ABSTRACT

I was being driven in a black limousine along a potholed dirt road in the suburbs of Changsha, China. Having just landed at the city’s sooty airport, I was on my way to a five-star downtown hotel run by the Red Army, where I would spend the next three weeks. I felt weary and nauseous from the combination of jet lag, coalburning fumes that filled the fog-chilled evening, and my chain-smoking driver vigorously swerving the limo to avoid the potholes. I caught a cough that didn’t leave me until I left Changsha.