attribute that, if you’ll ponder on’t, you’ll realize is the attribute that causes us to so designate it as reality: It can’t be escaped. As a matter of fact, during his preschizophrenic life, during the schizoid-affective period, he has been somewhat doing this; he is now no longer able to. The deadly appearance, around nineteen, of schizophrenia, is not a retreat from reality, but on the contrary: the breaking out of reality all around him; its presence, not its absence from his vicinity. The lifelong fight to avoid it has ended in failure; he is engulfed in it. Gak!

And now that “sex” has been covered… on to describing the whole universe!

What distinguishes schizophrenic existence from that which the rest of us like to imagine we enjoy is the element of time. The schizophrenic is having it all now, whether he wants it or not; the whole can of film has descended on him, whereas we watch it progress frame by frame. So for him, causality does not exist. Instead, the acausal connective principle that Wolfgang Pauli called synchronicity is operating in all situations–not merely as only one factor at work, as with us. Like a person under LSD, the schizophrenic is engulfed in an endless now. It’s not too much fun.

At this point the I Ching (The Book of Changes) enters, since it works on the basis of synchronicity–and is a device by which synchronicity can be handled. maybe you prefer the word “coincidence” to Pauli’s word. Anyhow, both terms refer to acausal connectives, or rather events linked in that manner, events occurring outside of time. Not a chain passing from yesterday to today to tomorrow but all taking place now. All chiming away now, like Leibnitz’s preset clocks. And yet none having any causal connection with any of the others.

Is it possible that Dick is running away from space? Is it possible that the buried sexual frustrations are fueling his desperate attempts at achieving escape velocity? Once space has been “dealt with” his next project is to attempt to move beyond time. Observe:

That events can take place outside of time is a discovery that strikes me as dismal. My first reaction was, “Good God, I was right; when you’re at the dentist it does last forever.” I’ll let the mystics dilate on more favorable possibilities, such as eternal bliss. Anyhow, LSD has made this discovery available to everyone, and hence subject to consensual validation, hence within the realm of knowledge, hence a scientific fact (or just plain fact, if you prefer). Anybody can get into this state now, not just the schizophrenic. Yes, friends, you, too, can suffer forever; simply take 150 mg of LSD–and enjoy! If not satisfied, simply mail in–but enough. Because after two thousand years under LSD, participating in the Day of Judgement, one probably will be rather apathetic to asking for one’s five dollars back.

But at least one has now learned what life is like during the catatonic schizophrenic state, and one does return from LSD within a short time period as computed within the koinos kosmos (roughly ten hours), however much longer it is in the idios kosmos (to rather understate the matter). For the catatonic schizophrenic the duration of this state is not only forever idios kosmoswise but also, unless lucky, koinoskosmoswise. To put it in zen terms, under LSD you experience eternity for only a short period (or, as Planet Stories used to phrase it, “Such-and-such,” he screamed under his breath). So, within a nontime interval, all manner of elaborate and peculiar events can take place; whole epics can unfold in the fashion of the recent movie Ben Hur. (If you’d prefer to undergo the experience of LSD without taking it, imagine sitting through Ben Hur twenty times without the midpoint intermission. Got it? Keep it.)

Oddly, in Dick’s formulation of this universe so unlike our own, in which time is illusory, there is the possibility of a system which describes it so perfectly that description and prediction are the same thing (because the present and the future are the same thing). He believes he is therefore correct because in such a world the I Ching would suddenly make perfect sense. What seemed like riddles would read like an electronics manual. What seemed like metaphors would simply be concurrent examples. How do we get from here to there? His explanation is curious:

This unfolding is not in any sense a causal progression; it is the vertical opening forth of synchronicity rather than the horizontal cause-and-effect sequence that we experience by clock time, and since it is timeless, it is unlimited in extent; it has no built-in end. So the universe of the schizophrenic is, again to understate it, somewhat large. Much too large. Ours, like the twice-daily measured squirt of toothpaste, is controlled and finite; we rub up against only as much reality as we can handle–or think we can handle, to be more accurate. Anyhow, we seem to manage to control its rate, just as, for example, we decide not to go on the freeway during rush-hour traffic but take that good old back road that nobody knows about except us. Well, it goes without saying that we eventually err; we take a wrong turn, generally when we’re about sixty-five years of age; we drop dead from cardiac arrest, and despite years of experience in managing the flow of reality, we’re just as dead as the psychotic stuck in the eternal now.

But, to repeat, this merely lies ahead of us, in the future; we haven’t failed to get that annual medical checkup yet, or if we have, it wouldn’t have revealed anything this time, except the usual ulcer. Our partial knowledge of reality is sufficient to get us by–for a while longer. Cause and effect bumble on, and we go with them; like good middle-class Americans we keep paying on our insurance policies, hoping to outbet the actuary tables. What will destroy us in the end is synchronicity; eventually we will arrive in a blind intersection at 4:00 A.M. the same time another idiot does, also tanked up with beer; both of us will then depart for the next life, with probably the same outcome there, too. Synchronicity, you see, can’t be anticipated; that’s one of its aspects.

And here he tells us why the I Ching is unique in the world’s literature.

Or can it? If it could…imagine being able to plot in advance, in systematic fashion, the approach of all meaningful coincidences. Is that a priori, by the very meaning of the word, not a contradiction? After all, a coincidence, or as Pauli called it, a manifestation of synchronicity, is by its very nature not dependent on the past; hence nothing exists as a harbinger of it (cf. David Hume on the topic; in particular the train whistle versus the train). This state, not knowing what is going to happen next and therefore having no way of controlling it, is the sine qua non of the unhappy world of the schizophrenic; he is helpless, passive, and instead of doing things, he is done to. Reality happens to him–a sort of perpetual auto accident, going on and on without relief.

Schizophrenics don’t write and mail letters, don’t go anywhere, don’t make phone calls: They are written to by angry creditors and authority figures such as the San Francisco Police Department; they are phoned up by hostile relatives; every so often they are forcibly hauled off to the barber shop or dentist or funny farm. If, by some miracle, they hoist themselves into an active state, call HI 4-1234 and ask for a cab so they can visit their good friend the pope, a garbage truck will run into the taxi, and if, after getting out of the hospital (vide Horace Gold’s experience a few years ago), another taxi is called and they try one more time, another garbage truck will appear and ram them again. They know this. They’ve had it happen. Synchronicity has been going on all the time; it’s only news to us that such coincedences can happen.

Here’s where it becomes important for scholars–of Chinese literature, and of psychology. The idea that schizophrenia is a similar experience of being subject to that universe which only the I Ching describes. We needn’t take his cosmology without a grain of salt to understand that his insights about schizophrenia are valid. This essay on Dick’s essay is a call for more work on the nature of schizophrenia as it might relate to the I Ching. Dick’s points, quoted below, should be seen as jumping off points for more substantial research:

…What can be done? For a schizophrenic, any method by which synchronicity can be coped with means possible survival; for us, it would be a great assist in the job of temporarily surviving…we both could use such a beat-the-house system.

This is what the I Ching, for three thousand years, has been and still is. It works (roughly 80 percent of the time, according to those such as Pauli who have analyzed it on a statistical basis). John Cage, the composer, uses it to derive chord progressions. Several physicists use it to plot the behavior of subatomic particles–thus getting around Heisenberg’s unfortunate principle. I’ve used it to develop the direction of a novel (please reserve your comments for Yandro, if you will). Jung used it with patients to get around their psychological blind spots. Leibnitz based his binary system on it, the open-and-shut-gate idea, if not his entire philosophy of monadology…for what that’s worth.

We maintain that sex is at issue throughout the piece, and that his views would be more that compatible with traditional Freudian research. In his essay, he jumps back to sex as the central concern of people who have returned to the comfortable embrace of sanity.

You, too, can use it: for betting on heavyweight bouts or getting your girl to acquiesce, for anything, in fact, that you want–except for foretelling the future. That, it can’t do; it is not a fortune telling device, despite what’s been believed about it for centuries both in China and by Richard Wilhelm, who did the German translation now available in the Pantheon Press edition in an English version. (Helmut, Richard’s son, who is also a Sinologist, has demonstrated this in articles in the Eranos Jahrbucher and in lectures; also available in English from Pantheon. And Legge, in the first English version circa 1900, demonstrated that, then.) True, the book seems to deal with the future; it lays before your eyes, for your scrutiny, a gestalt of the forces in operation that will determine the future. But these forces are at work now; they exist, so to speak, outside of time, as does the ablative absolute case in Latin. The book is analytical and diagnostic, not predictive. But so is a multiphasic physical exam; it tells you what is going on now in your body–and out of a knowledge of that, a competent doctor may possibly be able, to some extent, to predict what may happen in the future. (“Get that artery replaced, Mr McNit, or next week or maybe even on the way home this afternoon you’ll probably drop dead.”)

By means of the I Ching the total configuration of the koinos kosmos can be scrutinized–which is why King Wen, in prison in 1100 B.C., composed it; he wasn’t interested in the future: He wanted to know what was happening outside his cell that moment, what was becoming of his kingdom at the instant he cast the yarrow stalks and derived a hexagram. Knowledge of this sort is obviously of vast value to anyone, since, by means of it, a fairly good guess (repeat: guess) can be made about the future, and so one can decide what one ought to do (stay home all day, go outside briefly, go visit the pope, etc.).

And here he proves our point again, by insisting, perhaps without meaning to, that a non-interest in sex is a warning sign of the schizophrenic, temporally dislocated mind.

…[I]f one is schizophrenic to any extent, and it is now resignedly realized by the psychiatric profession that a hell of a lot of us are, many more than once realized, knowledge of this type, this absolute, total presentation of a pattern representing the entire koinos kosmos at this Augenblick [moment], consists of total knowledge period, in view of the fact that for the schizophrenic there is no future anyhow. So in proportion to the degree of schizophrenic involvement in time that we’re stuck with–or in–we can gain yield from the I Ching. For a person who is completely schizophrenic (which is impossible, but let’s imagine it, for purposes here), the derived hexagram is everything; when he has studied it plus all texts appended to it, he knows–literally–all there is to know. He can relax if the hexagram is favorable; if not, then he can feel worse: His fears are justified. Things are unendurable, as well as hopeless, as well as beyond his control. He may, for example, with complete justification ask the book, “Am I dead?” and the book will answer. We would ask, “Am I going to get killed in the near future?,” and in reading our hexagram get some kind of insight–if we read the judgement, “Misfortune. Nothing that would further,” we might decide not to shoot out into commuter traffic that evening on the way to North Beach–and we might thereby keep alive a few years longer, which certainly has utility value to anyone, schizophrenic or not.

But we can’t live by the damn book, because to try to would be to surrender ourselves to static time–as King Wen was forced to do by losing his throne and being imprisoned for the rest of his life, and as present-day schizophrenics must, along with those of us nutty enough to belt down a draft of LSD. But we can make partial use of it; partial, as its ability to “forecast coming events” is highly partial–if not in the strict sense, as I just now said, nonexistent. Sure, we can tinker around and fix matters up so that it does depict the future precisely. But that would be to become schizophrenic, or anyhow more schizophrenic. It would be a greater loss than gain; we would have induced our future into being consumed by the present: To understand the future totally would be to have it now. Try that, and see how it feels. Because once the future is gone, the possibility of free, effective action of any kind is abolished. This, of course, is a theme that appears in SF constantly; if no other instance crosses your mind, recall my own novel The World Jones Made. By being a precog, Jones ultimately lost the power to act entirely; instead of being freed by his talent, he was paralyzed by it. You catchum?

He closes with some clinical advice:

It occurs to me to sum up this observation by saying this. If you’re totally schizophrenic now, by all means use the I Ching for everything including telling you when to take a bath and when to open a can of cat tuna for your cat Rover. If you’re partially schizophrenic (no names, please), then use it for some situations–but sparingly; don’t rely on it inordinately: save it for the Big Questions, such as, “Should I marry her or merely keep on living with her in sin?” etc. If you’re not a schizophrenic at all (those in this class step to the foot of the room, or however the expression, made up by you nonschizophrenics, goes), kindly use the book a very, measured little–in controlled doses, along the lines of your wise, middle-class use of Gleam, or whatever that damn toothpaste calls itself. Use the book as a sort of (ugh) fun thing. Ask it the opposite sort of questions from what we partial schizophrenics do; don’t ask it, “How can I extricate myself from the dreadful circumstances of complete decay into which I’ve for the fiftieth tme fallen, due to my own stupidity?,” etc., but on this line instead, “What happened to Atlantis?” or, “Where did I mislay the sporting green this morning?” Ask it questions the outcome of which can have no genuine bearing on your life, or even on your immediate conduct; in other words, don’t “act out” on the basis of what the book hands you–comport yourself strictly as you should under LSD: Observe and enjoy what you see (or, if it’s the hell world, observe and suffer through silence and immobility), but let that be all, white man; you begin to act out in real life on basis of what you see and we put you in Shanghai’s People’s Democratic Funny Farm doing stoop labor at harvest time.

I speak from experience. The Oracle–the I Ching–told me to write this piece. (True, this is a zen way out, being told by the I Ching to write a piece explaining why not to do what the I Ching advises. But for me, it’s too late; the book hooked me years ago. Got any suggestions as to how I can extricate myself from my morbid dependence on the book? Maybe I ought to ask it that. Hmmm. Excuse me; I’ll be back at the typewriter sometime next year. If not later.) (I never could make out the future too well.)

Dick’s clinical suggestions, a kind of self-help for the people most in need of institutional care, is touching as it echoes the not-always-invalid concern of the mentally unbalanced: that there’s no possible human agency which could treat them. The reliance on the I Ching as such an agency would be the reliance on nature itself–on the nature of time itself, specifically–it is comparable to the claims of Freud’s famous “psychotic Dr. Schreber” whose dual God tormented him but who was always saved by a force which could never be named, which he called simply “the way of things” which is so easily comparable to the Chinese Dao.

Reading by Numbers, Fiction by Aidan Doyle

obvadmin — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 05:12:07 +0000

Documentary evidence submitted during the trial of Michael Walker.

Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2012 04:44 PM
From: michaelwalker1260@pimail.com
To: yuki_yamamoto@suuji.co.jp
Subject: Reading By Numbers

1 – I met your mother in a number garden in Hokkaido.

2 – When I was 5830 days old I saw a news report about Professor Sujimoto. He had made a virtual number garden for his students.

3 – I vowed I would study in Japan and started learning Japanese.

4 – I was accepted into the University of Sapporo and enrolled in their math department. Professor Sujimoto’s fame had increased after he had discovered what was, at the time, the largest prime number ever found.

5 – Sujimoto conducted all of his lectures online in a VR environment he had created himself.

6 – When I logged in, I was presented with a menu that allowed me to create an avatar to represent myself. I chose the symbol for pi.

7 – An oak tree stood in the center of the garden. It reached unending into the sky and its trunk was alive with an army of marching ants, each of them carrying a glowing neon digit. Together they formed the prime number Sujimoto had discovered — a number more than 42 million digits long.

8 – Twenty-three other students attended that lecture. Their avatars took the forms of anime characters, kawaii cats and other fantastic creatures. Sujimoto’s avatar was reminiscent of a monk — wearing brown robes and conical hat.

9 – A text bubble appeared in the air beside the monk. “Welcome to this year’s first class on number theory.”

10 – “Numbers have a purity that words cannot match.”

11 – “They are the building blocks of science. By studying them we can learn about ourselves and our place in the universe. I have created this garden to give you a chance to explore the world of numbers and their hidden beauty.”

12 – He pointed to the garden beds where different colored numbers grew. “There are transcendental numbers, abundant numbers, undulating numbers, pandigital numbers, deficient numbers, surreal numbers, happy numbers, weird numbers and my personal favorites, the

13 – vampire

14 – numbers.” A bed of numbers erupted from the ground in front of Sujimoto. It contained the numbers from 1 to 1000 arranged in orderly rows. The numbers were purple and had pale, green stems. “I want you to pick one integer. This is going to be your special number for the year. Then explore the garden.”

15 – The student avatars crowded around the purple numbers and started plucking them. I wanted to choose 3, 7, 22 or 227 because they are used when estimating pi, but some other students must have had the same idea. I chose 220 instead.

16 – I wandered past a garden of hyperreal numbers and came to a numberfall. A torrent of digits cascaded down shiny, black rocks and emptied into a gleaming, blue lake. I queried the VR interface and discovered the numberfall was displaying part of the infinite sequence of digits that makes up pi. I waded through the water until I stood underneath the numberfall. The digits crashed all about me. I was submerged in infinity.

17 – A unicorn splashed into the lake. It had the purple number 284 wrapped around its horn. When the unicorn saw the number stuck to my side, it started bouncing up and down in excitement. Someone was pressing the jump key too often.

18 – “Look at our numbers!!! We have to be friends. It’s fate!!!”

19 – That was how I met

20 – your mother.

21 – It took me a moment to grasp the significance of what she was saying. 220 and 284 are the smallest pair of amicable numbers. The sum of the proper divisors of 220 (1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44, 55, 110) is 284. The sum of the proper divisors of 284 (1, 2, 4, 71, 142) is 220. The numbers are bound together.

22 – Your mother decided we were meant to be together. I had only just arrived in Japan and I didn’t have any friends. So I was happy to meet her after class.

23 – She was also interested in codes and sent me emails with hidden messages. A message with (32) at the end meant I had to read every thirty-second line to find the meaning.

24 – We fell in love.

25 – The next four years were the happiest of my life. I specialized in the process of random number generation. Computers usually only generate pseudorandom numbers. Deterministic algorithms can be recreated, so the numbers aren’t truly random. Eventually a pattern will emerge. To get true random numbers, computers have to rely on external sources, such as devices to measure atmospheric noise.

26 – We got married after we graduated. Some of my friends in Australia warned me about the difficulties of intercultural relationships. I thought our love for numbers would help us bypass that.

27 – Cultural differences sometimes even extend to numbers. In western countries we count in thousands, but in Japan they count in ten thousands. 20,000 is not 20 thousands, it is 2 ten thousands. I also learned other numbers have been polluted by superstition.

28 – The end came when I saw a documentary about an autistic savant who could perform astonishing feats of calculation and memory. He recited pi from memory to 22,514 digits. I could not do this.

29 – He said that in his mind numbers have different shapes and colors. I could not see this. The numbers I loved had

30 – betrayed me.

31 – They had shown themselves to others, but not to me.

32 – Kaori told me she was pregnant.

33 – At the time it was an unexpected and unwelcome

34 – addition.

35 – 1 + 1 should not equal 3.

36 – Your grandmother said we had to go to a

37 – fortune teller

38 – to help us choose your name.

39 – A fortune teller had chosen your mother’s name by selecting a kanji with a lucky number of strokes.

40 – Your grandmother poisoned your mother’s thinking with superstition.

41 – We argued.

42 – Then

43 – your grandmother

44 – became ill and was admitted to hospital.

45 – When I arrived at the hospital,

46 – she was asleep.

47 – Kaori sat by her bedside.

48 – She looked pale and tired.

49 – I had brought some flowers,

50 – so I

51 – put them on the table by the bed.

52 – Kaori stared at the flowers. “What are those?” she demanded.

53 – “I bought some flowers for your mother.”

54 – “They’re chrysanthemums!”

55 – The old woman stirred in her sleep.

56 – “What’s the matter? I thought your mother would appreciate them. They are Japan’s national flower.”

57 – “You never give chrysanthemums to someone in hospital! They’re only for funerals.”

58 – “How was I supposed to know that?”

59 – I picked up the flowers. “I will get rid of them. There’s no need to get upset. You’re acting like I

60 – killed

61 – her.”

62 – “That’s because you bought four of them!

63 – I’ve told you before, four is an unlucky number in Japan.

64 – It sounds like death.

65 – You want my mother to die, don’t you! You’ve always hated her.”

66 – “What are you talking about? That’s crazy.”

67 – “Then why did you bring her four chrysanthemums?”

68 – “The shop only had four left,” I replied. “They’re just flowers.” I threw the flowers in the bin.

69 – “I was only trying to help

70 – her.”

71 – Kaori stared at me for a long time. Then she reached into her handbag and took out her ATM card.

72 – “What about this?” She flung the card at me. “You changed the PIN on my card yesterday, didn’t you? I had to go into the bank to find out what the new number was. And you know what the new number was, don’t you? 1260!”

73 – “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

74 – “1260 is a vampire number,” Kaori said.

75 – “I don’t know anything about that. The bank must have given you a new number for some reason. It was probably just chosen randomly.”

76 – “Don’t lie to me, Michael! I know all about your so-called random numbers! You chose that because you want to frighten me.”

77 – “Please calm down. Your mother isn’t well, and you’re pregnant. You’re very emotional.”

78 – “I don’t love you any more, Michael.”

79 – “That’s not true.”

80 – “You need to get help.”

81 – In case your mother has neglected your education I should explain about vampire numbers. They are numbers with an even number of digits that can be equally divided into two so-called fangs. These fangs are factors of the number and contain all of the digits of the original number.

82 – 1260′s fangs are 21 and 60 (21×60=1260).

83 – Your grandmother died that night.

84 – Kaori divorced me.

85 – Now, I sit in my small room and think about my mistakes. I thought numbers had betrayed me. But now I know it was not their fault.

86 – They are always true. It is superstitious people that sully the perfection of numbers.

87 – If someone tells you they love you, how do you prove it’s true? Even if it is true, how do you know it will be true tomorrow?

88 – Numbers are eternally perfect. The square root of 100 will always equal 10.

89 – Japanese law doesn’t recognize the custody rights of foreign parents. I have never even met you. But that will change one day soon.

90 – I will come for you and your mother.

91 – I have begun to make my own simple number garden.

92 – I have marked the walls with some of my favorite numbers.

93 – 220.

94 – 284.

95 – 1260.

96 – Sometimes numbers grow into things they shouldn’t.

97 – I am watching these numbers closely. One day they will grow into something very special.

98 – My health has been poor. To help me relax I perform simple integer divisions.

99 – But I am very careful about what numbers I choose to divide.

100 – I am always happier when there is no remainder.

(10)

This story was reprinted, with the author’s permission, from Fantasy online magazine. www.fantasy-magazine.com.

Summer Wars: Review

obvadmin — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 05:11:54 +0000

The story concerns a boy whose summer job is in low level IT for the social networking system Oz, which handles absolutely everything in the entire world. The military uses it, every business uses it, and in its stunning, rainbow-riffic interface, we can see that it is ruled by two digitized whales, one pink and one blue, named John and Yoko. They wear crowns.
One day, our hero is given a mysterious text message, and he is given precisely the kind of challenge he can never resist: he’s given a math problem to solve. He spends all night solving it, then sends it via text message, only to find out it was Oz’s security algorithm, and he’s just helped a super villain take over the world. He and his plucky friends, all of whom have imaginative in-system avatars, must save the social networking system and stop the launch of missiles.

Somehow, the film manages to parody the “everybody poops” optimism favored by the advertising departments of social media sites. There is no moral about the dangers of digitizing the globe, and the story is not a fable. Sentimentality is present, but it doesn’t overwhelm the story as it does in the (unjustly) beloved Miyazaki films.

***

Video Game Music

obvadmin — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 05:11:33 +0000

Jeriaska’s tireless study of video game music has paid off–a series of clips from his documentary work covering the ins and outs of video game music can be experienced on http://www.jeriaska.com/blog/.

Collapsed Desires DVD Trailer from Jeriaska on Vimeo.

Durian: You Say Disgusting, I Say Delicious?

obvadmin — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 05:11:22 +0000

The first time we ever encounter umami is in breast milk–for many of us, that’s the last direct encounter we have with this most obscure of the “five basic tastes”–its siblings are sweet, sour, bitter, and salty.

It has the power to stimulate the reward centers of the brain–it triggers the release of serotonin–but still, many westerners find it unpalatable. Its available in many forms–dashi, for example, found in Japanese soups such as miso. More interestingly, to some, is the durian fruit, called ‘The King of Fruits’ in Malaysia. It is beloved and reviled, and even banned (because of its smell) in some places.
by Mike Markoff

The durian is a spikey foot-long fruit with roots in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei, although it’s mainly an export of Thailand’s. If you think the fruit looks intimidating enough just by glancing at it, just wait till you break it open, for the durian’s bark is certainly not worse than its bite. The durian fruit is notorious for its striking odor and taste. This fruit is controversial. A distinguished and large group of durian eaters claim the smell and flavor are richly decadent, tasting of roasted almonds and caramel; but the vast majority compare the fruit to raw sewage, dirty underwear, and onions dipped in vomit. If there ever was a study defining the mysterious diversity amongst human taste buds and nasal receptors, the durian fruit would likely smell its way right into the middle of the conversation.

In certain areas throughout Asia, the fruit is forbidden in hotels and in public. The smell has been known to effectively penetrate and stink up entire buildings, offending innocent civilians. In Thailand, they whip this fruit into milk shakes, ice cream, and lattes. Durian eaters aren’t limited to our kind, because large animals just love these fruits (as the smaller ones have a tough time getting past the thorny exterior) and can smell them half a mile away. The fruit is even enticing to tigers, who are normally carnivorous. And if you’re curious (and daring), make your way over to your local Chinatown (if you have one), buy a durian, go to a safe place (unless you wish to provoke people), and give it a try.

[Editor's Note: If you want to get the smell off your hands, and off of your breath, you can fill the empty durian husk with water, and leave it to sit there for a bit--ten minutes should be more than enough. After washing your hands with the water, they will be deodorized. You can deodorize your breath, too, if you drink the water.]

Fashion Mongolia: Tsolmandakh Munkhuu

obvadmin — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 05:11:12 +0000

Queen Amidala’s attire has been the only recognizably Mongolian fashion icon for a decade, but Minkhuu’s startling black-skinned showing of her winter collection has people talking–usually about the ethics of the makeup, and not so much about the incorporation of the nomadic propensity for layers upon layers into high fashion. Most Mongolian designers have honored their heritage with less subtle quotations of their history’s regalia: large headdresses were common, etc.. That’s because immature designers rely on nationalism, mature ones, on anthropology.

The statements made by ruffles, folds, and layers throughout the desinger’s career have made the collections stand-out celebrations of their indefatigueable people. The steppes are visible in these collections.

Art: Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung

obvadmin — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 05:11:01 +0000

LGM: Are we heading toward a post-partisan world?
Kenneth Tin Kin Hung: Compare the two US parties to Sweden’s “Pirate Party,” which won 7% of Swedish votes in the 2009 elections. I do hope one day we will live in a post-partisan world and that only works if the religious fundamentalism is completely detached from the politics.

When you’re selecting pieces to download and rework into your work, what do you look for?
If you type “Putin” into Google, you will find images come from sites that are against him, support him, and everything in between. I often look for the meanings of the images and where it come from, nothing is more fun to take two images from two extreme opposite polar and merge them as one image.

Do politicians automatically self-parody?
Yes, absolutely! Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi is the epitome of endless self-parody. You know, one year he won the election just because he passes out free dentures to the elderly of Southern Italy? He owns at least 25% of Italy so nothing can harm him, not serious tax fraud, not having sex with minors, he just changes the constitution to save his own ass. Nothing is more fun than to observe a democratically elected feudal King.

Obama as Edshu is my favorite image. Was it inspired by comic book art?
I love Obama as the Trickster God at the crossroads of the political problems of Africa. I did a lot of research before landing him in this identity.

I see you managed to include the classic piece of video game art “All Your Base Are Belong to Us.”
Yes, I love it! It reminds me of how mainstream media reports the 9-11 terrorist attack and the blindfolded patriotism afterwards that gagged all the dissidents. I was very into the meme culture and the viral aspect of the Internet earlier this decade.

Are Gods and Superheroes similar creatures?
No. God creates. Superheroes save the creation.

With what superhero do you most identify?
Probably Danny the Street [from Doom Patrol] because he is the most oddball superhero ever! He is an actual street, and a transvestite. Also I have lots of respect for real-life superheroes. (http://superheroesanonymous.com/)

Do you have a political party?
What do you think?? If I have one I will probably be part of the “Free States” party in the comic DMZ.

You can see the artist’s work at: www.tinkin.com

Besu-Boru: The Royale With Cheese of Baseball

obvadmin — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 05:10:50 +0000

By Eno Sarris.
Eno Sarris is the creator and editor of enosarris.com, a site dedicated to exploring the anthropology of sports.

[VINCENT] I know, baby, you’d dig it the most.. But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?
[JULES] What?
[VINCENT] It’s the little differences. A lotta the same sh*# we got here,
they got there, but there they’re a little different.[JULES] Example ?
[VINCENT] Alright, when you …. into a movie theatre in Amsterdam, you can buy beer.
And I don’t mean in a paper cup either. They give you a glass of beer
And in Paris, you can buy beer at MacDonald’s.
And you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
[JULES] They don’t call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?
[VINCENT] No, they got the metric system there, they wouldn’t know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is.
[JULES] What’d they call it?
[VINCENT] They call it Royale with Cheese.
[JULES] Royale with Cheese. What’d they call a Big Mac?
[VINCENT] Big Mac’s a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac.
— Pulp Fiction

Taking in a baseball game in Japan is just about the same as entering a McDonalds in Europe – about the same as the American version, but with bewildering little differences.

They still print out tickets, and you still have to wait in line for a security check of some sort. You’ve got a stadium, and some ballplayers in uniform, and it’s still three strikes to an out. The game is mostly the same, if the strike zone is a little bit different and the batters a little more focused on contact than patience. If you put blinders on and only watched the game, you’d think it was a hum-drum ole’ game of ball, if a little homogeneous when it came to race. You know, baseball.

Except it’s besu-boru. And it won’t take long for you to spot the differences.

As you walk into the concourse, you may consider buying a Yomiuri Giants jersey if you happen to be in the Tokyo Dome. If you’re lucky enough to be there for a game against the hated Hanshin Tigers, you might have to brave a long line to make your purchase – but don’t do a double-take when you get to the front. Yup, they’re selling Tigers jerseys too. How thoughtful of them to provide memorabilia for the rivals. Nemesis or no, they should be able to buy a shirt, right? Imagine a Boston vendor selling Yankee pinstripes, though, and you might stifle a hiccup.

While you finish paying for your shirt, you might notice some people changing into their fan gear by the bathrooms – taking off sweaters to reveal jerseys and the like. Don’t worry, it’s normal, they aren’t playing hooky from study session. It just doesn’t seem like many Japanese think that sportswear is fashionable outside the ballpark. They are probably plenty of Americans who agree with them, anyway.

With your jersey in hand, it’s time for a snack. And you can find yourself a hot dog, if you like, that much hasn’t changed. You could go for sushi, too, but you can also find decent sushi in San Francisco’s AT&T park. That said, where else but Japan can you indulge yourself in a fried octopus ball (tako-yaki)? And before you retch a little in your mouth, consider an alternate definition of a hot dog – a minced selection of random parts of the pig encased in stomach lining – and realize that the tako-yaki is really just another salty bite size ballpark snack. Yup, just like hot dogs.

Finally, snack and jersey in hand, you make your way to your seat. You settle in as the away team takes their licks and notice that they’ve brought fans with them. Like college football and English soccer, Japanese baseball stadiums provide cheering sections for the visiting team. Unlike in college football and English soccer, this is not for their protection, as the atmosphere is not one of denigration or thuggery. Instead, it has to be just another example of home team politesse, as every chant is uplifting and supportive.

In fact, you notice that many of the chants are planned. They’re songs, even. Songs about favorite players, often with the accompaniment of a brass section, drums, and the ubiquitous thunder sticks. Here’s a sample – a fight song for Hanshin Tiger Lin-Wei Chu, in Japanese and then in English:

Sore yuke ima koso! Honoo no ichida wo!
Wei Chu! Wei Chu! Shouri wo mezashite!
“Lin Wei Chu! Lin Wei Chu!”

Let it go now – fiery hitting
Lin Wei Chu, Lin Wei Chu, aim for victory.

Not quite ‘We need a pitcher not a belly-itcher.’ How about that, former Twin Lew Ford is a Tiger. You strain your ears to catch the nuanced lyrics:

“Lew! Lew!”
Let’s go, Ford! Lew Ford, let’s go!
“Lew! Lew! Fight! Fight! Fight!”
“Lew Ford! Lew Ford!”

So he has that going for him.

By now you’ve finished your octopus balls and are ready for an adult beverage. Luckily, you don’t even have to leave your seat to get a nice nama beeru. No, your draft beer can actually walk right up to your aisle in the form of an sales girl (urikku). This oft-pigtailed young woman lugs around a mini-keg of beer on her back all game, just to give you delicious cold beer from the tap. Imagine that – Sapporo draft without leaving your seat. Seems like the Japanese have improved at least one part of the experience.

As you wipe your frosty mustache from your face, the innings change and some pop music begins to blare. In a scene that would feel more in place at a basketball game in America, a string of cheerleaders come out on the field and begin a choreographed dance.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xcVL0o1Oko]

The six-year-old to your left knows every move and rocks right along, complete with her own orange pom-poms. You notice another couple complimenting the young girl for knowing the dance, and after a little peek left and right confirm that people are sharing food with each other, people you’re pretty sure didn’t come together. If only the language barrier wasn’t holding you back, you’d probably be talking about interesting Japanese prospects and translating power hitting between leagues with the dude to your right.

You enjoy the game and begin to assimilate. You’ve got a handle on the differences and similarities, or at least you think you do. You’re hurtling towards that last great American moment in the game, though, the seventh-inning stretch, and before you know it, it’s time to sing “Take Me Out To the Ball Game” and move those legs a little – maybe even a rendition of “God Bless America” in our post-911 world.

And then? Well, then you get this:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsE0J8zIHQI]

Heck, maybe that cultish Giants fan-unfurling and accompanying song it is not so different from the American version – it is still just a song and dance. And maybe, even though you are expected to take your trash out of the stadium with you and learn words to fight songs for each player on your team, the whole experience is fundamentally similar. You come to a baseball game, cheer a little, eat some snacks and have a beer; these things are the same in either country’s version of the game. But each little facet is a little different, too.

Besu-baru, not baseball.

Travel: Vietnam (People of the Eye)

obvadmin — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 20:04:42 +0000

My prayers have been answered, Darling, and the time is approaching when you will accept the Religion of the Eye. You will see, just to the left of this writing, that the faith of Cao Dai has much in common with the unnecessarily surreal films I have always begged you to make with me. Do you remember, Darling, when you said to me that the three saints (Sun Yat-sen, Victor Hugo and Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm) were your guides to success in this world? If you don’t remember that, Darling, it is probably because you said nothing of the kind, but you will say that one day.

And anyway, it was Graham Greene who said:

Caodaism was always the favourite chapter of my briefing to visitors. Caodaism, the invention of a Cochin civil servant, was a synthesis of the three religions. The Holy See was at Tanyin. A Pope and female cardinals. Prophecy by planchette. Saint Victor Hugo. Christ and Buddha looking down from the roof of the Cathedral on a Walt Disney fantasia of the East, dragons and snakes in technicolour. How could one explain the dreariness of the whole business: the private army of twenty-five thousand men, armed with mortars made out of the exhaust pipes of old cars, allies of the French who turned neutral at the moment of danger?

Philtar, a Cumbira university database on theology, sums up the religion’s creation (too) precisely:

Cao Dai was founded by Ngo Van Chieu, an administrator working for the French in southern Viet Nam. In 1925 Ngo Van Chieu underwent a spiritual experience in which he believed himself to have encountered the divine being (Cao Dai). In 1926 an ecclesiastical hierarchy was established with Le Van Trung appointed as Giao tong (pope). During the following decade the movement the movement grew rapidly but also split into a number of subgroups.
Cao Dai has been staunchly anti-communist and worked for the establishment of a Viet Nam free from the influence of the capitalist west and communist east. The unification of Viet Nam by the Viet Cong in 1975 and the establishment of a communist-based government imepeded the work and growth of the sect. Cao Dai has, however, established itself outside of Viet Nam – in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. The more recent liberalisation of Viet Nam has provided scope for renewed religious activity in that country.

You can find their Cao Dai page here.

When most sources talk about Cao Dai, the entity, they call him God. Wikipedia does this. Most books probably do this. But that is a very silly thing to say. It is the Jade Emperor, first of Chinese Folklore (which they do not call folklore; they are not Germans, after all, and their “sacred stories” are not very much like fairy tales) and later of Mahayana religion. True, Protestants translated the word “God” as Cao Dai, but only because the Jade Emperor was at the head of Celestial Bureaucracy. There is not much agreement between the “monotheism” of Cao Daism and that of normative Christianity.

But I digress. Victor Hugo is considered one of their saints, because he spoke to them, in Vietnam, during the era of “French Indochina.” He had died, and after he had died, he learned, somehow, one or two facts about chemistry. He said: “Yes, it’s this kind of gas, which they call hydrogen. More or less dense, which makes the healthiest part, When they say that the Spirit of God swam above the waters, It’s in that sense that the word must be understood.”

I hope you’re writing all this down, Darling.

Cao Dai is Vietnam’s third largest religion; though 85% of the country is Mahayana Buddhist, and there are a few Catholics as well, the religion of Cao Dai (founded in the 1920s

Strangely, their eyeball-emblem depicts a left eye. The Masonic emblem (which tops the unfinished pyramid on our dollar bills) depicts a right eye. There is an excellent article about this spookiness by Paula La Farge, which can be read here. She makes the point that Victor Hugo was opposed to Napoleon III’s occupation, and that the religion of Cao Daism itself allied itself with the then-fashionable spirit channelling of theosophy in order to ally itself with a more subtle tradition of anticolonialism.

Maybe. But this religion, which has two million followers today (approximately) and has, at times, maintained its own army, has left a string of shrines for you to visit. It would behoove you to follow an itinerary which will help you in your conversion to this religion, this great and underrated faith. Your coming was foretold by Victor Hugo long ago, you see.
A final note, before we send you off, darling. Do you blog from Vietnam. According to the journo watering-hole site Polo’s Bastards, it has the second largestnumber of bloggers currently imprisoned, behind (surprise, surprise) China.

Here is the LGM suggested itinerary, which we hope you will revise and invigorate for us upon your return.

* 3 days in Ho Chi Minh City, with one day reserved for the Mekong Delta. HCMC is reputed, by some, to have the best nightlife in southeast asia.

* 3 days in Mui Ne, a gorgeous village on the beach.

* Overnight train from Na Trang to Danang, so to see Hoi An, a well-preserved French Colonial relic. Hoi An has cafes, street markets, riverside restaurants, and the best hand-tailored clothes in Vietnam. Use Viator to book a cooking class.

* Sightseeing on Halong Bay

* Flight from Danang to Hanoi. You will either love it or hate it.

* Then, to the City of the Eye. After your flight back to Saigon, make the 100km journey to Tay Ninh and the temple pictured below.

is our