Word: ma
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...scene is like a calendar photograph displaying the splendors of rural life. At the Jin Ma (Golden Horse) commune on the lush Chengdu Plain of Sichuan province, the well-watered rice fields are emerald green. Thatch houses are surrounded by luxuriant clumps of bamboo and persimmon. Hundreds of teen-agers work at a prosperous collective silk-spinning plant near by. The peasants have radios, watches, bicycles, money in the bank, food on the table. Some of them treasure framed red certificates, whose bold black characters commend them for having achieved "wealth through diligent labor." Clearly, the Jin Ma commune...
Indeed, only 100 miles to the southwest of Jin Ma, in one of the province's many hilly regions, the picture is far different. On the remote Long Chi (Dragon's Pond) commune, perched on the lower slopes of 9,000-ft-high Mount Emei, the soil is rocky and dry. Farming is confined to low-yielding terraces that have been carved out of the hills and planted primarily with corn. Peasant incomes are one-third of those on the wealthy Jin Ma commune; they average $44 a year, more than half of which is distributed in grain...
...even repellent melodrama. The movie has little feeling for, or interest in, the human idiosyncrasies of its characters; they are glorified stunt men, stock figures in stock cars. But Mad Max is not a "people picture." It is an action movie whose subject is machines, and the sophisticated killing ma chine man could become. The hardware is the star here: the souped-up Chevies and demon motorcycles, captured by Miller's supple, fender-level camera - one machine in sync with another. With his instinct and craft, Miller has provided more autosuggestive violence on a $1 million budget than...
...make her own decisions to the lunatic Gaddafi, the bloodthirsty Hussein, the traitor Assad or to the Saudis, who are at once afraid of the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Iraqis and even their own shadow!" Having thus dispensed with Arab adversaries, Sadat made plans to retreat to his Ma'mura resthouse near Alexandria for the duration of the summer...
Theo is an imaginary character, though the specific details of his dilem ma are all too true. Forbes' novel is not "faction" or a thriller, but a thoughtful blend of both...