Only those who have tasted the bitterest of the bitter can become people who stand out among others. -Guanchang Xianxing Ji

[…] it doesn’t take much courage to fight when you still believe you can win. What takes real courage is to keep fighting when all hope is gone.

This was not uncommon in government-run operations, where a request that someone do their job often induced a catatonic state that might last anywhere from a couple of minutes to an hour.

When you are the only laowai in a village of 10,000 Chinese martial artists and you’ve sat through several dozen films where a white man shouts, “You Chinese dog,” before getting his ass kicked, it...