Spring Festival

The city never seems so alive as at Spring Festival. Alive may not be the right word, in fact. The city almost seems at war. I imagine I’m a reporter driving through Serbia or Iraq. I’m not actually driving, of course. The taxi driver is the one jockeying up and down narrow alleys, plunging through …

No Smiling Allowed

It would be wrong to call her a narcissist. Narcissus was a flower. Narcissus sought out his reflection. Narcissus not only believed in his own beauty, but was overwhelmed by it. She isn’t a narcissist. She’s just vain. She enjoys her reflection. And why shouldn’t she? She’s more beautiful than you. You know it. She …