I recently read the novel The Crazed by Ji Han. This is an amazing book. Ji Han has a way of building up the tension in a story. In The Crazed, he outdoes himself. The book ends in a series of punches -- about the time you think he's done, he sends another roundhouse into you.

I've traveled in China and mingled with the natives, and I think it's truly hard for people from the United States to comprehend just how invasive the Chinese government is. China is a country where rule of law doesn't apply to the upper class. Or at least, they're excused from its strictures much of the time.

On one trip, I recall sitting in a nearly deserted hotel cafe, eating a bland breakfast. Three people entered from the far side, a middle-aged couple and their teenaged daughter. They were quite portly, unusual for China. They walked up to a server's station at that side of the restaurant. There they helped themselves to cups of coffee and whatever else was at the station. A waitress from my side of the restaurant approached them, but the husband shot her a warning look, and the waitress immediately retreated.

For several minutes the family stood there, brazenly committing petty theft, yet apparently taking no joy in it. The expressions and tones they exchanged among themselves were nearly as ugly as the look the husband had given the waitress.

Another time, I was walking with my wife through the streets of Wuhan. We stopped to ask directions from an elderly woman who was sitting on a chair on the sidewalk, eating noodles from a disposable bowl. The woman said she didn't know where we wanted to go, but she had a phone we could borrow. Well enough, but then she threw her bowl, half full of noodles, splat! onto the sidewalk, followed by the chopsticks. Shocked, I glanced around. A few feet away stood a very old woman, carrying a broom and dustpan, who stared dejectedly at the bowl and the noodles. My wife's eyes opened wide with surprise for a moment, then she calmly followed the noodle thrower.

There was nothing atypical in either scene. These people lording it over others were members of the Communist Party. There was no one and nothing to prevent their petty abuse of their position over others, nothing to impose societal standards on them. These were also people low in the Party hierarchy.

Scale up this behavior to a nation of over one billion people. Now you have corrupt officials who infect entire villages with HIV while extracting blood serum for pharmaceutical companies. Who have built the most polluted cities in the modern world. Who've committed innumerable offenses, small and large, on the people they govern. As long as this situation exists, I have to agree with Ji Han, that China is not a healthy nation, and its future is not going to be a pleasant one.

There's a tedious aspect to blogging. It's yet one more drain on one's time, without any promise of gain or return.

Unless you get lucky and cover something like a war, obtain a mass following, and end up with a lucrative media contract.

Okay, what is the best way to start a blog? I guess to just jump in and do it.

I'm now working for an eclectic company in California's Bay Area. I've mixed feelings about having moved here, but I feel lucky to be employed and so on.

I'm originally from Colorado, and my wife is from China. The United States is a cold society, and for whatever reason, it seems colder here than back in Colorado. Perhaps its the climate. Or perhaps its the big city influence. People seem busier, less pleasant and considerate.