Week 5 - Part V- The Diggers ( Chapters 1 - 6)

[Edward C. Patterson]

Welcome to the African Queen part of the journey.  Just kidding, Mr. Allnut.

If nothing else, The Dragon's Pool is the most varied book of the series. In fact, I though to cobble three novels out of the mateiral, but then the Legacy Series would be 15 books long.

Part V -  The Diggers

The Part type refers, of course, to paleontologists. However, there are several meaning to be drawn out of this title.

Chapter I - Yang-shuo

1 - Why would I set this scene in a dilapidated old river town?

2 - How is Charlie influencing little Cricket?

Trivia 1: I was in Wegman's ordering deli meat when my server, a Chinese young woman, said: "I like your coin." (I wear a 1,000 year old coin from Sung Hui-tsung's reign around my neck). I thanked her and she asked me if I'd been to China, and I said yes and started listing places. When I got to Yang-shuo, which is the equivalent of Podunk, Anywhere, her eyes lit up and she said. "I am from Yang-shuo." Well, we yaked, and held up the line and I got extra slices of bologna.


Trivia 2: The House of Green Waters is the title of the last Southern Swallow book (to be published).

Chapter 2 - Up the Yu-lung
(no snickering at the title's inference)

1 - Did you like the bit a slapstick I added for your entertainment?

2 - Who made the maps of the Dragon's Pool?

Chapter 3 - Along the Mei-shui

1 - Where have you heard the words that Sydney recalls?

2 - What film (that involves a giant ape) do I invoke when the boat lands? duh

Chapter 4 - In the Taboo Cave

1 - Where is the true Fat Man's Squeeze located (here in the USA)?

2 - What familiar sigil do the find near the V. Cantodragonensis?

Chapter 5 - Thunderer

1 - Name the two new relics found in the cave?

2 - What do you suppose their significance could be? (Use your imagination, because I haven;t told you yet, unless you're also reading Southern Swallow)

Chapter 6 - The Conservator's Touch

1 - Did the happenings here surprise you?

2 - Besides the destruction of the cave site, what long range raminfications do you think Sydney and Canto have now?

Okay, let's build an exposition . . .

Ed Patterson

[dnagirl]

Chapter I - Yang-shuo

1 - Why would I set this scene in a dilapidated old river town?  To show part of the real China?  I assume that Sydney prefers to keep a low profile on this trip, and what better way but in an old town where not many go.

2 - How is Charlie influencing little Cricket?  I think Cricket is taking more risks than he previously would have, especially with taking them on the “tour” without proper permission.



Chapter 2 - Up the Yu-lung
(no snickering at the title's inference)

1 - Did you like the bit a slapstick I added for your entertainment?  People falling down are always funny, but the part that made me really laugh out loud is how Cricket gets behind Canto and guides him from behind like an elephant.

2 - Who made the maps of the Dragon's Pool? Pelesar

[dnagirl]

Chapter 3 - Along the Mei-shui

1 - Where have you heard the words that Sydney recalls?  When the group had traveled through the Sister to Li K’ai men’s time, before they went back.  I think.  Ugh recall issues.

2 - What film (that involves a giant ape) do I invoke when the boat lands? Duh  I assume King Kong, although I’ve never seen it.

Chapter 4 - In the Taboo Cave

1 - Where is the true Fat Man's Squeeze located (here in the USA)?  Rock City.  I had to look this up.  I’m not sure I could go through Fat Man’s Squeeze with my claustrophobia.  Brrrrrr…

2 - What familiar sigil do the find near the V. Cantodragonensis?  The same one that is on Nick’s forearm and the claw.

Chapter 5 - Thunderer

1 - Name the two new relics found in the cave?  Li K’ai men’s staff and five ancient books.

2 - What do you suppose their significance could be? (Use your imagination, because I haven;t told you yet, unless you're also reading Southern Swallow)  Perhaps there are five relics made of paragon and these five books describe how they were made?  As for the staff, it was the key that opened up the hidey hole, but it may have another use?

Chapter 6 - The Conservator's Touch

1 - Did the happenings here surprise you?  Not really.  I knew Sydney would restore the dragon at some point.

2 - Besides the destruction of the cave site, what long range raminfications do you think Sydney and Canto have now?  There is a good chance that there will be a lot of people looking for them, so they are going to have to lay low.  I’m not sure that their friendship will survive or ever be the same again either.

[Edward C. Patterson]

DNAGirl, scores high again. You track it well. I knew you woldn;t be surprised about Sydney's resuscittion act, as you had alreay mentioned it as a possibility. The books are are really one book in five scrolls. More on that coming up. The staff . . . well, Thunderer is an amazing tool. You see it with Li K'ai-men in The Third Peregrination, but it once belonged to Fu Lin-t'o, who is Li K'ai-men's male lover in Th Academician. I'll say no more.

I picked Yan-shuo because it reflects the spiits of the characters - downtrodden, grasping for straws, weathered (or even runk) and The House of Green Waters. Yet Yang-shuo persists, as do the characters. Yes, Fat Man's Squeeze is at Rock City and I was first introduced to that place by my Grandmother in 1955. The scene that Sydney recalls is from The Third peregrination, when Li K'ai-men drifts away. ou are corect about plesar. His Nepalese connection is important in the next Book. Lay low you say. I bet you can;t guess where they lay low? (Actually, I bet you can).

Ed P

[dnagirl]

This may belong in a different thread, but what made you decide to become a China Hand?  Were you inspired your whole life?

[Edward C. Patterson]

When I was young, my mother loved Pearl S. Buck. She insisted I read The Good Earth (I was 10). She had a life long wish to walk on the Great Wall of China. I guess I was always near her Chinese love, but she wasn't a scholar and didn't even graduate from HS. When I became interested in History and decided to declare my major, at first I studied Japanese culture, but that was short lived once I began to delve into the Chinese languange and discovered the events of China. I studied under Hymen Kublin and, at Columbia, under Han Bielenstein (The Academician is dedicated to Kublin), both China Hands. Funny thing, however. I went all the way through an MA in Sinology and never set foot in China because the communists had closed it. Then Nixon opened it. I was far along into a different career when a friend of mine (a banker, and in part the model for Bradley Moorehouse) and his wife (partial model for Joy Gartner-Pendleton) invited me to Hong Kong where he was working. So in the dead of February 1985, I began my first Chinese excursion, which my readers take in The Jade Owl. I spent a month on a CTS tour and brought along . . . my mother. She had her lifelong dream of walking on the Great Wall of China. When she passed away two years ago, on her coffin, Dad and I placed two things - a certificate for her walk on the Great Wall and a picture I snapped of her on the Wall.

So I guess my mother's dream was that of the Red Chamber, and I got to live that dream. And I'll never forget the day when mother walked into a shop on the Li River and bargained (in English) for a wonderful watercolor of Gui-lin that I can see now on my wall of my apartment even as I type this post. It was a rainy day and we had been watching the fisherfolk feed the cormorants and, of course, we were in the town of . . . Yang-shuo. So you see, not off topic at all.

Ed P

[dnagirl]

That's awesome.  I really have no other word for it but awesome.

[Ann in Arlington]

Chapter I - Yang-shuo

1 - Why would I set this scene in a dilapidated old river town?

Why not?

2 - How is Charlie influencing little Cricket?

He seems to be both settling him down and bringing him out a little into the world. . . .

Trivia 1: I was in Wegman's ordering deli meat when my server, a Chinese young woman, said: "I like your coin." (I wear a 1,000 year old coin from Sung Hui-tsung's reign around my neck). I thanked her and she asked me if I'd been to China, and I said yes and started listing places. When I got to Yang-shuo, which is the equivalent of Podunk, Anywhere, her eyes lit up and she said. "I am from Yang-shuo." Well, we yaked, and held up the line and I got extra slices of bologna.


Trivia 2: The House of Green Waters is the title of the last Southern Swallow book (to be published).

Chapter 2 - Up the Yu-lung
(no snickering at the title's inference)

1 - Did you like the bit a slapstick I added for your entertainment?

 It was appropriate for Canto. . . . .

2 - Who made the maps of the Dragon's Pool?

Gyllenhall. . . . .isn't he the guy missing a finger?    No, I think it was Pelesar because he was an amateur. . .Gyllenhall is a professional even if he is a nasty piece of work. . . .

[Ann in Arlington]

Chapter 3 - Along the Mei-shui

1 - Where have you heard the words that Sydney recalls?

in Third Peregrination, but I forget the exact situation except insofar as Sydney reacalled it

2 - What film (that involves a giant ape) do I invoke when the boat lands? duh

  Given the 'duh' I'd guess "King Kong". . . the Fay Wray version.

[Edward C. Patterson]

Yep King Kong.

Sydney recalls the 12th century scene on the banks of the Li when Li K'ai-men drifts off. I did this because Sydney was not with the first grouop in The Jade Owl in this stretch of the river - so this connects him logically to th scene as he heads for the place that Li K'ai-men was heading.

Ed P

[Ann in Arlington]

Chapter 4 - In the Taboo Cave

1 - Where is the true Fat Man's Squeeze located (here in the USA)?

Maybe Mammoth Cave?

2 - What familiar sigil do the find near the V. Cantodragonensis?

 Well, the circle with a slash through it. . . . .I forget what specific meaning it might have though. . .except the day splitting thing. . .

Chapter 5 - Thunderer

1 - Name the two new relics found in the cave?

Li's staff and the ancient books. . . . .also, of course, the fossil. . . . .but that makes three so I must be confused. . . . .

2 - What do you suppose their significance could be? (Use your imagination, because I haven;t told you yet, unless you're also reading Southern Swallow)  

 well, the staff was a key to the stash that held the scrolls. . . . they're all connected to the owl and the egg, of course. . .but haven't figured out how yet?

[Ann in Arlington]

Chapter 6 - The Conservator's Touch

1 - Did the happenings here surprise you?

  Yeah. . . .and I think it surprised Sydney a little too. . .

2 - Besides the destruction of the cave site, what long range raminfications do you think Sydney and Canto have now?

  Well, Canto is pi$$ed. .. . he figures the site was destroyed. . . Sydney seems to think there's something else going on, but I can't figure what. . . .

[Edward C. Patterson]

Fat Man's sqeeze is at Rock City, Chatanooga, TN.

Just the staff and books. Although there are fossil relics, the fossil is not really one of the relics. (I mean, I've been called both).

The question on the two relis is unfair. The staff (Thunderer) is the staff you see in The Third peregrination, but it's also Fu Lin-t'o staff (he is the Seer and Li K'ai-men's lover in The Academician and the nan-tu). The books are also intoduced in the Nan Tu.

It surprised me also (well, not really, but I knew there was a reason for Sdney's head condom).

Canto and Sydney, like Nick and Rowden have now official commited murder in The People's Republic.

Ed P