Chapter 4: Under the Sun (II)

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven

A time to born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to morn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war and a time of peace.

After sending off his long lost friend on his way back to China again, David returned to his home and lived idling in a state of unemployment again. But this time, he is not technically unemployed, but rather a self-employed small business owner without enough work to do, and waiting for payments from last client. It was not even possible to get unemployment benefit from the government or anybody, nor was he very interested in getting any. From dawn to dusk, David seemed to be orbiting around his sofa in the room or the deck chairs in his back yard, with occasional touchdowns on them. He watched butterflies lingering on and then taking off from a swing set on which his daughter Crystal used to play when little.

He could not shake off the ideas in the conversation between him and his friend from university. Theory of relativity had almost brought him the scientific proof of the fact that the world we live in was an illusion. He couldn't seemed to deny either that everything happened in the world was true, truly an illusion? Was it also an illusion that every events happened in the history happened at the same time, same place, same fashion over and over again, while it could be said that everything appeared to have happened in different time, different places, in different guises.

David's wife Jade wondered whether her husband was sick, or fell into a state of coma, or had simply become an idiot. She told him: "If you were to die, please let me know first. I want to die before you and save myself the trouble of going through your funeral". David laughed with a little disbelief, because he could not believe his marriage, with a rocky start like many common ones of his generation, would end up being such a good one. It is not common for a wife to vow to die before her husband after all. He told Jade: "You don't need to surprise me with such punch lines plagiarized straight out of a novel. I can return your line with another one from the novel 红楼梦. Remember in the 'Dream of a Red Mansion' there was this young boy vowing to this young girl -- 'After you die, I will leave this sorrowful world and become a monk'? Well, I will go one step further and 'Become a monk even before you die'".

Jade decided to leave his husband along so David could continue to act like a monk, doing nothing except pretending to meditate all day. Since being a monk was still a secret between the couple, they also tried to hide David's state of coma, or state of deep thinking, lest attracting attentions from their daughter Crystal or any of their neighbors. If a neighbor or a friend happened to be visiting them, no one would notice any changes on David's behavior except he appeared to be on vacation and laying off all his work.

When those neighbors left, David started drifting into his accumulation of stories, hearsay, anecdotes, incidences, episodes or text book histories that he had picked up over the years, by living in China, United States, Canada and traveling to Europe.

One day he thought the weird effect of the theory of relativity was actually quite easy to understand and visualize by common man unlike what had been taught by university professors all around the world. The so-called dimension of time and dimension of space really have no difference, because space travel and time travel really have no difference even with our everyday reasoning. It's just that mankind has not traveled far enough in space, despite of the crowning achievement of landing on the moon.

If a human could travel about 6000 light years in space and aim a more-powerful-than-Hobble telescope back at the Earth, than he or she would see a Earth that was still sparsely populated. If a human can travel about 2000 light years away, then he or she will see Jesus Christ got crucified and then resurrected.

If that observer happened to be a English-speaking Chinese or a Chinese-speaking English, then many of the beautiful-than-beautiful things would be revealed. If one can move around in the space far enough and freely, one can travel the time. But human are limited by Jesus' voice "with man nothing is possible", therefore it is pitiful that the incapable specie of humans so far had only managed to fictionalize time travel on the silver screens, at a time that non-artists could only travel to the moon.

Nothing can travel faster than light or near the speed of light if that object happened to have the size of a human. Maybe imagination or minds defying science and logic are the only vehicles to truly travel the space and time. These could be traveling at no speed of or at an infinite speed.

From more than 10 thousand light years away, an observer watching the Earth is seeing the Ice Age. From about 3100 light years away, the same or a different observer, no matter, can see Chinese trying to make a calendar 夏历 for the farmers. Those folks down on the Earth definitely did not know what it meant by BC or AD, and the calendar business isn't going very well.

0 light-years away on the Earth, in David's home the TV was playing and a voice from a Chinese actor was talking about appraisal of antiques. The character in the movie said: "Madam, any piece of antique got its value mostly through shedding of blood. More dramatic stories happened around the piece, and more blood had been shed for the piece, more death could be attributed to it, higher the price other people would like to pay for the stuff".

David thought, "Is this another proof of the fact that value of many things in this world is a matter of perceptions". He thought of the most precious piece of antique in Chinese history, probably the one called 和氏璧. The piece of rock was later made into the official stamp of later Chinese Emperors for many dynasties. Even before the stone was acknowledged to be precious and out of the rough, the discoverer of the stone named 卞和 had already lost both of his legs to two kings of the kingdom 楚. He got both of his legs chopped off because of slanderers, accusing him of exaggerating the value of the stone. He then cried for days before even got his story heard in king's court, and subsequently convinced the king at last that he had found a piece of hidden gem that would emit lights in the dark. Later the stone was involved in many historical events, stirring up murders, coupes and assassinations and also served as source of many idioms in Chinese, such as 价值连城, 完壁归赵. There were many historical figures believed that obtaining the piece of stone meant obtaining the power of an empire.

After all that, the funny thing about this particular piece of antique was that the treasure stone was merely a special kind of feldspar. Geologically speaking, it was not even as precious as many other minerals such as diamond, garnet, topaz or corundum. This humble and bloody beginning of the Chinese 传国玉玺 is visible somewhere in the universe about 2700 light-years away.

From somewhere in the universe about 1000 light-years away, a star gazer looking back at Earth could see a Chinese writer named 欧阳修 trying to play a game with a group of friends. A running-away horse was speeding wildly out of a stable and knocked a flying bird dead onto the road. The accident happened in front of the group of writers, and they decided to make a contest out of it and see who could use the least amount of words to describe the accident. The winner used following words: 马踏飞燕死.

David envisioned himself as a star gazer looking at many distant Earth like planets with varying light-years away. "Which of these heavenly bodies out there would be another Earth that is currently looked upon by an observer from this Earth", he thought. "Would the search for intelligent life be another illusion of man? Why do mankind always use our environment suitable for intelligent life to define the environment for intelligent life in some other galaxy? Would there be other intelligent life breathing Helium looking and laughing at us right at this minute?".

He wondered what he would see if there is another Earth in this Big Banged up universe and quickly wrote down some encrypted notes as if he was looking at a set of history and writing down 马踏飞燕死. After all, history is like a set of lies agreed upon, imagination rules the world, and there is nothing new under the light.

幻象, a set of lies agreed upon, 阴阳, relative, 合久比分分久必合 . . .

There could be many of those wonderful summary words that would summarize the history, but a more elaborated version would be like this:

> 50 million light years away, the world population was negligible and the economists would say the resources on Earth were very scarce.

In the beginning, Jewish people thought they saw a God created the universe in seven days, with 6 days of actual work and 1 more day for rest. God created the universe with materials that we see on Earth: light the first day. In subsequent days, he separated heaven and earth, gathered water, created animal, etc. Finally, God created human out of earth/dirt.

Chinese believed they saw this gigantic big guy named 盘古 who used a big axe to split a thing called "chaos" into two halves, namely heaven and earth. When 盘古died, his body parts, such as bones, blood and hair became mountains, rivers, vegetation on the planet that human lives on. A while later, a women named 女娲 made people with earth/dirt, at least Eastern and Western legends agreed on using the same material to build the first human. That was about the the only point Eastern and Western human origin stories met in the early days. Then different peoples look at the stories of creation from the other groups in disbelief, and some times even laughed at one another.

Somewhere many light-years away, an observer would be able to see a lot of flood and natural disasters pounding on the planet Earth while Westerners and Easterners worked hard on recording their accounts of these disasters. Recording something was not easy in primitive media such as stone, wood, bamboo, animal skins they had learned to use. One alternative was to remember firmly in mind and then tell the off-springs by word of mouth.

When the entire earth population was said to be around 50 millions, and economist were still saying the resources on Earth were scarce, it looks like civilizations mostly were growing along different major rivers. Along the Euphrates and Tigris, there were the Babylonians; along the Yellow and the Long Rivers, there were Chinese; Through out Hindu civilizations major cities also dotted along rivers; Along the river Niles, there were the Egyptians; along other rivers there were probably more peoples, but not everybody had learned how to record their deeds.

For the recorded events, records were not written in the same way as modern articles therefore not well understood and often disputed. Westerners often dispute whether 黄帝, 炎帝, 蚩尤 ever existed, because even Chinese archaeologists could not tell precisely what actually happened. Then China entered into the period of 尧舜禹 after the period of 三皇五帝. Power transfers at that time were through the process of 禅让 or 任人唯贤 instead of 任人唯亲, a sort of like how things were conducted later in Rome, like the period of "5 good emperors".

Although there must have been fair amount of activities in the areas on the African continent, at least being where Egypt resides in, recorded history of Africa turned out to be not well stocked in world libraries, largely because too many European historical records tend to crowd out the African ones. Pharaoh was often described in first person grammar to be a very powerful guy that could single handily kill tens of thousands of invaders without losing a single drop of blood and probably invented writing too. In Europe, some other events were recorded, but people could not agree on what actually happened or not happened, observing from afar in the stretch of imagination.

Ancient European seemed to be most active, near the area where the continent meets Asia and Africa - or where the worlds met. But why the area had such division of the names for the continents was a strange phenomenon by itself. Strange events included collapse of the bronze age, disappearance of Atlantis, or half mythical God plus human stories such as Iliad and Odyssey all spanned across continents one way or the other. Some of the well documented events actually happened in the Asian part of the Eurasia in places such as Asian Minor, Babylon, Persia or on African continent such as Egypt. But as European later became powerful and started to focus spotlights of glories and achievements on themselves, European teaching and Bible teaching seemed to have all forgotten about the idea that all the humanity on Earth appeared to have originated from somewhere in Africa, and skin of Jesus could have been very dark-colored.

The effects of the legacies left by Iliad and Odyssey were long lasting in European history. The victors of the Trojan War generated two heroic figures: Odysseus for seeking knowledge and Achilles for choosing glory over death (as in Chinese 不做寻常床箦死，英雄含笑上刑场). The defeated party of the Trojan did not vanish from history as total losers either. Part of the defeated army happened to bring their offspring to settled in the area later called Rome, Italy. With help of a certain mythical "female wolf", some said could be the nickname of a poor women, a set of twin raised by the female wolf started the clans of Romans and later Britons, and later American etc. with traceable cultural heritage among all Latin-related language speaking people several thousand light-years apart.

The Odyssey story also had other long lasting effects, such as a child searching for his father in this world. This complex was heavily reflected in the father-searching mentality in European religions. The quest for knowledge described in Odyssey also was reflected in many years of study in theology and science by Europeans during and after the dark ages of Medieval.

Cross the Indian Sea, Ural Mountain or even Himalaya, what was later called Mount Everest, other sides of the earth had other civilizations evolving such as those of India and China. While accuracies of the legends and mysteries of their ancestors were disputed, there came a moment after which stories of peoples and nations were actually written down. From that moment onward events and people happened were less foggy and less uncertain, but there was only one problem. People were always able to write history as "a set of lies agreed upon". On the other hand, lying is absolutely necessary for the survival of human specie, according to a much later novel Neanderthal. Man can not out-jump fleas, out-hoist ants, out-run cheetahs, or out-communicate Neanderthal with skills of telepathy. Without the ability of deception, human wouldn't have survived out of the primitive harsh environment.

Easily decipherable writings roughly started in West and East when the world population was approaching 50 millions, when Moses led Israelis out of Egypt and when 商 was established in China. 商was later replaced by 周 when words, patterns and pictures left on potteries and containers were replaced by words carved and colored into bamboos, colored on animal skins. In Babylon, lots of scribes were left.

At the end of 商 dynasty, Chinese language started to mature and became easily recognizable by later generations. The following words and phrases emerged and spanned across the distance (or time) of several thousand light-years:

姜太公钓鱼远者上钩，助纣为虐，哪吒闹海

End of 周 in China also saw some later famous people such as Confucius (孔子) joined into the action of recording history. He wrote a book called "春秋" which became the name of one period. The name of another period was 战国. Together, the name of these two period could be translated literally as "Spring Autumn" and "Waring States".

From many light years away, if one use a telescope to observe "Spring to Autumn" in China, then turning towards Mediterranean, Rome was about to be founded by Romulus and Remus, a set of twin given birth by a virgin, and raised by a mythical she-wolf. Romulus was the mythical "old soldier" type of Emperor who Douglas MacArthur later wanted to imitate as "old soldiers never die, they simply faded away". He killed his brother to gain the sole leadership after the sibling fought many battles together to start the city of Rome.

"Spring to Autumn" started with 千金一笑 and 烽火戏诸侯 flashing with certain not so well connected stories such as 掘地见母，暗箭伤人. Soon after the show of "Spring to Autumn" started, many respectable nobilities focused their attention on becoming the supreme leader of the allies (霸主) to nominally support the Emperor of 周 but in reality gaining the true authority (挟天子以令诸侯 -- 原版).

公子小白/公子纠/齐桓公/春秋五霸之首 管鲍之交 任人唯贤

重耳逃难 土贵于金 退避三舍

楚庄王/伍举 一鸣惊人

秦穆公 秦晋之好 放虎归山

宋襄公 （蠢猪似的仁义道德 - the "pig thinking" type of moral standard）

阖闾 / 夫差 how fast even a good king can be trapped into the state of free fall

勾践 卧薪尝胆 how fast a defeated king can rise from the ashes like phoenix

About the time when Rome was to become Roman Republic, China entered a the period of "Waring States", with seven of the states standing strong - 齐楚燕赵韩魏秦 - a small number of states reduced from hundreds of them earlier. The dominant power in Europe was not Romans yet, but Greeks. It was said then Romans were great at waging wars, but still lack of imagination when it came to culture and religions. Roman language was later called "Latin" language, and "Latin" was its surrounding area. The religion of Rome at first was merely a copy of the Greek mythologies such as Zeus became Jupiter and Hera became Juno, not to mention several hundred years later, Romans adopted Christianity as its state religion. However, Roman emperors tend to alternate between warriors and faithful believers of Gods, and religion helped Romans to build disciplined military forces comparing to that of its neighbors. It looked like morals of a military could be better when soldiers were able to distinguish honor from treachery, bravery from cowardliness and glory from shame. Someone said Romans were soldiers taking oath seriously, not monks taking military training seriously. In the end, might didn't make everything right, but did build thousand year civilizations. Justice would eventually triumph over injustice, but the version of justice could be revised by the victors.

三家分晋 战国七雄

When this period started Rome was still weaker than Greeks and Persians, but enjoying quite a unique geographic location to grow in peace time and rehabilitate after disasters and wars, like that of North American continent many light-years later, or the Japanese islands before her rising onto the world stage.

Famous Greek city states rose up to fight the Persians and Alexander the Great took his fight to the vast areas of Asia all the way to India, along with a group of writers and philosophers. Such act was pretty much like Napoleon many light-years away taking biographers with him into battles to record the great deeds of him and his army.

With the natural barrier of great mountains and plateaus, China never saw, or even heard much about, Alexander the Great, who was later depicted in the Inferno by Divine Comedy.

China was busy with following lead players and events in her history.

warriors:

Good ministers:

管仲 - 鲍叔牙， 伍举 - 伍子胥，廉颇 - 蔺相如 - 赵奢， 晏婴

Buddy guys:

scholars:

老子 - 庄子，墨子 - 鲁班，孔子 - 孟子，韩非子 - 商鞅 - 西门豹，苏秦 - 张仪，

assassins:

专诸，庆忌，荆轲

褒姒， 齐姜

general terms:

诸子百家/百家争鸣，滥竽充数，守株待兔，自相矛盾

The "Waring States" period ended with the 秦 Dynasty. At that time, China had gone through most of the philosophies, strategies and executions of those ideas that were sophisticated enough to theorize events and characters for the next several millenniums, as Solomon pointed out even earlier: there is nothing new under the sun.

The first Emperor of 秦 called himself as 始皇帝, by dreaming that his family business of "Empiring" will last forever and ever. But quickly the country went into a chaos, because the younger brother wanting to kill the older brothers along with their favorite generals and supporters (story of 胡亥, 扶苏, 蒙括). Since then the Chinese history were full of younger brothers in the royal family killing their elder ones and vice versa. Come to think of it, royal siblings killing each other happened not only in one place, but all over the world.

Besides brothers killing each others, usurpers were killing their kings and masters before and after the Waring State period in China too. Those things happened about the same time usurpers were disposing emperors in Europe in Rome and Greece. Alexander was rumored to have killed his father Philip before conquering large part of Asia Minor, then chasing Persian king all the way to today's Afghanistan and India while there were no shortage of usurpers he had to stand alerted to. The circle of history runs through war, famine, treachery, philosophy, political systems and religions like a matter of playing the same game over and over again with slight change of equipment and rules when world economy and global productivity are developed enough to satisfy another set of human needs.

Western history had minute differences to that of the East despite of having large portion of similarities. Romans could not stand some of the ruthless kings and tyrants, therefore with influence of the Greek idea called "democracy", people and nobles rose up and founded the Roman Republic, with "dictators" occasionally called in to settle the differences and make critical decisions. That was the beginning of European countries rotating between republics and empires afterwards over and over again.

Neither Republic nor dictator were commonly observable objects in Chinese history, there were only a few times, groups of nobles tried similar systems of group leadership, but they never worked well and groups were usually in families.

Not big on Republic, Democracy or state religions, China saw other type of events though, that were similar to the West: 焚书坑儒, 指鹿为马. Those events were like religious fights in Europe hundreds of light-years away, but back then in China, those tyrannical events caused other uprising such as 巡夫哭长城，揭竿而起.

Another dynasty was born with an Emperor 刘邦, who was portrayed as someone who 提剑斩蛇 to begin his revolutionary career. Later, his army joint that of 楚 and it was said whoever enters the capital of 咸阳 first would be the owner of the place. His army entered the place ahead of a stronger force of 项羽, but could not cash in the promise of owning the place, because might usually speaks louder than promises. 刘邦 and his men were then forced to have a smaller piece of the spoil of the war and retreated to garrison the city of, 成都, then back water border regions.

楚汉相争，鸿门宴，明修栈道/暗渡成仓，置之死地而后生，垓下之战/四面楚歌/霸王别姬，

When all these happened, Greece was no longer the dominant power in Europe and the form of government called "city states" was no longer fashionable. Also taken away were Greek style Athenian democracy and Spartan style militaristic camps; Also gone were the Greek style philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato, Socrates. Rome was sacked by Gales first, then rose again and fought Samnites and Carthaginians, some historical giants finally showed up from Africa. Battles were brutal and time were tough, like the kind of period later generations would say "that which does not kill me can only make me stronger". After numerous wars, the undead Roman Republic was edging towards this Roman Empire with after-effect spreading all over the Earth that could be seen for many light-years away in the universe.

鸟尽弓藏/兔死狗烹/杀功臣 成也萧何败也萧何 和亲匈奴 母强子弱/太后干政/外戚专权 张良/陈平/周勃 文景之治/休养生息/清静无为/老庄哲学 (ancient version of small government ideas by American Republicans)

罢黜百家/独尊儒术 李广射虎/卫青/霍去病/匈奴未灭何以为家 苏武牧羊 张骞出赛 投笔从戎/不入虎穴焉得虎子 王莽篡汉

Abut this time, Roman Empire swept through Europe and the areas where Europe meets Asia and Africa. To the religious people in the world, one important thing happened was that Jesus the Nazarene was crucified by the Romans and then his body disappeared the third day after his death. Many people in the area eye-witnessed that Jesus was alive, walked out of his tomb with nail marks still in his hands, and flew into the heaven.

Back in China, 汉 dynasty continued with

绿林赤眉 昆阳之战 光武帝刘秀 疾风知劲草 得陇望蜀 外戚专权 阉宦乱国 党钴之祸

Over in Europe, Roman Republic finally gave away to Roman Empire after the powerful dictator Julius Cesar was assassinated after leading Rome to occupy most of Europe and defeated political enemy Pompey in a civil war afterwards. He appointed his nephew Octavia as successor, although Marc Antony and Cleopatra disputed with a baby which they called Cesarean -- a son of Cesar. Another war proved that European East and Greek heritage were out of fashion, but sailing in Mediterranean was the skill to master for the time being. Greatest sailor of the day - Agrippa - and the side which he chose to have his loyalty dedicated to won the war.

Roman Empire was finally in full force governing areas encircling the Mediterranean and went all the way westward into furthest island areas they could reach and named that part of the world Britannia. Roman emperors lived in the city of Rome, where citizens did not need to pay taxes. At first, Roman emperors, did not like this religion called Christianity coming from the Jewish people of the East. It was said there was a Emperor called Nero who burnt some buildings and blamed Christians for doing it, pretty much like Nazi's setting the Reichstag on fire in a distant time and space to ban communist party. Many Christians were killed a sort of like 秦始皇焚书坑儒.

Strong religious activities are usually signs of social instability, because politicians/leaders/heroes could play with believers from different sides. In the far East when things did not go very well, there were things like 苍天已死 黄天当立 岁在甲子 天下大吉. Following was a period of 人才辈出 and many text book stories of 以少胜多.

桃园三结义 不求同年同月同日生 但求同年同月同日死

十常侍/何进/袁绍/董卓 曹操/孙坚/孙策/孙权 王允/吕布/貂蝉 陶谦张绣公孙瓒，各据雄才占一方

白骨路于野，千里无鸡鸣

煮酒论英雄 千里走单骑/过五关斩六将 官渡之战 三顾茅庐/隆中对 新官上任三把火

携民渡江 血染征袍透甲红，当阳谁敢与争锋 长板桥前一声吼，喝断了桥梁水倒流

舌战群儒 群英会/赤壁之战 三气周瑜/赔了夫人又折兵

夜战马超 偃旗息鼓 五虎上将 水淹七军 走麦城 夜观天象 将星陨落

彝林之战/火烧连营 勿以恶小而为之/勿以善小而不为

七擒七纵 六出祁山 出师未捷身先死/鞠躬尽瘁，死而后已 扶不起的阿斗 蜀中无大将廖化做先锋

司马昭之心 三国归晋

The persecution of Christians continued on in Europe from one Roman Emperor to another. Some more strange things happened in Roman Empire when it came to reign of this emperor called Diocletian. Although still persecuting Christian like his predecessors, Diocletian beg to differ in some other aspects. He thought the Empire was too big to be governed by only one person, therefore he divided the Empire into East and West and made four Emperors to govern the country. The two senior emperors in the East and West Roman Empires were called Augustus and two apprentice emperors were called Cesar. In case anybody wonder where the title Tsar came from or how the name Cesar became a title for a governmental position, this was the part of a tradition when Cesar meant a position not a person. But the Tetrarchy, or the four emperor arrangement, did not work as Diocletian's original intended. His original intention was to avoid bloodbath between transfer of powers from one emperor to a next one. The main reason for dividing up the authority of the emperor was to make each title less powerful, since Diocletian thought less powerful the positions were, less desirable they would be for future seeker of the throne. But the strategy backfired, since now, there would be 4 emperors with 4 sets of ambitious heirs and pupils coveting the divided thrones, and each candidate thinking he could get one of the thrones and them work on merging more power into one. Even by taking a step back, each less powerful throne was still a throne nevertheless and could be attractive to many. After Diocletian, Roman Empire was divided into Western and Eastern Roman Empires, with each one calling itself the Roman Empire. And then Diocletian retired into his hometown somewhere in Croatia and became a vegetable farmer.

Not long after, in light-year sense, Constantine The Great came along and took the throne through a serious of coupes and murders and quickly dragged himself into wars against other ambitious noblemen who wanted to depose him. Constantine favored the Eastern part of the Roman Empire and built himself a city with impregnable unusually thick war around it. This new capital of the East Roman Empire was called Constantinople, which was the capital of a true "thousand year empire". It was also rumored from time to time that the city housed three fourth of the treasure in the world. Constantine eventually stabilized his throne by fighting wars killing off all of his major adversaries. During one of the decisive wars, he told everybody that he dreamed of certain deity helping him to win the important pending battle. In his dream God asked Constantine to paint initials"K" and "R" on the soldier's armours in his army and he did. A couple of month later, Constantine revealed that God with Jesus Christ, or maybe "KRist". It was rumored that Constantine finally was baptised on his death bed. Similar to the political struggle called 罢黜百家独尊儒术 in China, Christianity became the state religion of Roman Empire and this incident was called "pact with Constantine" by Christians in the Western culture. Christians would like people to believe that Constantine signed a contract to give away sovereignty of all the Roman Empire to Jesus Christ, therefore Jesus was also called "king of kings" in English. Later, the sovereignty was expanded from Roman Empire to the entire world in the Medieval ages, therefore "church" and "state" were one entity that belonged to God with Catholic clergymen as executive senior managers, while kings and nobles as their middle level managers.

Chinese society and philosophy sank into a state of apathy towards living and life in general, much like the Europe after World War I.

闻所闻而来见所见而去 竹林七贤 （吾以天地为宅舍，以屋室为衣裤，汝为何入我裤中? -- 中文古版"相对论"） 桃花源记 草圣二王

Britain had been garrisoned by Romans since about the time when 光武帝 was trying to rebuild 汉朝, and was named Britannia by the Romans in honor of a sea goddess. When it came to the third and fourth century, many sea raiders came to raid the island just like Huns 匈奴 often invaded China whenever opportunities presented themselves. Many people believed the story of Camelot and King Arthur was describing this period, with Arthur being a Romano, Celtic king against the sea raiders. At the end of the King Arthur legend, Knights of round table went into a fever of searching for the Holy Grail and that was about the time when Christianity turn the tide in Europe, that even to the western most of the continent started dreaming about "building a Palestine" in the area. It was interesting to note that in the king Arthur legends, the quality of the knights were ranked by how close they eventually got to the Holy Grail in their journeys of searching for it, unlike many other ranking systems of armed personnel, which were mostly done by power and ability to subdue others.

Spread of Christianity was not without deterrents. When Roman emperors changed frequently, some of them liked Christianity, some didn't. One Roman Emperor called Julian, who was brought up in exile in the areas where ancient Greeks lived, decided that Christianity wasn't his thing. Being quite a philosopher and book worm himself, he decided that he only needed to turn one sect of Christians loose, they would soon be at the throats of another sect of Christians. His tactics worked and he almost succeeded in defeating Christianity with Pagan religions within his Empire. But then, he was shot by a stray arrow in a battle like what happened to King Harold II in Battle of Hastings or 陈友谅 in 鄱阳湖之战, with death of one leader breaking a huge stalemate, tide of Christianity prevailed. Then the history was written in one way not in another like a flipped coin fell on one side not another, what a narrow miss!

Back in the Chinese part of the East, Huns successfully invaded many parts of China and some of the invading tribesmen changed their last name to be more like those of ethnic 汉 race, and they also adopted Chinese languages to mingle into, and practically enlarge the dominant Han 汉 population. China was divided into southern and northern parts. It was really a big melting boiling pot for many peoples and races, much like multi-cultural countries of US and Canada many light-years afterwards.

淝水之战/八宫山下草木皆兵

魏孝文帝 民族融合 花木兰替父从军

Many ancient Hun and Turkish tribes that used to appear in Chinese history books started to migrate Westwards to look for better pastures and abundance of food and wealth. One could hear later day Armenians, Poles, Hungarians talk about how their ancestors migrated from somewhere closer to Himalaya/Mt Everest to where they were later. One famous leader for such nomadic tribes was Attila the Hun, whom somebody called " the scourge of Earth". It was said the paths that his war horse trotted along would no longer be capable of growing grass anymore. Since Christianity was becoming new fashion of the time in Europe, some Europeans wondered whether Attila might be the anti-Christ that many Christian believers dreaded could appear on the judgement day -- the dooms day of all people. After all, time flied! Crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ had been events of several hundred years ago, the second coming of Jesus Christ could be near, but that speculation never materialized. The "end of the world" prediction kept on happening later on periodically, including Y2K.

While China was in a state of disarray and ethnic fighting, melting and mingling, Europe saw a Roman Emperor who had a wonderful life, slept very little, but lived until a ripe old age. The Emperor was Justinian, one of a few head of states to mention "Solomon, I have surpassed you" in the history. His reign started out shaky though, with one of the biggest test happening as a riot/revolt originated from a sports venue in the capital Constantinople. For a moment, it seemed the mob was out of control and the entire cabinet was discussing how to send the Emperor out of the capital safely, when the Empress Theodora, a former escort service women, stepped in and made a mockery speech. The speech was about how a group of generals and ministers could be giving a king such ill guided advice. She then sharply questioned how a king could be afraid of a city and people that he was supposed to rule. She ended her remark with, "as for me, I still regard royal purple makes the best shroud". When a women made up her mind for the color of her cloth, men usually could do nothing but oblige.

Then the topic of the discussion turned into how to quell the mob rebellions and restore orders in the capital. Luckily for Justinian, he not only restored order in the capital but also found capable military leaders and tacticians during the operation against the mob. Adding a few more capable financial geniuses to replenish the monetary supply of the nation, his Empire expanded steadily westwards, while he could build a big building in the capital called Hagia Sophia to symbolize his Solomon surpassing achievements. Justinian was also credited as the Emperor who almost united Eastern and Western Roman Empire together again. As "the Emperor who never sleeps", he was one of those selected few depicted as residing in the heaven along with Jesus Christ in the Divine Comedy by Dante.

The divided China in the East now was about to come together again. But the prelude of a peaceful and prosperous united nation usually start out with intense fighting, just like the modern day Americans reasoning the great Civil War as: a wild fire unseen before to forge a bond that is stronger than ever.

外戚专权/杨坚 杨广（欺娘戏妹杀兄霸嫂弑父夺权） 大运河

杀手锏/回马枪 多个朋友多条路 响马/山大王 程咬金三板釜 天下第一条好汉 (in the West, Galahad was ranked #1 knight because he found the Holy Grail). 三十六条好汉结义贾家楼 瓦岗山寨 生而何欢/死而何惧 十三棍僧救唐王

玄武门之变 贞观之治 魏征进谏 载舟覆舟 天下英雄入彀中 女皇武则天 唐初四杰

While all these were going on in China, Europe and Middle East went through a period of Muslim conquering. Western Roman Empire was broken into small special administrative areas in Western Europe, but Eastern Roman Empire was winning a war against Persian under the leadership of the Emperor Heraclius. Heraclius was not contented with mere victory in the battle field, and he tried to come up with new religious theories to help people from Eastern and Western parts of the old Roman Empire to get along better. Unfortunately, both sides of the people he tried to persuade, turned against him and accused him of being weird and heretic. He was officially denounced by Western Roman Catholic Pope and neither did he get support from his subjects believing Orthodox Christianity. He was not the only Roman Emperor suffered this fate, like another one named Zeno much earlier. There was a very complex relationship developed between former East and West of the Roman Empire, much like there are much complexity between Eastern and Western European countries later on.

In the then Arab world, there was another group of people who were irritated by confusion in the teaching of Christianity and were angered by the inequity caused by theocracy and religious ruling elites. It was said there were more than 30 versions of Christian scripture back then and many people pointed out that so many versions of the Bibles was a sign of corruption of the great book. Islam was born out of such environment, and this new religion tried to pride itself on having only one version of its holy book in Quran. Islam also simplified the deity as "there is only one God in Allah and Muhammad is his prophet". In Islam, depicting religious icons was strictly prohibited. Comparatively such a religion was easier to understand and practice comparing to Christianity. Among Christians, some believed trinity, some did not; some believed that Maria was divine and some did not; some believed in iconoclasm and some did not. Islam took off especially fast among poor and oppressed peoples in search of equality, because it was relatively easier for poor people to get to heaven through Muslim. If they wanted to get to heaven through Catholicism, the pay rates for the clergymen were significantly higher, and it took sophisticated educations for someone to become a clergyman like doctors and lawyers many light-years later. Outside the heart areas of the old Roman Empire, such as in Arab Peninsula, Asia Minor, North Africa, and Spain, armies of the prophet were soon riding wild.

Back in China, 唐 dynasty was in prosperity. It was a period when open minded talents were gracing the country with their cultural, religious and literary products stamping permanent prints into Chinese history. During this prosperous and relatively long lasting dynasty in China, Europe entered deeper and deeper into what was called the thickest of the "dark ages". Holy Roman Empire was formed in Western Europe and people believed they were managing kingdoms on Earth for one universal head of state -- Jesus Christ -- in the heaven, and science was merely an extension of theological study to prove miracles performed by Jesus. Kings were merely the helpers of Jesus to rule the world and government were issuing orders in the name of God. clergymen, Pope and Catholic church had enormous power on hands that it was easy for them to burn people alive, without worrying about protests of human rights abuses, like how it was back in 商 dynasty in China.

李白 （大鹏一日同风起,扶摇直上九万里 -- 飘逸）/杜甫 （感时花溅泪,恨别鸟惊心 -- 心学/唯心主义）/白居易 （野火烧不尽,春风吹又生 -- 自然） 安史之乱 唐明皇/杨贵妃

Then just like a pendulum, weak Chinese dynasties followed their stronger predecessors and China was no longer once respected 东土大唐 anymore.

In Europe, Viking raids happened all over from British islands to Eastern Europe. Scandinavians or the Norse men even ventured into areas further east than Jerusalem in Crusader's army, or served as the Varangian Guard of Constantinople. Norsemen successfully took England from other stationed areas such as Normandy with the force led by Duke of Normandy. Some others Norsemen ventured as far as later day Ukraine or Russia and it was said Vikings were the first group of Europeans entered the Americas.

China entered the weak dynasty of 宋 founded by a true master of martial art called 赵匡胤.

千里送京娘，黄袍加身/陈桥兵变，杯酒释兵权/重文轻武 杨家将/穆桂英 狄青/包公 秦湘莲/陈世美 苏轼/陆游/李清照

宋江/方腊 梁山泊一百单八条好汉 (结拜的兄弟越来越多 三十六天罡 七十二地煞 武松 鲁智生 林冲 宋江) 张叔夜

There was a period Europe and China looked alike, each one with no strong centralized government on the continent, tribes and states conducted opportunistic raiding against richer nations and seemed to be getting upper hands. Plundering, pillaging and raiding of peace loving, inert and wealthy nations seemed to be the story of the day. In fact, what used be considered as barbaric nation in the edge areas of the wealthy nations by slow encroachment into the central areas to become the ruler, was not uncommon in the world history. On the other hand, for rich nations/states to forget such lessons again and again had also been a persistent theme through out the world history. 周，秦，清 ruling elites were all called 夷 or 戎 before taking over the center stage 问鼎中原. Same could traced back for the ruling classes of many countries in Europe. From Romulus and the humble origin of the Roman Empire to Duke of Normandy and his successful raid of England with his followers, it did seemed that 王侯将相宁有种乎，有！戎夷匪寇也.

完颜阿骨达/完颜兀术 岳飞 韩世忠

成吉思汗 四子/四杰/四勇士 忽必烈 马可波罗

When space travel move into the area of less than one thousand light-years away, one will quickly see the Earth experienced flows of conquering and raids swept through the Eastern and Western ends of the Eurasia continent. In the West, a pope named Urban II decided to sell the tickets of entering the heaven to whoever wants to fight for the Catholic church in the name of cross. Afterwards, waves and waves of Crusaders took arm, with their aims often pointing at two cities in the Mideast with wealth and religions prestige, one being Jerusalem and the other Constantinople. In the East, along with weakening of a unified Chinese central government, nomadic peoples included 辽，金，西夏，蒙古 took turn taking control of the East Asia, sometimes sharing power with 宋.

Being super successful and overachieving, were the Mongolians who rode out not only eastward, southward, but also westward too. They brought wars and chaos into Western Asia and Eastern Europe among Muslim and Christians alike. There was a domino effect with the Mongolian conquering, since some defeated Muslim troops had nowhere else to go but further West into Europe. Soon Turkish fighters grew stronger and stronger and eventually sacked Constantinople to finally end the Eastern Roman Empire.

In Western history books, Mongolians were often described as master of "fake retreat", and a pure destruction force that was brutal, immoral and probably illiterate, with little influence in art, literature and cultural matters. But Mongol invasions did introduce several phenomenons that changed the world, including things such as paper money and organized small units in armed forces 十夫长 百夫长 千夫长 万夫长. More important contribution by the Mongolian to the world culture was to bring people and knowledge from Asia and Europe together -- one early wave of globalization. It was the desire to trade with Asian people that motivated people like Columbus to sail west and eventually discovered the New World.

Mongolian Empire was short lived and after its collapse, China entered into 明 dynasty. This dynasty was not particularly strong nor particularly weak. Many talented people made their mark in this dynasty, but it also missed many opportunities to advance in industrial and scientific development. Failure to have a world view, no attempts to keep pace with development in science, and finally, regulations to forbid sailing freely to explore the world outside of Chinese landmass, pretty much sew the seeds for the miseries laid ahead for generations of Chinese.

刘福通 (石人一只眼 - 宗教迷信) 朱元璋 常遇春 徐达 （更多的异姓兄弟） 陈友谅/鄱阳湖之战 郑和/七下西洋 于谦/两袖清风/粉身碎骨 戚继光 王阳明 崇祯/袁从焕 李自成/吴三桂/陈圆圆 努尔哈赤/皇太极

Eastern Roman Empire finally fell, with its latest Emperor being a grand child of a Serbian. He was named a martyr, a saint, a national hero of Greece, even though he did not even remotely look like Roman of the Julius Cesar era. In the end, East Roman Empire was Greek rather than Latin, the thousand year empire do not use even the same official language as its original one. Upon the ultimate defeat and sack of Constantinople by Turks, the Emperor Constantine XI disappeared mythical just like the first Emperor of Rome, Romulus, who simply faded away. But this time Constantine XI disappeared into a much larger firework, he picked up his sword and charged into the large crowd of Turks in the streets and his body was never seen again. Hagia Sophia now become a combination of a mosque and a church with certain parts of it being what used to be for an Orthodox church, and the rest look like decorations for a mosque. It was rumored a Muslim leader later said "Solomon, I have surpassed you" in this building again.

Fall of Constantinople symbolized the heights of Muslim conquering. Mediterranean Sea was no longer controlled by Christians and trade between Western Europe to India or China would have to go through Arabian merchants. Some Europeans started looking for alternative routes over the sea to sail directly to the East by sailing westward. Many of the European people, including some kings, nobles and commoners became increasingly sick and tired of the Catholic oppression bearing down upon them. Martin Luther thought common people should be able to interpret Bible, a king in England wanted to divorce a wife to get another one. But these things could not be done easily with Catholic church in the way because pope and clergymen charged people too much money and bribes for their services. Some artists or scientists felt development of science and art under the "dark age" or "medieval" was like crawling. After more than one and a half thousand light-years, the technology and art were not even as good as those of Roman engineering of the old times or Greco-Roman art many generations ago. Nostalgia of what was great and beautiful back in the ancient Rome and ancient Greek propelled Europe into a age of Renaissance, Humanists, Age of Exploration, and spread all the way to the newly discovered America.

Over in China, nothing much was new, even new dynasties were formed. The good'o game/play of passing throne from one generation to the next was continuing with many government officials playing along. Since 满 race loved to ride horses, the term 拍马屁 was invented.

康熙 红花会 雍正/乾隆 嘉庆/和珅

清 was already part of the world economy with globalization in the minds of the leading governmental officials, but not of ordinary people. General public in China did not realize or did not pay too much attention to the fact that 康熙 emperor and his princes, along with there armies and cavalries had to fend off raids from Russians and Mongolians up north and weighing the decision of whether to use help from Portuguese or Dutches to retake 台湾. But the Chinese mindset had little room for the thoughts about the world outside of what had been traditionally conceptualized as 中原, 中国 or middle kingdom. When a person or a country is in a wealthy position envious by others, it is quite easy for that person or country to ignore what others were doing or thinking (饱汉子不知饿汉子饥). To concentrate on partying, indulging, wasting and squandering wealth would be stressful enough, as you would hear so many wealthy celebrities say anytime anywhere in the world. Some said it's good to be a king and some others would say it's tough and stressful to be a superstar. For the reason of laziness and arrogance, China sank into backwardness and admiration of its own achievement of prosperity, without noticing the rest of the world was developing and hunger for conquering and colonization.

Age of Renaissance in Europe made successors of Roman Empire moving both ways. Eastward, Russian started from Moscow viewed themselves as the successor or Eastern Roman Empire and moved steadily east all the way to the Pacific. Westward, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Britain took the torch one after another until finally passing along the torch to this group of people called Americans.

The founding of America and its growth nicely reflect the path of Rome or many other nations in the history, but was played out in a different bigger and fancier theater. A group of migrants came to a new area that was sparsely populated, due to curiosities, adventurous spirits, desires to run away from wars and famines, beliefs to glorify religious deity, or searches for better economic opportunities.

In Europe, people no longer fight hundred year wars, but instead fought for wars that lasted about thirty years. From Defenestration of Prague and the "thirty year war" to "the war that ended all wars", Europeans were becoming increasingly militaristic. All the wars went by text books style as if they were games and drills with rules and referees. On the ocean, English fought Spanish and defeated the Spanish Armada -- a struggle between Catholic and non-Catholic powers. On the land, thirty year war, another struggle between Catholic and non-Catholics, followed by the Treaty of Westphalia. Church no longer controls too many states in Europe. Whether to give sovereignty to Jesus Christ, kings or group of noblemen, was the choice of each nation-state.

England stayed out of the Thirty-year war to fight its own war within the border, featuring Oliver Cromwell beheading Charles I. Irish, Scottish had been battling English for many, many years, and Oliver Cromwell further added animosity between English and Irish.

British then fought the Dutches to juggle for the navel supremacy in Western Europe and control of the new world. The end result was New Amsterdam had its name changed to New York, after Duke of York.

Horses were introduced into America by Spaniards, although modern day American cowboy and western movies often portrayed American Indians as cunning riders who could shoot between legs of the horses, as if they were like Mongolians who were born with horses. The fact remains, they were introduced to riding fairly late, but were quick learners and practiced very diligently too. Conquistadors diligently killed native Americans in the vast area of South America, believing they are the kind of "human" made according to the image of God, therefore their thinking must represent God's will. They called the native American Indians "barbarians", ignoring the fact that native Americans were made of an image not that far from the image of God either, if indeed human image is the image of God. Evil of religion continued to spread through space and time, while many religious people will continue to cry innocently about how Christian had been the most severely punished religion in the history of mankind, while trying to spread gospel and kindness to the non-believers.

It was said wars usually propelled technological advancements. With Western Europe constantly involved in wars one time or another, industrial revolution was in full force in the region. Europe also entered a time when rulers like to be called "Great", such as Peter the Great, or Fredrick the Great, maybe it was the later generation gave them those "great" names. About the time when 乾隆 over in China was having his tours of a life time, 到处留诗没一首好诗，到处写字没一幅好字, Peter the Great was also having his 微服私访 of a good time in Europe.

Soon problems in world trade and colonialism reached a boiling point along with industrial revolution. Imperialistic nations in the world wanted to reallocate their properties like reshuffling a deck of cards and redraw. It seemed many countries, who later evolved into Central power such as Prussia and Austria, fought quite a lot with Russia in the Eastern part of Europe. Over in Western Europe, English, French and Spanish started a new round of diplomatic and militaristic campaigns over the American colonies. French and English also fought for trade controls in India. Europeans decided not to fight hundred year wars or thirty year wars this time, but instead to fight a seven year war, pitching most of the major European powers. After the period, French lost most of their big colonies in North America, and victory bells sounded frequently in streets of London.

After a series of victories in North America, subjects of King George III living in Britain thought they should levy more taxes on subjects of King George III living in North America. After all, they had just risked their lives and wealth to protect "their" subjects in the overseas colonies, wouldn't it be fair for those subjects to pay more and be grateful? The ungrateful Americans refused to pay with the reason that they should be "no tax without representation". Machiavellian philosopher was proven true again that "human nature is selfish, love is soon forgotten, but fear will not". The British king decided to use the heavy-handed approach and parliament/people agreed, making demands for colonialists to pay. Colonialists convened and discussed, then organized militias like armed forces such as "minute-man". Initially, colonists only wanted to get more representation in the parliament, but as more and more "English are coming", more and more colonists eventually moved into a full-fledged demand for independence, with stronger and stronger resolve.

No foreign power step in to support the American Independence war until they finally realized the rugged mob called "continental army" was capable of beating English professional soldiers with a fairly high frequency. Then the French started formally declare war against British and even sent in an expedition forces and a navy ships to the North American theater. After the tides were turned in favor of the Americans, there were still a lot of work left to do.

It was said that armatures study tactics, and professionals study logistics. Besides George Washington, another great contributor to the American Revolution was Nathaniel Greene, a general who was a good quartermaster general to start his military career. He actually pave the way which led to the victory for the siege of Yorktown, with French navy plugging in the last hole in the escape route of the British. Other significant contributors to American Revolution War included Horatio Gates, Anthony Wayne (later a famous Indian fighter), Lafayette (later went back and joined French Revolution because he came from France). American continental army at one point tried to capture Quebec in Montreal, the hero of which Benedict Arnold, became the most famous traitor in American history.

Years after the surrender of Yorktown, French facilitated a formal independence for the Americans. George III of England was forever labeled as the king who lost America, and he went semi-crazy. France, after funding the American war plus the heavy spending of their Queen of Louis XVI called Marie Antoinette, saw her national treasure chest getting empty. The French king wanted to raise taxes, but tried to be nice by reopening the national assembly.

The disproportionally large number of of aristocratic decision makers and small amount of taxes their represented group had to pay, caused the deadlock of the assembly. There was truly a "locked gate" somewhere someday that excluded some assembly representatives to enter a building somewhere, and those excluded members went to a tennis court to talk and protest. Later they spread out through the streets of Paris and created a Bastille day. That action turned the Age of Exploration into the Age of Revolution and it was said by some that the age of revolution did not end until fall of Berlin Wall and Collapse of the Soviet Union.

Very soon, those French revolutionized their country and the Jacobins started chopping off the heads of many people, until they chopped off too many heads that their own heads were chopped off by someone else soon. Chaos and confusion set in France and Western Europe until Napoleon Bonaparte lit a match to light up an atmosphere that was already passing the flash point. Europe started going through War and Peace, with Year 93 type of revolutionaries decorating the landscape. What a time of Les Miserable and Monte Cristal!

Like every Hannibal will finally meet his Scipio Africanus, or 诸葛亮 will meet his 司马懿, Napoleon will meet his match of Kutuzov in the East and Arthur Weasley or Duke of Willington in the West. Defeats of Napoleon in Russian and later at Waterloo, made Russia and Britain even more dominant than before and those two Empires turned their expansion towards Asia. Another by-product of Napoleonic wars was to produce a unified Prussia, which became the nightmare of France for the next century and a half to come.

British were unchallenged on the sea and it was amazing that a representative of corporate Britain, namely this East India company could single-handedly made a country of India into a colony and started a war with the American states. The company imported opium into China not too long after the Napoleonic era.

Quite a number of Chinese people liked opium, or rather got addicted to it thinking that was some kind of fashion or cool fad. But some in the government disliked it quite a lot, especially dislike the fact of losing money over such a worthless kind of merchandise. Then there was the Opium War in China in the Far East 道光/林则徐 鸦片战争. The original intention of the Chinese government was to burn opium before they are out of the wooden boxes. But to their dismay, they had opened a Pandora's box full of surprises that were soon obvious to most of the European countries. The surprises were the discoveries of how inept then Chinese 清 government and army were, and how far backward Eastern Asia had fell behind after Industrial Revolution. Treaties after treaties, European powers were able to rob more treasure out of China and other Asian countries. After discovering how easy it was to impose unequal treaties upon this used to be powerhouse of Asia, Westerners turned their sail towards Japan also and that country soon fell into the victim status soon.

About the time of the Second Opium War and the period of 道光/咸丰 太平天国 曾国藩/左宗棠/李鸿章, there was one commodore Perry from US navigated a gun boat into Japan and demanded "trade", which was a nice way of saying demanded "submission". Japanese fought but couldn't win, therefore made a lot of concessions like rest of Asian countries to Latin derived language-speaking people. Such humiliation prompted Japan to radically cut its ties with Asian neighbors and its own culture heritage. After overthrowing the existing shogunate government, the entire nation from emperor all the way down to average citizens got rid of lavish luxuries and cumbersome governmental organizations, to start mimicking and copying Western culture from clothing, education to even organizational structures 明治维新.

US continued to expand westward on American continent and had wars with Mexicans, a war which trained many excellent soldiers and officers, including Robert E. Lee, U.S. Grant, William T. Sherman and many other West Pointers, to fight their next great war among brothers. About the time Russia started a emancipation reform to get rid of serfdom, Civil War broke out in United States of America, not for getting rid of slavery initially, but for uniting the country which was about to fall apart. After a few years of fighting, Lincoln made the war into a war of emancipation and gained the final victory, then was assassinated. At the beginning of the war, and long after, Lee was highly respected because it was said that both North and South offered him the position of commander, he took the position in South only because his home state Virginia went with South, even though he himself did not own any slaves, and was said to be willing to free everyone of them if that was the cause of the dispute. Later historians said America needed the war among brothers, because only the wild fire of that scale could have forged a nation as strong as a super power, otherwise, look at South America.

For his great leadership and unwavering determination to unite the nation, Lincoln was later regarded as the greatest president ever in US, even ahead of its founding fathers like George Washington, Jefferson, Madison, etc. U.S. Grant got the immediate benefit of becoming another war-time general turned head of states, with legacy of heading an administration that was incredibly corrupted during the "Gilded Age"' Even though his family did not become filthy rich, and in fact lost a lot of money during the process of industrialization in US, it was said, the entrance exam questions for public servants during the Grant administration included: "Do you know General Grant?", "Do you know Mrs. Grant?", "Do you know any relatives of General Grant?".

It was said Grant was a stark contrast of Lee. Lee was tall and handsome, top of his class in West Point, from a noble heritage, articulate, a successful at a young age, but had to endure humiliation of defeat as an old man, but still highly respected by many. Grant was short and scruffy, bottom of his class in West Point, son of a butcher (but resented seeing blood), quiet with little words until poverty drove him to write a memoir before his death, an failure before 40, but became the top general, top politician and top traveler in his later years, ranked as one of the worst presidents in US history.

Military wise though, both generals were brilliant and professional, with Lee having the strong engineering background and Grant being quartermaster for many years during American-Mexican war. They brought up armies with ample energy that couldn't stop fighting after the Civil War. Because Grant was very lenient on rebel armies, regarding them as fellow country men again after their laying down their weapons, he was widely praised. Then many veterans of the Civil War with surplus energy but no wars to release, embarked on their journeys towards West into the Indian populated areas or went for the Gold Rush. The venturing by ex-Civil War soldiers left many cowboy and Indian stories for later generations to write about, including George Custer's small army getting wiped out by Crazy Horse in the battle of Little Bighorn. "How the West was won" was answered by killing off buffaloes, building railroads and removing the way of living for the Native Americans.

The Civil War casualty number was unusually high, because both sides started using firm arms heavily while still using the old troop formations to march and conduct frontal assaults. Besides, medical technology was not catching up fast enough with the reality of the war, for instance: practice of disinfection was horrific if reviewed by later standards. One surgical knife could be used on multiple wounded soldiers without cleaning. Such operations could have caused many unnecessary amputations or death because of infection. Some Europeans watched the American Civil War from afar and laughed at the two sides as two groups of untrained mobs trying to get themselves killed. They decided to demonstrate how to do it the right way and then started preparing wars of their own.

Napoleon III wanted to let rest of the world know that the Bonaparte's family still got it, so he launched this war against Bismark led Prussia -- the up-star of Europe. Getting beat, the disastrous war was accompanied by more revolutions for France. Communists in Paris built a commune to start experimenting communism. French nationalists ached for the loss of the Alsace-Lorraine area, which was passed back and forth between French and German in the next while.

China after gotten beat by the Europeans for several times, with large territorial and monetary concessions to especially Russian, Britain and France, decided to start a reformation called 洋务运动. But the royal family and nobles were still living in luxury for the most part while letting the poor bear the brunt of the burden for restoring the dignity of the declining kingdom. The reformation was proven to be half-hearted and unsuccessful at best, as China was beaten by Japan, its Eastern Asian fellow student of the Western technology and culture. China was defeated in Sino-Japanese War 慈禧/甲午风云 surprising many Western media and government observers. Even many people outside of China bet Japan to lose, but Japanese seemed to keep marching on with victory after victory in Korea on land, and easily defeated the weak Chinese navy, more mentally than physically/militarily on the sea.

The treaty 马关条约 after the Sino-Japanese war was the harshest unequal treaties imposed upon Chinese after the defeat of the Opium war. Afterwards, China sank deeper and deeper into misery and Japan started on a course of becoming the new colonial power, that was grown out of Asia. But since most of the areas in the world were already carved out by old colonial powers, Japan had to colonize its Asian neighbors. In doing so, Japan started denouncing its own Asian culture heritage and got on the wrong foot with its neighbors quickly.

In China, a group of reformists tried to change the power at the top with a failed 戊戌变法, doomed at the last moment largely due to the betrayal of 袁世凯. The winner of the power struggle sensed the dislike of foreign power inside China, therefore had to secretly permitted the grass-root movement of 义和拳 (boxers) to harass foreigners and tried to curtail foreign influences. After the armed intervention by eight European countries to crash the boxer rebellion, China was a de facto divided country with no real central power, but only puppets, figure heads and surrogates of foreign interest groups and domestic feudal aristocrats.

Japan found this golden opportunity to colonize some of the vaguely defined areas in East Asia from the hands of Russians and started skirmishing with Russians in the Northeast areas of China 满洲 (Manchuria). The Russo-Japanese war, although without words like "Sino" or "China" in it, was in fact fought mostly on Chinese soil. Machine guns were introduced in the war, but like many weapons in the history, the side that was the early adopter of the magic weapon did not get a victory because of it. The final act that nailed down the victory for Japanese, happened in Japanese Sea when a group of faster and lighter warships swooped down on a group of heavier and more powerful Russian warships, but were much slower. Those Russian warships had sailed for a long journey and most of them were quickly sunk with small casualty inflicted on the Japanese. The Russian Pacific Squadron was almost annihilated with a few remaining ships went back to Russia to participate in the October Revolution. After this war, Japan's power nation status was confirmed and unequal treaties imposed on her earlier were completely rid of. Quickly after, Japan started imposing unequal rights upon its Asian neighbors and also ventured into loosely administering Asian part of the Russian sphere of influence.

Chinese revolutionaries, ordinary people and local officials finally had enough of the incompetent 清 dynasty and the central government was overthrown by 辛亥革命/民国 Nationalists soon after the Russo-Japanese war.

Machine guns, like tanks of the Second World war, felt people did not use its full potential in the first war that it appeared in, therefore got its usage fully exploited in the next bigger and wider scaled armed conflict. World War I, or in Europe simply known as The Great War, started not too long after China became a republic. Other unexpected weapon and tools that changed the outlook of the warfare in World War I were things such as barbed wires, rail roads, bikes/taxis, chemical weapons, submarines and airplanes. After assassination of Prince Ferdinand in Sarajevo, nations calmed for a couple of months, since Ferdinand was a rather unpopular prince in Austro-Hungarian Empire. But history took a funny turn because some Austrian generals wanted to get a war to have some excuses to teach Serbians, and Balkan people in general, a lesson. What Austro-Hungarian Empire finally got was a war that broke herself. The other main players in the World War I were Germans, French and British in the Western front and Russians, Turks, Germans in the Eastern front.

Over in the Western front, both sides quickly entered into a stalemate and both sides realized that digging into the trenches and fighting a defensive war was more advantageous than conducting an offensive campaign. The Germans failed to materialize Von Schlieffen plan, while Ferdinand Foch, "Papa" Joffre and Philippe Petain made their names fighting the Germans in defensive trench warfare on their home soil. In the Eastern front, Erich Ludendorff and Von Hindenburg quickly overran the weaker Russian army and became German national heroes. British tried to break the stalemate by starting a Gallipoli campaign against the Turks, but failed. First admiralty Lord Churchill took a fall with it, leaving his post as a minister and went to the front. Mr. Churchill and a group of colleagues tried to experiment on an offensive moving vehicle that could be as tough and solid as a defensive fortress. Such a vehicle was called "tank", intended to break the stalemate at the Western front. Some people in World War I called the vehicle a joke, but many nations started perfecting the technique with the weapon after the war, and made it star of the World War II.

In the end, what really broke the status qua over in the west front was the participation of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF). The force was led by a Missouri born straight talking general John J. Pershing, who fought hard with his colleagues in the French Army and British Expeditionary Forces (BEF) wanting to feed his troops piece meal into different theaters of war. At that time, American military was considered junior partner when fighting along side the French and English. It was said that the first trip for some early arrival AEF soldiers in France was to visit the tomb of Lafayette and pay tributes. Then Marines in the AEF started making newspaper headlines all over the United States, but still had to keep fighting merely for the sake of existence because traditional army brass still was not sure what to do with such a new type of armed force. They wanted it dissolved or merged into the army after the war .

Over on the high sea, after seeing the greatest fire arch built by gunboats in the human history opened the Battle of Jutland, German navy was defeated and Britannia still ruled the sea. In the Eastern front, Germans sponsored a communist named Vladimir Lenin to travel back to Russia and led a revolution. The revolution succeeded and soon Russia announced that it was withdrawing itself from the war. Such was the "stabbed at the back by politicians and communists" strategy Hitler later labeled as suffered by Central Powers. But Russia was the first victim on hands of Germans. Germans finally ran out of steam in the Western front after waves and waves of fresh American soldiers poured in. Treaty of Versaille was finally signed with punishing terms to the Central Powers to conclude a war, which prompted General Foch to say: "this isn't peace, this is a truce of 20 years".

Almost exactly moving 20 light-years away, one could see Germans crossing the border of Poland while Russians sent their Red Army too.

But for a while, world peace was spreading its wings. League of Nations was founded based on the idea of some academic Americans, especially President Wilson, but US congress refused to join the organization. Chinese and Japanese both wanted to reclaim former colonies occupied by the Germans. Since Japan was more powerful in the League of Nations and it had more fire power in its arsenal, demands from Japan were heard. Demands from China were not quickly brushed away, and Japanese further increased their encroachments into China.

The quasi-colonization of the Japanese and other European powers were conducted in China through warlords, at first. Soon after, some of the warlords emerged more powerful than others, like kids playing musical chairs. The kind of "Waring State" game was played on Chinese soil again, resonating the everlasting proverb "there is nothing new under the sun".

Finally, Chinese Nationalists and Communists seemed to get the idea that fresh blood and more radical changes would be needed, since none of the warlords would truly represent majority of the Chinese people. Class struggle went up on the priority list and parties representing underprivileged classes started recruiting young people among the majority classes of poor peasants, or workers and funded schools to educate those youth man and women. The success of armed forces built out of freshly trained youth, who were faithful and disciplined, were soon demonstrated in 北伐 (Campaign to the North). Soon warlords in most areas of China had to at least show token submission to the Nationalist government led by 蒋介石 in 南京. One big problem was 蒋 killed off many communists before getting warlords everywhere to listen to him, so he got staunch enemies out of one group of armed soldiers who truly represents the majority of poor and underprivileged people in China, and so went the stability of the country.

After 东北易帜 满洲国/九一八, Japanese seemed to be getting on the nerve of most Chinese people, but the Nationalist government insisted on getting rid of communists first 攘外必先安内, with fair amount of success. Chinese red army was forced to start the Long March (长征) for a year, which was a retreat or escape, with heavy losses and casualties. The positive effect of Long March, to the communists, was that it sorted out a group of veteran military and political leaders that reached the ranks of world class.

Over in Germany, some Germans still had a hard time accepting the humiliation of defeat while paying the war debt had led to revolutions and chaos all over the country. Britain with its usual imperialistic ways led by Sir Winston Churchill negotiated to keep its currency at a higher exchange rate against Franc, which inadvertently ruined the British economy. France, being war torn with its home soil still littered with unexploded ammunition, had a hard time rebuilding. Britain and France soon watched America and Germany surpassing them as bigger economies in the world, but not too much attention were paid to new up-stars before they had made names for themselves?

America under the leadership of Herbert Hoover alike was carrying the free market policy to an extreme and were later criticized for failed to prevent US from racing towards depression. Then Great Depression set in, with Japanese turning more militaristic over in the East, and then German president Von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as chancellor. Soon after, Nazism took over Fascism as the senior partner among the right extremists -- Axis, and more things in the world turned sour.

Over in China, 西安事变 happened and shortly afterwards, Japanese crossed Marco Polo bridge 芦沟桥事变 to occupy vast areas of China. When they carried out the Rape of Nan-kin 南京大屠杀, it ended the possibility of that nation ever becoming the leader and model of all Asian people. The kid just didn't know how to lead other peoples and could not handle the pressure of leadership, and too much power.

A Polish radio station was raided and started broadcasting propaganda against (for) the Germans. Then fire of war raged on over the continents of Africa, Europe and Asia, just like the old times 世界大战. With the help of better vessels and flying objects, troops could mobilize better than ever before. One can get there "fastest with mostest" with things such as aircraft carrier. Aircraft carrier was the star on the sea in World War II, with "tank" being the star of the show on land.

Germans marched into France through the low land countries with the attempt to brush the British islands with an elbow while marching, as stated in Von Schlieffen plan in World War I. Soon Hitler appeared victorious in Western Europe and forced the French to surrender in the same piece of railway train carriage, in which German surrendered in World War I. Then Hitler, as martial as he was, blew up the carriage being afraid of more treaty could be signed in that particular boxcar.

To the disappointment or surprise of the Germans, those stubborn British gene sets in, the same kind that worked miracles in Agincourt, or Dunkirk, weathered Nazi storm during the Battle of London. The "finest hour" of the British people had the same ring to it as the Roman who put a hand into the fire; or the American rhetoric of "cook and eat my left arm and fight with my right one" under starvation and siege; or 要离 of the Chinese old times.

After the Battle of London, the impatient and gluttonous Hitler occupied Scandinavia countries and then Balkan ones before invading USSR. He met his matches near Moscow, by the Red Amy and it was said that Russian had two most powerful generals, General January and General February, but this year, there was another powerful general joined in whose name was General December.

The impatient Japanese bombed Perl Harbor and the Pacific Fleet of the United States, while attacking Philippines and other Asian strategic points simultaneously. American/Germany soon declared war against each other and it was said by Sir Churchill, that was the night he had his best beauty sleep during the World War II.

After Stalingrad and Midway, the tide of the war soon turned. Although there were many bloody battles still left to fight, but the outcome of the war was never in doubt. It was merely a matter of "when" not "if". North Africa, Sicily, Southern Italy, Normandy, Battle of the Bulge, Poland, Berlin, each of the battles were still hard fought because the German genes contained certain ingredient that was very mechanic and no-nonsensical. Over in Pacific, there were battles of Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and finally two atomic bombs and waves of Russian Red Army from the "Russian Stream Roller" forced Japanese to accept the unconditional surrender. But in reality, it was not a surrender without any conditions. In Japan, it was not called "surrender", but rather "终战", which literally meant "fighting stopped".

In the victorious China, people celebrated with Nationalists celebrated harder than many other groups. They were at the height of their power in the country, and apparently overdone their celebration with numerous officials 接收大员 regarding the properties on their own soil as spoils of war and regarded their own citizens as would-be slaves. Such excess spilled over many years later in areas such as 台湾, but in mainland China, it soon spelled the doom of the Nationalist party reign after the liberation war 解放战争 triggered by mis-administration of the Nationalists.

After World War II, there was another organization formed to avoid further armed conflicts in the world, and it was named the United Nation. America as the leader of the English-speaking people started to view themselves as the next Roman Empire of the world.

Europe celebrated the victory of World War II with joys and tears, along with shocks of discovering the holocaust. Soon the grim reality of the state of economy set in. After touring Greece and countries of Western Europe, General Marshall felt that if American did not finance these countries to rebuild their economy, poor workers over there would soon turn to Communism. Compounded with the debate of "who lost China" and fear of "spread of communism", events followed suit included: beginning of Cold War, Marshall Plan, Berlin Air-lift.

Christians in the world like to point out that Israel had been at war since the beginning of its establishment, to convince others that Bible prophecies are real, and not a coincidental. The reality was that after World War II, many newly found countries were immediately dragged into war with someone else. Among all the people living in the world, there are always some wanting peace and some others wanting war. But most of the people wanting other people to fight wars so they can benefit. And there are many other people either do not care, or even interested in watching with amusement, if wars were raging in somebody else's backyard - speaking of media tycoons for instance. It is again the Machiavellian thinking of the human nature that man are always selfish that love would be soon forgotten, but fear would not be.

China was also in many wars soon after the establishment of People's Republic of China 中华人民共和国. In the international stage, the first time that newly established United Nation authorized use of force against anybody was against Korea. Such passage of the authorization was done with a little luck while one of the permanent security console member with vetoing power - Russia - was taking a rage break out of the conference room. Inside China, there were many bandits, and remnants of the Nationalists to put down 剿匪, and a war conducted by so many European powers in a country so close to China, as close as Canada is to US, threatened all the Chinese psychologically, financially and physically.

So Chinese and North Koreans joined hands together in another war 抗美援朝 backed by a permanent member of the security console of the United Nations against the United Nations. National unity was strong among all in China. Even the still poor (by Western standard) Chinese actors/actresses donated money to buy airplanes to support their troops. Two sides fought the Korean War into a stalemate that hasn't technically ended, but rather in a state of truce. The stalemate was later described by some as those of Western front of World War I or Italian front of the World War II

When countries were at peace internationally, some other things would come up in the domestic front. In China, there were such activities such as: 反右 大跃进 . In the greater socialist family, among one side of the Cold War allies, there were activities such as: 反帝反修 Hungarian Revolt. In the West, things like MacArthur, McCarthy happened along with Elvis and the Beatles.

When things didn't go very well in China, due to natural and man made disasters 灾害, one group of politician was able to gain upper hand temporarily against Mao 毛泽东. But being a veteran in class struggle himself, Mao was quick to recover and regained power with help of his not-so-dearly-loved wife 炮打司令部/文革/阶级斗争 like the family of Clinton's. After Mao died, the new slogan by his successor was 抓刚治国, which was supposedly trying to keep China along the track it was in. But drastic changes were brewing, as China could not afford to be standing still like Kennedy once said to Nixon about the United States.

While Cultural Revolutions were happening in China, a similar generation gap oriented cultural revolution was also happening in the West. Taking a look carefully, such culture revolution in the West had something to do with that of the East and the Cold War. Vietnam had been trying to gain independence after the World War II along with everybody else in the Asia and Africa that had been belittled and oppressed for a long time. French had no resources to support its colonization in the area and Americans were afraid of the spread of communism into this newly formed power vacuum. Therefore US government started sending in more and more spies, advisers and then military personnel to the country, until eventually sending in troops after troops outright.

When Chinese were having its conflict with USSR and then engaged in its Culture Revolution, America started having Civil Rights movement, and then the Vietnam War escalated after assassination of J.F. Kennedy. Civil Rights movement continued with representatives such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X each representing one point of view. Muhammad Ali made the famous remark "no Vietcong ever call me a nigger" which linked Civil Rights movement with the Vietnam war. After years of war and 50,000+ dead American and 10 times more Vietnamese killed, the war was over, with some Americans burning their flag, instead of rallying around it. Nixon ended the war, visited China, bugged Water Gate and was ranked as one of the worst ever presidents in the US history. But after the end of Cold War and start of the Iraq War, Nixon got some relief in the historical presidential ranking.

Jimmy Carter then faced a Iran hostage crisis and could not dispatch a group of special forces to rescue the hostages. People wonder where were Sean Connery, Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzeneger, Sylvester Stallone when Western allies needed them. One of them surely would have done the job and two of them would have provided ample insurance. None of them showed up on TV and that sank American hearts into a new low, after World War II. It was said, the greatest achievement by Ronald Reagan was that he made American felt good again, about being American. He used a Star War hoax/prank/bluff to drag down the awkward USSR Empire economically, and that was the decisive strike of the Cold War (不战而曲人之兵,上之上者也).

Then Japanese was the nemesis to US with its auto industry afterwards, but soon another hoax by Bill Clinton's generation using dot com and Y2K dismissed the threat handily. George W. Bush and his administration looked for another war to build its own legacy, or at least expand the military and oil industry for the family businesses of the newly elected president and the vice president. After 9/11, they found a war in Afghanistan with some reasoning and support from people around the world, but found another one mysteriously in Iraq.

Age of information arrived with 0 and 1, true and false, very binary and quantum.

Indian people in Asia discovered that English in education and conversation is an advantage in the information age, with most computer programming languages having one thing or another to do with English words. Technology and business related documentations are better prepared in English if one wanted more people to read and understand.

Over in China, after class struggle was no longer important to Chinese, communist party decided to focus on economic development 战略转移. The policy shift was a great success with at least more people speaking English and reading, listening about what was happening outside of the China proper. With even a controlled population growth, the country had become increasingly small and technically backward for its large populations 改革开放 without joining in the globalization. Chinese were shocked to find out the level of wealth and high standard of living, many other nations enjoyed; and as a part of human nature, many Chinese people wanted to quickly get to the same place where their neighbors were economically and psychologically. 全盘西化 or "copying the West" experiments had successes and failures, with a few steps forward and a few steps back, such as 反对自由化 / 南巡考察. But the overall movement, even though difficult to track, was moving forward in general. With a group of people got rich first, 先富起来 good and evil of other cultures rushed in. It was easy to gauge how much more people had gotten richer, but it was difficult to gauge how much dignity people have lost 笑贫不笑娼 in the process as China progressed. With the arrival of Chinese style social-capitalism, and Chinese style democracy, 中国特色的(资本/社会)主义和中国特色的民主, age of information also arrived in China with 0 and 1, true and false, which brought back the good'o times in China when there were just 阴 and 阳.

Nobody worships money, no one with normal intelligence is kneeling down in front of a coin, or a paper note. But most people worship power behind 0 and 1. History and information lies to people, because people often lies to history and information. The jobs of scientists, artists, philosophers, politicians are the same, that is to mesmerize people 使人走火入魔. The world is a matter of perception, as a proof of that, about 90% of the UFO sightings are mostly in United States. Some said that Renaissance was never finished, and some others said that the French revolution was never finished. There is nothing new under the sun, it is all 0 and 1, 阴 and 阳, True and False, the ultimate quantum elements that made the universe, and it is turtles all the way down.

One morning when jade woke up from her bed, she saw her husband already up, finished shaving and was putting on a shirt as if he was going out for an interview. She was a bit startled because her husband had been lazy lately and she had not heard of any pending interviews recently. Usually David would have told him about such things.

"You made it sounded like an interview with the vampires"

Jade: "I have a theory. Recruiters like to call you because you are a part of the equation to their potential pay checks. Employers do not like to call you because you are part of the equation to their payment checks. If you got an interview with an employer, that's time well spent. If you got an interview with recruiters, that unfortunately, is the time wasted. You are just helping a recruiter doing his or her job, while you still can not get a job. Recruiting business is tough. Definitely tougher than 2000".

"Hm, recruiters, asking me to be a programmer again, no, with fancy names such as "developer", "software engineers" or "managers", etc. This really is like 燕雀安知鸿鹄之志哉".

"I always thought 鸿鹄 is for someone who is preparing to run for the President. Are you that ambitious now? It is certainly out of your character". Jade puzzled.

"Well, last time I checked 鸿鹄 is translated into English as: wild goose. Imagine how many wild geese have there been in the history of mankind? The problem is that many of the wild geese are not humble, and are not thankful to God and are not thankful for what they got. Look at all the so-called successful people we have seen around us or have the fancy title of 'leaders', 'CEO', 'professors', 'commanders', 'chairmen', 'presidents', etc. I think it's OK to be aspired to be a wild goose, but I just resent to be a sparrow 燕雀, that does not eliminate my desire to be a humble 鸿鹄. I am going to implement a reform in my company. I am going to print the title 'President' in the business card of every employee in my company."

Jade thought for a moment and asked: "how do you come up with that and what had changed for you this morning".

David pointed at a stack of paper on the desk, with his scribbles on, and said "Take a look and see if you understand what I wrote. Let me know if it is too concise and cryptic to mean anything".

Jade read it thoroughly and said: "To simply put it, you should just put one phrase in this paper: all lies are true and all truths are false; wait, you should say: 阴阳；no you should say: 一分为二；矛盾；诡辩 . . . "

David said: "if I really only put on one or two words, it will be concise enough and easy to write, but other people would have said that I have been too lazy and did not work enough to earn my paycheck, would they? I can describe every body's life as 'being born and then finally dead'. That would be accurate and concise writing, but that wouldn't get me into the biography business."

"Funny you said everything is true and false at the same time. I wonder what young kids would think if you tell them everything they see is not really what they were seeing." Jade said.

David answered: "Well, that was what we have seen with strictly scientific and objective views. More you want to be scientific about something, more you believe everything is just imaginary. Living in China, we used to hear people complaining about the long history of feudalism that hampered the development of science and technology in the past. But when going through European history, European feudalism is longer and more conservative than that of Chinese. Roman Empire alone existed for more than a thousand year, can any of the Chinese dynasties boast that kind of track record? Christian values peaked and ebbed for this many years and is still going on, how can that be regarded as a catalyst for scientific development.

Many things in the world are actually what they are perceived. People label US as a young country, but looking around the world, it is probably one of the oldest modern countries in the world, modeled after the Treaty of Westphalia, with separation between Church and States, with sovereignty belongs to human not Jesus Christ. Comparatively, People's Republic of China has not celebrated it's hundred's anniversary yet.

So many countries in the world clamor over the idea of democracy, but look at this most politically stable country in the world, the United States. The president by constitution is also the commander in chief of the military. It is a proof that a democratically elected government with undisputed military power, aided with a large middle class 不患寡而患不均, 不患贫而患不安, is the most stable form of government. Wait, is this Roman Empire or what? Will dictators ever be called in duty to arbitrate when times are tough? Phew, it's a good thing US did not come to the point of needing a dictator after 2000 election recount. Thank you Mr. Al Gore, you are a true gentleman.

Trying to separate civilian and military duties for a leader of any country is just asking for turmoils, as have been proven generations after generations. Countries can not achieve the highest level of stability because there were still the doubts about putting military leader in charge ??? what a funny conclusion.

Jade glanced quickly at the end of the her husband's scribble again, and wondered out loud: "what a mess this is!".

David said: "The world is a mass, but on the other hand, it is always fair and square. In Chinese, we say it is almost like a bowl of water that is leveled as evenly as possible 一碗水端平了, and the size of the bowl can grow infinitely until it reaches the size of a lake, an ocean. But this even plain of water is actually always curved.

Jade pointed to the last paragraph of the scribbling and asked: "When I say mass, I wasn't asking the who thing. I was asking what this is".

We all live between 0 and 1, 阴 and 阳, 真 and 假, future and past, truth and lies, empty and full, 虚 and 实. . . but we don't belong anywhere in the reality.

All languages and cultures are merely different methods of communicating the same meaning with logic. Logically, events residing in the future light cone are not visible but can be controlled by present; events residing in the past light cone have been visible but cannot be controlled by present. The reality of the "present" is between future and history, and seemed to have nothing to do with neither, while in the meantime having connection with all of that are in the past and the future.

What about things out of the realm of "logic", the thing we call 兵者诡道也, or double dealing strategies and tactics? Is it the area outside of the logic and light cone that was determining success and failure, survival and extinction? That area was so close to us as in just a split second past, yet so far away that it could never be reached. The mathematics outside of the logical mathematics lies the equation of describing more than what is seen by the human eyes.

In this ever moving moment that we call "present", 乱世出英雄，何曾有过乱了方寸出英雄，英雄是乱世里的一湾静水 表面上看变化无常事实上静入处子，入乡随俗，客随主变，随机应变，蕴藏一颗平静心和宽阔的胸怀, 翻云覆雨运阴阳 见风使舵定乾坤.

David answered, that is a paragraph that I translated from a book called 'Everything is a result of thoughts'. But the ironic thing was, the "thinking gang" philosophers who wrote that book were preaching good thoughts give birth to good deeds and evil thoughts beget evil deeds 种瓜得瓜种豆得豆. The thought world works the same way as biological world. The reality of the world though could be that while good could give birth to good, it could do the same to evil; Positive could give birth to both positive and negative; and calm could give birth to powerful rage and powerful serenity".

"So what is the end of your writings?" Jade still questioned.

David smiled enigmatically, "What do you expect? Do you expect every story to have a Hollywood ending? Hollywood endings were invented for box-office revenues. When I was a kid, my mom used to tell me that the play 万水千山 and novel 林海雪原 both had their heroes died in the end. But after they were remade or republished in the post "Culture Revolution" days, the heroes all survived in the end. My mom felt like her handkerchiefs were wasted.

Jade: "What are you going to do next?"

David: "Nothing, 清静无为. I mean, I am going to be a regular office worker with my hidden agenda of slowly moving home to where I was born".

Jade: "Are you sure you will not get bored by office politics again, and start something? What about your true purpose of traveling overseas? Have you found the mysterious cigarette butt that you were looking for in the Western culture?"

David: "Yes, I have found it. The cigarette butt is 'emptiness'. I am sure I will be bored by office work from time to time, but I will not see or feel the office politics any more. I am close to 四十而不惑, therefore it is about time that I understand 人生如梦 and 生而何欢死而何惧".

Jade: "Are you trying to stay aloof in this world now"?

David laughed and said: "Tell me about it. 大隐隐于朝，中隐隐于市，小隐隐于野, what does it mean to stay aloof? One can make an argument that people who tried to become Medieval monks or Easterners who tried to act like 贾宝玉 were the most enthusiastic kind of paparazzi and fans of vanity, fame and reputations. The true businessmen, bureaucrats, soldiers, politicians, although mostly uncool, could also come up with several true heroes with hidden agenda underneath their poker faces A truly quiet man can be an idiot that has full range of emotions."

In the Chen family room, the DVD player started to play "Yellow Submarine" by Beatles,

In the town, where I was born

Live a man, who sail to sea

And he told us all his life, in the land of submarines

We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine

Out of the bathroom, Crystal slowly walked out and asked a childish question: "Mom, Dad, how come food that were so tasty yesterday could turn into something so disgusting this morning?"

Jade tried to explain to his daughter: "Sweetheart, things always change. Disgusting things could come out of good and beautiful things, while healthy and nutritious food could grow out of dirt and soil that sometimes fertilized by manure and feces."

David suddenly came up with an idea to mesh the two tunes together and said something to both Crystal and Jade: "Hey guys, remember we have been play this game of trying to match English songs and poems with Chinese songs and poems describing the same thing? I now have just found a matching Chinese poem to this Beatles' song called Yellow Submarine."

Jade thought for a moment and whispered to her husband: "You don't want to teach your daughter what Yellow Submarine implies until she grow a little older, do you? I thought some people felt that Yellow Submarine symbolized drugs.". David agreed with his wife and replied: "I don't think it symbolized something criminal, but rather something nasty".

David then turned to his daughter and told her: "Yes, Daddy can only tell you half of the poem and rest of the half you need to find out yourself when you grow older and can travel the world to judge for yourself what is true or untrue; right or wrong. You should view the entire world as your nationality or citizenship. China, US or Canada are your first, second, third home towns, but you have the rights to stay anywhere you want if you learn to play it right. English and Chinese are both your native languages, and don't trust any small group of people who do not have in depth knowledge of multiple Eastern and Western languages. As a kid, you should remember truth, beauty and justice will triumph ultimately. When you grow older, then look for a different version of the account. What in English was this song called Yellow Submarine can be translated into the following story. In a old style Chinese private school, a teacher saw the weather changing from rain to snow, so he wrote a poem:

老天下雪不下雨

雪到地上变成雨

早知雪要变成雨

何不当初就下雨

then his students wrote another half of the poem, and everything goes this way.

"

(the end)

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