Still, here, as in the calculated Gong Show campiness of El Grande de Coca-Cola[…], excellence would simply get in the way.

Chinese administrative cities were often the location of more than one yamen, each with its own territorial jurisdiction. For instance, Yangszhou was not only the seat of the Pacificiation Commission (xuanweisi) of Huaidonglu, but also the capital of the Yanzhou Route (lu) subordinated to the Pacification Commision. Morevover, it was the administrative seat of Jiangdu District, which was subordinated to the Yangzhou Route.

I once more find myself a dissident, and a dissident in a very small minority.

Quite apart from their crabwise and often reluctant embrace of religious toleration for a wide variety of religious dissidence, both countries achieved a wider distribution of prosperity than any other part of seventeenth-century Europe.