This isn’t about the weather in Poughkeepsie. I’m no weatherman, and, anyway, everyone knows what the weather is these days in places like Poughkeepsie. It’s the same weather that’s hit much of America. It’s Polar Vortex weather.

On the word whether, I wonder whether you’ve read any of Elwyn Brooks White’s essays? If you have not, I highly recommend his collection (originally published in 1977). His essays often wander and play with tangents more than a high school Geometry class. It’s a lovely and unassuming collection, but poignant, too. Timely work, if you ask me. Something not to be forgotten or overlooked. His voice is full of empathy and metaphor. To put it bluntly, he uses metaphor brilliantly. He wrote many of those essays on a farm somewhere near-ish to Poughkeepsie.

At the school where I work we’re in the fog of the second semester, and in my English classes I brainstorm with students about whether or not weather might be a metaphor. A math test can be a breeze (not for me). Someone can storm into the room. The morning can be a whirlwind. You can shower someone with gifts. Sure, weather can be a metaphor. It’s fodder for the critical reader. The weather can also build setting, context, a scene or mood. The weather might even be a character or a plot device.

I wonder though, is weather ever just weather?

When my cousin’s wife emailed me from Poughkeepsie that it was -1 degree C—her name by the way is Lovie—she also mentioned by name that devilish weather system: the Polar Vortex.

“Jesus”—I wrote in my reply—“Polar Vortex sounds like a really bad hip injury.”

Can you see it?

Doctor: What seems to be the problem today?

You: I don’t know, Doc. When I _______ I felt something ________.

Doctor: Hmm…

(Doctor scribbles a tornado of notes on the notepad)

You: What?

Doctor: You mean it went like ___________.

You: Yes! Just like that.

Doctor: Sounds like the classic case of a Polar—

You: No, not that!

Doctor: I’m afraid so.

 All (in unison): A Polar Vortex!

Doctor: I’m afraid it’s going to be a long, long winter.

—

We drove south for the weekend—my wife, two-year-old son, and I. We started in Manila, where we’ve been living since August, and took the SLEX South road through Taguig and Paranaque and on through Calamba. Along the way, there are several road stops which offer Petrol and Starbucks and Jollibee and then the road narrows when you get to Batangas and onto Bauan and then it all goes topsy-turvy when you get to Mabini, a municipality of a mere 46,000 compared to Manila (population 22 million). We ended at our destination—and our storm-free three-day weekend—some three plus hours later at Lilom.

Over the long weekend, my wife and I small talked about parenthood. We have another on the way, so baby-talk takes over easily these days. We know what we’re in for: man-on-man defense for the next several years. We both agreed that as much as we love our son, there are moments, sometime hours (perhaps days) when parenting is more grueling than, sigh, sunshine. Every parent has been there in his or her own way.

I suggested to my wife that, sometimes, taking care of little man is sort of, like, I’m just trying to pass the time until he naps or sleeps and then you have a moment of peace and calm. It’s like you can, sort of, breathe again.

It’s kind of like waiting out the cold or recovering from a Polar Vortex or, even worse, surviving the long days and nights of an incompetent president.

Everyone knows what the weather is these days, remember?

No, by the way, I’m not comparing my son to the Polar Vortex. That’s a bit hyperbolic, don’t you think? We had a delightful weekend. It was one of those weekends when you think, yep, I can do this. I got this. Bring on another two babies. One morning, my son and I took a walk along the shores of the Philippine Sea where wooden boats with names like InfinityTwo and Crystal Blue and Adventurer stenciled on the side docked and waited for divers to embark. The waves teetered at a pace my son could conquer and smile at. We played and climbed and shoveled sand and threw seashells. The sun was warm, the morning glorious.

Neither is my son anything like our current president. I know I’m a bit biased, but my son is much more mature. He knows how to say thank you (and mean it) and say sorry before a storm’s a-brewing. If he built a wall it’d be made of something tasteful and useful, like cheddar cheese, marshmallows, or Legos. My son likes to share and give hugs. He has way more empathy than Trump and wouldn’t even know where or how to begin a late-night Twitter fight.

I guess, this too shall pass. The cold, I mean. We just have to remember to hug onto each other a little tighter and use our shovels with more grunt force especially when our president says things that makes our country feel even more frigid and torrential.

How do you read it all?

I tell my son it’s okay when we’re frustrated and angry, we just have to breathe and start anew. Find a better way. Yes, We Can.

Remember that rainbow of hope?

Even when we’re fighting something as brutal as a Polar Vortex.

Yes. We Can.

There’s a typhoon outside and that’s literal. From the balcony windows, we watch slanted sheets of rain rush from the sky. Storm winds sway the native Arecaceae and shoo debris every which way like a rag doll. It’s all swooshing and swirling and rushing, but we live in the Fort.

That’s not a literal fort structure. It’s Fort Bonifacio, aka BGC, aka Global City. It is a former military fort—originally named Fort McKinley after US President McKinley (circa 1902) and later renamed Fort Bonifacio (circa 1957) after Filipino hero Andres Bonifacio. Today, however, there are few remnants of that former fort world, though I’m sure typhoons hit then as Typhoon Mangkhut strikes now. What did it all look like back then? Today, the Fort is comforted by posh apartments and very well air-conditioned malls and shopping strips. We live on one side of the Fort, and then there is the other side.

On the topic of forts, some change and some stay the same. The people of Oguaa founded the city of Cape Coast, which later became a Portuguese trading fort post, which later became a Castle by way of the Swedish Africa Company, which then moved to Dutch hands, and then on to the British, wherein it became a dungeon for slaves before they were sold and shipped to the New World.

Today, it’s a museum.

On the western-most tip of the African continent, there’s a similar structure erected on Goree Island in Senegal. Another West African slave fort, one of thousands.

Where do storms come from anyway? Typhoons and hurricanes? From the ocean, from the tides, from the heat and humidity. Hurricane Florence was once just a rain shower in Dakar.

US Soldiers are fleeing to Fort Bragg to help those whose forts could not hold up to Hurricane Florence, that flood-maker. Some folks are stranded, maybe waiting it out on a rooftop or wading through a neighborhood street that was, just a few hours earlier, asphalt, curb, and sidewalk.

It’s no surprise that Fort Bragg is at the epicenter of the relief in the Carolinas. It is one of the largest military installations in the world. Confederate Army officer Braxton Bragg (for whom Fort Bragg is named) would be honored to see how American troops rally for those in need.

To see how America rallies for all people in need.

(To see how America rallies for all voices not because we ‘tolerate’ but because we ‘accept’ and listen to all voices? We the People. To see how the leaders of America “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty?” We the People…)

Does it always take a storm to rally like that?

I’m not sure where typhoons come from, but it must start from something afar, too, like with the hurricane. Most of the Mangkhut’s damage will be in northern Luzon and then move on to Hong Kong and mainland China.

Filipinos are already talking about the damage. What’s to come. My mom drove to Virginia to avoid Florence. Who wants to sit through a storm without some atom of assurance that the sun will shine again?

I feel guilty as hell watching it all from through my window.

We all need a fort.

Typhoon Mangkhut is hitting the Philippines, while Hurricane Florence hits the east coast, and I see the news is covering both pretty heavily. Funny how storms strike and how the world reads about it.

After the turbulence and whisking clouds, the sky clears. 10 minutes to land. The dirt roads below remind you of the deep red earth between Lusaka and Livingston where elephants roam and you can buy fat cake and fried fish heads at road-side stands. From above, Vientiane looks a lot like deep red dirt roads. And green countryside. And murky rice paddies. It’s barely October…

First breakfast: two fried eggs. Then pork noodle soup, which looks and tastes like Pho, only this has no fish balls.

“How do Laos people drink coffee?”

The hotel restaurant waitress gives me a look, then she says, “you mean what’s the Laos coffee like?”

Her question is better. “Yes!”

“They put the condensed milk with the coffee and sweetener, but maybe it’s too sweet…for you.”

“Can I order—”

She shakes her head no. “Here we don’t have. You want Latte? Cappuccino?”

“Black coffee is okay.”

Slurps of pork noodle soup later, she returns. “One of the cleaner ladies here brings the Laos coffee every day. We will bring you some to try. It’s okay?”

“Yes!”

“It’s just a small. Just to try.”

She returns with the drink on ice. It’s super savory and very sweet and milky; it complements the humid morning warm…

The hotel concierge presents a map of downtown Vientiane. She circles the hotel off Quai Fa Ngum.

“What must we see or do today?”

She writes “Hopeko” by one landmark to the far right of the map. “15-minute walk here,” she says, “maybe twenty.” She circles a few other locations.

“These are temples?”

“Temples. Yes.”

The manager, a French man, arrives then. “Have you been to Paris,” he says.

“Yes.”

He circles another landmark on the map. “You must see this one. C’est tres magnifique.”

Outside, the air is clammy. On one side of Rue Settathirath, a gaggle of electric wires hangs and runs parallel with the road. Coffee shops and bakeries and French colonial architecture that reminds you of downtown Dakar. The narrow alleyways and worn buildings that could tell a million stories about back then. Instead of the tired yellow, bumble-bee taxis in Dakar, here there are three-wheeled tuk tuks painted heavy blue or green. Left on Avenue Lang Xang until Patouxay. Remember the Arc de Triomphe in Paris? Same-same, but different. Laotian mythology lives in the arc’s ceiling. Two photos by the fountain with Patouxay in the background cost 40,000 Kip…

Sharing several Beerlaos with an expat Aussie friend. Earlier today, the Richmond Tigers defeated the Adelaide Crows in the Australian Football League, which is a big deal for some Melbourne fans. She says there’s no western fast food in Laos. She says: “No KFC, McDonald’s, Burger King, or Starbucks.”

“Yummy. Why not?”

“They’re still pissed at America for Vietnam,” she says.

Over 600,000 US bombing missions occurred during the Vietnam war. Because of Laos’ proximity to Vietnam, they bore the pain of many of those missions, and today, the remnants of that past are called “bombies” and they lie in the rich soil, ready to detonate, mostly in the north-east and east of Laos and each is the size of a tennis ball and filled with steel pellets. In 2006, the Vientiane Times reported that “about 400 people are killed or injured by unexploded ordinance (UXO) in Laos each year.” Another, more recent on-line site, http://www.legaciesofwar.org, states that at least 20,000 lives have been lost since the end of Vietnam because of these leftover “bombies.”

Make Laos “Bombie” Free Again…

The beer is good and cold. She orders several dishes. The best is the fish served out of a plastic bag. The sauce is gooey and thick and just a tad spicy. Laos is a communist country so the conversation moves toward China. When I ask if Laos and China are partners, she nods no.

“I wouldn’t say they’re partners with China,” she says. She leans in and moves her hands toward each other like they want to choke or strangle something. She says China has dammed the Mekong and keeps damming the Mekong. Damn. Now, the Mekong is more difficult to predict. You think about cartoon analogies, because sometimes cartoons make more sense than real life. You picture Gargamel’s wicked, intruding hands harassing Smurf nation to make gold…She’s a writer too and you talk about how difficult dialogue is to capture—among other things. The Beerlao is starting to take effect, but the “bombies” are on your mind because you think that’s another sad story to hear about the world…

On a plane to Pakse. In the seat pocket, Champa Meuanglao: a charming magazine, and on page 40, there’s “The Tale of the Lady Fish” in both English and in Lao. You fall into the tale and you wish your culture had tales like this one to tout as your own. Maybe it does, but you’re not sure. Does the Sons of the American Revolution count? Here in Laos, the Pa Nang fish has only half a ribcage…

“Long, long ago, our ancestors spoke of a beautiful and magical princess, whose comeliness and virtue were reminiscent of those of the legendary Nang Soumountha. It was said that whoever was honorable enough to wed the princess would bring tremendous prosperity and richness to his people…her beauty spread far and wide across the many kingdoms, finally capturing the hearts of two valiant princes of two of the most powerful kingdoms in all the land…”

You already know how this will end. You look out the window of the twin-engine plane and down below and, Jesus, it really does look like sub-Saharan Africa. Back when you were in the Peace Corps, in northern Namibia, in Owamboland, in the tropical savannah, in the African Bush where the world was all relative to the dry and wet season, and everything on the radio was local Kwaito and Brenda Fassie, and almost every taxi driver in Owambo had a cassette tape of Don Williams.

Don Williams?

Don Williams, you remember? You wondered then how in the hell Owamboland attained Don Williams cassette tapes. You’re not sure what album it was—that doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s all kind of like that documentary Searching for Sugar Man. Or something like that. You haven’t listened to Don Williams since, but back then you memorized every song because you could envision the lyrics when you had to do chores like fetch water (eta omeya) or look after the goats and cows in the fields (you forgot that Oshiwambo phrase). Or maybe you just memorized Don Williams, because Don Williams was so slow and easy to memorize. It was easier than the CDs you had at the time for your Sony Discman: Rage Against the Machine, Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun, Prince’s Musicology, Led Zeppelin II, and Enter the Wu-Tang.

“Realising that neither [prince] would yield, the princess, in a selflessly heroic move, sacrificed her own life to save the thousands that would die in warfare. Before her untimely death, she instructed her trusted aides to halve her body and offer one side each to both princes…The princes woefully did as they had been instructed. Once each half had been submerged into the water, it magically became a fish, and like the form from which it came, had only half of a ribcage…”

Wu-Tang Clan Forever…

Champasak is a sleepy village, but in ancient times it was the King’s home. You’ve been to Angor Wat, and this is nothing—absolutely nothing—like Angor Wat, but it’s kind of better because there’s no one here and it’s foggy and it might rain soon and your son is on your chest and you’re wandering through an ancient village. You make it to the top and the views are better than Angor Wat, but you shouldn’t compare, you’re just saying, right. There’s a temple at the top. You’re not sure how Hindu and Buddhism bleed together here, does it matter? There are relics and there’s burning incense. You make a prayer with your wife and son because yesterday a lot of lives were lost in Vegas and maybe, you think, America needs prayer from where you are. Meanwhile, the Mekong keeps moving…

Champasak sits right on the wide, milky-looking, moving-at-snail-pace Mekong river. It moves faster than it looks though and the mythical serpent-like Phaya Naga lives in the waters.

You commit to running every morning. It’s barely six, but the sun pokes through the bloated cloud cover and the roosters are crowing and your son isn’t awake yet, so, you know, it’s now or never. You take the main road first. You pass road-side shops selling everyday stuff, like stuff you’d buy once every few months at COSTCO or Target. The rice paddies here are lush green and full; rice grass sways with the breeze. The cattle look more like water buffalo than cattle. The houses are built on stilts, and you wonder if the Mekong gets this high, but later, you learn, because you ask, that, no, the Mekong doesn’t get that high here, but the stilted houses allow for a cool place for families to sit and relax and feel the breeze. Every house should be built on stilts then.

There are dogs on your run, and you think, no way you’re afraid of these dogs, and only one comes at you, running like it might snip at you, and you stop and point at it, and say, “no,” and the dog stops then, really afraid of you, and you turn and keep running and feel bad when you pass a monastery where a line of monks, draped in deep orange and maroon robes, walk. They’re serene, but determined, and you’re not sure if that’s accurate because you only get a snapshot of now. You keep running and see more monks and cut back off the main road and loop back along the even-more narrow road that hugs the Mekong. Families and shop owners are on their knees, holding out alms and food—sticky rice and fruit and hard boiled eggs—and they wait for the monks to arrive and pray over their residence and work place. As you run, you watch a few exchanges. It seems dogmatic, sure, but feels real. To submit to something. That always feels real.

After your run, you watch a crew team sprint up and down the Mekong. They chant. There’s a rhythm to it that you can count, but you don’t understand the words. Is it kind of like jiayou in Chinese? At the back of the boat, one man sort of kneels so he’s higher than the others. He’s looking out in front of everyone, directing them by knocking on the boat’s side with his oar in between the rhythm of the team’s rowing.

At a recommended restaurant for lunch. The owner speaks English. You order Beef Laap.

“North Laap and south Laap is very different,” she says.

You have no point of reference, but you say, “yeah? How are they different?”

“South is more spicy.”

You order more fried fish in chili sauce and take a drink of papaya juice.

She says she has a one month-old son. “It’s good luck if the son looks like the mother and the daughter looks like the father,” she says.

My wife and I look at each other and then at our son and then to her.

“You have very good luck,” she says…

The next morning, you don’t wake as early, but the roosters are still crowing and there are no clouds, but the sun’s not so high, so it’s still early. On your run, you miss the monks, but this time you pass children walking and biking to school. They are wearing their school uniform: crisp, white, buttoned-up collar shirt and navy blue pants.

“Sabaidee!”

“Sabaidee!”

You just learned that word, but it’s the greatest phrase ever. It’s almost as great as “Asalamalakum.”

“Sabaidee!”

“Hello!”

“Sabaidee!”

Every morning should be like this one.

You run.

Green. Lush. Overflowing rice paddies.

You run.

Cattle sauntering through fields, neck bells cackling.

You run.

Stilted, cozy houses on the horizon. Chicken satays grilling on road-side stands.

You run.

There’s a dog.

You run.

“Sabaidee!”

“Sabaidee!”

You run…you could run like this for miles and miles.

“Sabaidee!”

Or kilometers of monasteries…

On your last morning in Champasak, you decide not to run. You’ll take a bike ride with your son or take a walk or do something else, like read. Grey, dusty clouds hover over the Mekong. They don’t look like they’re going to move any time soon, and you think it might rain. There are other things to write, for sure, but you don’t want to think too hard about Laos. It’s too beautiful and peaceful and serene. You spend your last few hours thinking about how to submit to it all…

The Vintage International version (1992) of James Baldwin’s play Blues for Mister Charlie offers some of Baldwin’s insight in the introduction “Notes for Blues.” Baldwin actually begins by expressing his general and genuine disdain for the American Theatre. He states, “I am not convinced that it is a Theatre; it seems to me a series, merely, of commercial speculations, stale, repetitious, and timid” (xiii). Baldwin goes on to explain that Emmett Till’s murder became the initial inspiration for his work with Blues for Mister Charlie. Baldwin, too, recounts how the death of his close friend, Medgar Evans, was in fact the tipping point to get his ideas in script form. At the conclusion of “Notes,” Baldwin writes: “When [Medgar Evans] died, something entered into me which I cannot describe, but it was then that I resolved that nothing under heaven would prevent me from getting this play done” (xv). In typical and true Baldwin form, he writes because he feels an urgency. Baldwin’s Blues for Mister Charlie is, sadly, a timeless American tale. A white man kills an innocent black boy and then walks free. Baldwin finished this play in 1964, but it speaks to 2016 just as easily.

Blues for Mister Charlie is a play in three Acts. The set design is particularly important to Baldwin’s work. He presents two worlds, WHITETOWN and BLACKTOWN, which are separate, but sort of co-exist in Plaguetown, U.S.A. (xv), a pseudonym for perhaps (or, maybe, essentially) any city in America. Then, there’s the church and the courtroom, which are directly across from one another and divided by an aisle that, too, divides the whites from the blacks. Baldwin’s stage screams of a segregated world. It’s not minimalistic by any means. It’s a busy stage, done intentionally to note the confusion, the traffic, and the real racial collisions within America. The stage design accentuates the growing intensity between the whites and blacks especially in the last Act. While various individuals take the stand to share what they know about Lyle Britten’s guilt or innocence in regards to the death of Richard Henry, a young black male, the WHITETOWN and the BLACKTOWN make comments, almost as if it is a play-by-play at a sporting event. In one heated moment after the State asks Meridian Henry, the deceased’s father, about his personal life, the opposing thoughts of the two worlds shout at one another:

THE STATE: You have been celibate since the death of your wife?

BLACKTOWN: He never said he was a monk, you jive mother!

WHITETOWN: Make him tell us all about it. All about it.

MERIDIAN: Celibate? How does my celibacy concern you?

THE STATE: Your Honor, will you instruct the witness that he is on the witness stand, not I, and that he must answer the questions put to him! (pg. 103)

This commentary continues through the duration of the trial, which finds Lyle Britten innocent. What’s even more frustrating is that the trial becomes not about the murderous act of a white man, but the reputation of the dead, black boy. It’s all a setup. The reader (and the audience) knows that Lyle Britten will be found innocent. Baldwin was purposeful with his intent here and blatant with his message: even a dead, black boy is the guilty one, and both the BLACKTOWN and the WHITETOWN know this.

Parnell James, the loud and drunk editor of the local paper, is perhaps the most intriguing character. Parnell is white, but is close with both the accused and the victim. He grew up with Lyle Britten, the murderer, and is, too, close with Meridian Henry, the victim’s father. Throughout the play Parnell interacts with both families and towns, and it’s never absolutely clear who he truly sides with. Parnell is at the center of this collision. How can he choose one to fully support? He has to, and yet he struggles to do so. Again, Baldwin is not coy or shy with Parnell’s character. Parnell James represents many Americans—black and white—who find themselves at this crossroads. In the end, after Parnell finally gets the brutal truth from Lyle, he decides to follow Juanita, from the BLACKTOWN, to a Civil Rights march. Parnell’s not ready to lead this change, he’s just a follower, but he’s finally settled on which direction to take. Perhaps this is Baldwin’s subtle message to white America: you can only waver until you cannot.

Although this is a play, Blues for Mister Charlie feels like Baldwin’s prose. There are glimpses of his classic fictional characters in this play, which compliments his full work, I think. Baldwin was dedicated to his craft, his art, and his reason for writing. While I read this play, I constantly found myself thinking about John Grimes, David and Giovanni, Alfonso, Rufus Scott, even Sonny from his short story “Sonny’s Blues.” Baldwin knew the core of his characters, just as he knew the core of why he wrote. The final line of Baldwin’s introduction in “Notes for Blues” reads: “we are walking in terrible darkness here, and this is one man’s attempt to bear witness to the reality and the power of light” (xv). No finer words, I think, represent how important this play is today to our very divided and wavering America.

There’s the story; then there are the stories.

In 221 B.C.E., or there about, Qin Shi Huang united the then very sparse and warring kingdoms of the Far East. Qin led the unification of what would later be hailed The People’s Republic of China. Qin did that. He became China’s first Emperor. That was the Qin dynasty.

I ask Johnny, our guide at the Terracotta Army Museum, if Xi’an is cold in the winter. It’s September and over 35°C outside. Inside, the clay warriors are dressed for real winter: heavy boots, long and stiff garments, scarves tied tight at the neck.

“Back then there were less people,” Johnny says, “so it was much colder, and the rivers were much wider. Now they are small.” Johnny is quick to respond to my questions. He’s an expert on Xi’an, a guide for over ten years. His feet are just as fast as his responses. I have a hard time keeping up with him, which has been my experience in China in general. China’s like New York City on Methamphetamine. I kind of love it.

When I ask Johnny why there are no women warriors, he sort of grins and cups his hands over his mouth, like he’s got a secret to tell, but then blurts, “At that time, you know, the woman is a slave. You could have many wives. Qin had more than 3,000 concubines.” There are terracotta horses and carriages and warriors and commanders and generals, but no terracotta women. That’s the story.

Thursday marked the 70^th anniversary of the Victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. On a television outside a megamall on North Street, just by the Bell and Drum Towers in Xi’an, I watched the victory parade for a few minutes with a gathering of other passersby. There’s a three-car procession down the center of Beijing, passing Tiananmen Square and the large portrait of Mao Zedong at the front of the Forbidden City. Mao’s portrait is like sign language. President Xi Jinping stands, always stoically, out the roof of the front vehicle. His suited torso, carefully parted hair, and steady head stays still, almost like he’s a hologram. Or a clay statue. There are no people on the street. Only straight lines of tanks and tankers and missiles and more tanks and soldiers and crisp blue skies. Xi’an is grey. As the President’s car passes, he yells to the soldiers, only his lips move, and they reply on queue with shouts and sternness. It’s all in Mandarin. I only watch for a few minutes. This is not my parade.

Later that night I watch the Gala Event on CCTV 1. It’s a show. There’s another procession. This time there’s a very content, but composed Chinese crowd. Parading are foreign diplomats and state VIPs. I see Putin; he’s walking at the front with Jinping. I try to guess where the other delegates and diplomats come from. I see Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, maybe. I don’t see President Obama or Secretary of State John Kerry. There are Chinese war vets: hunched and humble and smiling and wearing heavy, military green garb. Are they the modern day Terracotta Army? The diplomats shake hands on the way to their seats. They settle, and the theatrics begin. There’s dancing and singing and more dancing and singing. I think there might be more dancers than soldiers in China. I’m awestruck, really; the VMAs and the OSCARS and the GRAMMYS got nothing on this show. The most compelling part is the choreographed dance about the Rape of Nanjing. It’s a massacre: against all Chinese women, it appears. It’s intensely beautiful, but I don’t think about China or Japan. I think about humanity. Stories.

In 1974, a Chinese farmer, trying to dig a new well, struck the mighty, clay figures. He didn’t know what they were. He called his neighbors. They thought they must have been cursed. It must be bad luck. A few more calls. Government officials investigate. Archeologists bring their brushes and trowels and shovels. No, no, no, this is them: the mystical and mythical figures who were carved and kilned two millennia ago to commemorate and protect China’s first Emperor. Qin Shi Huang longed for immortality. The warriors face east, toward the rising sun, and are a part of Qin’s larger Mausoleum and tomb in the Lishan Mountains that faces the setting west. After the mighty Emperor’s death, his son was, “a stupid leader,” Johnny says. One dynasty ended, another began, and the Terracotta Army were forgotten, lost in history’s scrolls.

Today, the museum has three buildings. The first, and largest, is the size of two football fields and holds the most original and restored warriors. Each face is different. The torsos are hollow. Johnny says, “sometimes the artists are smart.” In the kiln, the hand-carved clay figures had to exude heat and fume or they would explode within the extreme temperatures: hence the hollow torsos. The heads were added later.

Johnny explains how the actual clay was brought to this part of the region. “Slaves carried it here from the south.” The women, I think. Today, archaeologists send the extra, crumbled clay to a factory to make replicas of the warriors. They deliver to America, if you want. Johnny says, “When President Clinton visited, he was offered a free one.” Clinton refused, saying he wanted to pay for it. I ask Johnny how much it would cost to buy a terracotta warrior. He said 10,000 RMB. About 1,500 US dollars. I cannot confirm President Clinton has one in his house, but Johnny is pretty certain he does. It might be at their front door. Maybe in the office. Stories.

I wonder about China, which is to say I wonder about my country: the United States of America. Original and restored and replicated. Stories. What about reenactments? What about retribution? What about the Trail of Tears and Tuskegee and Katrina? What about flags? Infamous stories. What do you do with the infamous stories? What about Donald Trump? That’s the best you can do, America? Donald Trump? Rich, white men jockeying for immortality. Stories: past, present, and future.

They all look the same, the Terracotta warriors. Today, I could have purchased an exact replica of a warrior made of the same clay, from the same land as the original warriors. I’ll take a woman warrior, please, on a horse, carrying a bow and arrow, shooting his story. How’s that for reenactment?

Peel stories, like onions.