Word: fragrant
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That first night back in China, my old friend Wang Bingnan drove me out to visit Fragrant Hill. From the hill you can almost see Peking, 25 miles away. In the evening, when the sun purples the range, the passes in the mountains show the way ancient conquerors cut their entry into the capital. That was the way Mao Tse-tung, the last conqueror, came to view Peking in 1949, when he held it in his hand ? and Mao still haunts Fragrant Hill, as he haunts Peking, haunts all China, haunts its politics, dreams, nightmares...
...March 1949, it was over ? or just beginning. That last day's trek, Mao had moved the Zhongyang to Fragrant Hill so its fires twinkled above the capital. Mao's troops were still cleaning out the fallen city, and it was not yet safe for him to enter, even though Nationalist dignitaries were about to arrive to sue for peace. Each morning Chou En-lai and Wang Bingnan would drive down to negotiate; each evening they would drive back to report. Mao was inflexible: no terms for surrender. China was his to remake...
That first night, when Wang Bingnan offered me his banquet of return, another old friend joined us on Fragrant Hill ? Qiao Guanhua. Qiao and I had been friends in our youth, when he was a fiery left-wing journalist. Later, as Foreign Minister of China, he and Henry Kissinger worked out the landmark "Shanghai Communique" of 1972, in which America recognized that Taiwan was part of China, but insisted on a "peaceful" solution. Qiao Guanhua had gone on with Mao to the end; he was released from house arrest by the new regime only last year; his wife, suspect...
...tranquil scene in his mother's faculty apartment. He is a participant, as are his parents and grandmother: "As we sit for this last picture, each of us in this room has been similarly reduced, our lives slowly coming together, reduced to this peaceful essence layered by fragrant pipe smoke, this remedy of time that my mother's pen stroke seems to prescribe with each scratch upon a term paper. My travels are over." And so is his moving, inclusive book, near the point at which it opened: the end that is the beginning of memory. -By Paul...
...last year was 9.1 Ibs.; some $3.4 billion was spent on chocolate products of all kinds. While Americans lag behind Austrians, Belgians, Norwegians, Germans and the league-leading Swiss, U.S. consumption of luxe chocolates (selling for up to $30 per Ib.) is growing steadily. From coast to coast, shamelessly fragrant new boutiques with names like Le Chocolat Elegant, Nutty Chocolatier and La Maison de Bon Bon are blooming...