Word: knowed
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...know," said an 88-year-old man in a Beijing park. It was early morning, and along with a score of others, the old man was exercising his birds -- by illusion. The men walked about and swung their birdcages. The movement is said to convince the birds inside that they are free. "We trick them, you know," he said. "How long can they stay fooled? Who knows? Maybe they hope. Like us. We hope. I hope. But you know, in China it is dangerous to hope. Your heart is always being broken." I said I knew...
...point, and everyone knows it, even those guests who admit to having hired geomancers to locate and orient their homes, or those who keep black fish in aquariums in order to absorb "bad rays," or those who believe their country's former greatness was attributable to a national qi (vital energy) that even now is moving inexorably from the West to Japan on its way back to China, a shift that will once again confirm the Middle Kingdom as the center of the world. All these people know that the man is right because they know that the logic behind...
...Just remember to be careful outside." As we leave Bi's classroom, he turns out the lights and, without even a faint smile, sets the clock ahead an hour. Like many Chinese, Bi is expert at concealing his feelings behind a facade of impassivity and self-control. "You never know who may come by and see the clock," he says. "It is crucial to go through the motions. Be subtle even in protest...
...cremation (the old story about the land's being too valuable for the dead), the kids ride around in bumper cars in careful circles and don't wave and don't smile and stare straight ahead and never once smash into one another -- which by now even I know is the whole point...
...ground, however, where nothing is ever simple, the power relationship varies from place to place. "It is nothing more than a normal battle for control," admits a factory party secretary in Jinan. "I don't know much about what my factory actually does, but that doesn't mean I don't want to be the boss." At Lun Feng, Deng's system works fairly well. Only after Tiananmen did the secretary actively meddle, but then just to direct that the radio be tuned to a mainland station rather than one in Hong Kong. The music the workers listen...