Word: set
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...chatting in the hollow of a terraced field beside a single spindly tree -- symbolic decoration in a country whose scant arable land continues to disappear. Arranged neatly alongside the makeshift altar, the gifts intended for the bride's parents include a new refrigerator, a 24-in. color television set and a jet black Yamaha motorcycle. The presents are ogled, but atop the TV a photograph of Margaret Thatcher creates the greatest buzz, a reaction the bride, and perhaps the groom too, would undoubtedly have enjoyed. Were they still alive...
...have been rebuffed. When some Shanghai writers proposed a Cultural Revolution museum in 1986, Beijing said no. The leadership apparently fears that any thorough investigation would quickly run to criticism of the current regime and so must be prohibited. The outer boundaries of permissible complaint in China have been set. Anything may be criticized except that which really matters: the right of the party to rule. To today's leaders, the experience of the past demands a straitjacket on political dissent and helps explain why Deng so feared accepting the Tiananmen demonstrators' demand for free expression...
...logic behind marrying dead people, to ensure them a peaceful afterlife, is dead wrong. The real if equally fanciful reason is that the unmarried dead are feared capable of becoming angry spirits who may disturb their living relatives. "Face it," says the stiff-burner, gesturing to the coffins now set in a common grave. "This thing we call a wedding is something we are doing for us, not for them...
This fall the moviegoer has a choice of two Black Rains set in Japan, but they're not hard to tell apart. One is Shohei Imamura's stark meditation on Hiroshima 1945. The other is a cop movie backed by some heavy Hollywood artillery: the producers of Fatal Attraction. Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia are two New York City detectives on the trail of a cool, vicious Japanese gangster (Yusaku Matsuda). Their contact in the Osaka constabulary is a by- the-book gent (Ken Takakura) affronted by Douglas' bullying. You've seen this picture before; last year it was called...
...Major U.S. banks have tried to prepare for the day when they would have to acknowledge the hopelessness of collecting most of their troubled loans to developing countries. Last week that process gave way to a rush of reality as three major banking companies set aside funds to bolster their loan-loss reserves, a move that will give them stiff deficits now but help insulate them from defaults in the future. Manufacturers Hanover added $950 million to its reserves, Chase Manhattan $1.15 billion, and J.P. Morgan $2 billion. To shore up its finances, Manny Hanny also agreed to sell...