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By Root 1305 0

thought. I’m in North Korea. I am technically in North Korea. Holy shit. And we sped closer to the North Korean shore. Behind us a rusty and decrepit trawler bearing the North Korean flag chugged along. Okay, Jesus, we’re deep in North Korean waters now. Ha! And we went farther. We went to the very shoreline. He slowed the boat and we cruised six feet from the actual land. I could hear a megaphone, a rally. I’m in North Korea. I am in fucking North Korea! There were people behind these wrecked ships. Soldiers. I was giddy. I waved. They did not wave back. They looked upon me with stony faces. I waved some more, but they did not wave. I was the imperialist dog. Yoo-hoo. Hello. Give up your bombs and we’ll send your leader a hairstylist. Some new platform shoes too. But they did not laugh, these North Koreans. The soldiers eyed me. I’m in North Korea. I’m in fucking North Korea. Ha!

And the engine died.

What is this? Are you shitting me? Here, six feet from the North Korean shore, the fucking engine dies. You have got to be fucking kidding me. Whatever happens, I thought, do not get out of the boat. That is what I told myself. Jesus. All I had was a California driver’s license. That’ll go over real well with the North Korean authorities. The soldiers were alert. They were watching me. They were watching us drift, drifting closer to shore, ever closer. Jesus. Could you get that fucking engine started? It coughed. It hacked. The engine did not start. Fuck. Come on, start. Goddamn it, start. But the engine would not start, and we drifted closer and I looked across the river to China, to soaring China, to those brand-new buildings and glittering lights, and I yearned for China. I wanted to embrace China. I love you, China. Please, China, take me back.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge that he is a bad man. As evidence, he offers this e-mail from his editor’s husband: This is Ann’s husband. She is in labor at the hospital now. I have printed out the Chengdu chapter for her at her request.

The author doesn’t know what to say. He is mortified by this. He had, of course, known that his editor, Ann Campbell, was with child. It was not a surprise. Indeed, his book deadline had been some months before her due date. The author, however, is very bad with deadlines—we needn’t go into this; deadlines are not interesting—but here, at least, was a very firm date. He could not tweak and tinker and revise beyond the due date. The book had to be done. The author is a parent himself. He knows newborns and they are unforgiving. He has stood in the delivery room himself. He knows, if only as an observer, what childbirth is like. And yet, because he is a very bad man, his editor, in between contractions, with pencil in hand, was compelled to focus on a gay bar in Chengdu.

The author wishes to acknowledge this. His editor had been—as if she didn’t have enough to deal with—forced to grapple with a book that wanted to become a 500-page monster, and she’d tamed it into something manageable during labor. He cannot thank her enough. He also cannot apologize enough, so he has decided to flog himself here, out here, on the stage.

He would also like to acknowledge all the other people at Broadway Books whose lives he’s made challenging—Clare Swanson, Laura Lee Mattingly, Anne Watters, and Rachel Rokicki. He’d long believed that for a July publication, May, possibly even June, might be a good time to submit a manuscript. He has since been disabused of the notion. He would also like to thank his agent, B. J. Robbins, whose good humor and optimism coaxed him through.

Regarding China, the author received invaluable assistance from Dan Friedman, Greg Adler, and Huaping-Lu Adler. Xie xie very much. Also, to the farmer who offered him an orange on the train from Shenyang to Dandong, he would like to say thank you. Just as he was succumbing to China fatigue, Jack St. Martin came out to travel with the author for a couple of weeks. And they got drunk. Several times. The author is grateful.

Finally, the author would like to acknowledge