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Tivoli Gardens, in Copenhagen, is a wonderful place to visit All that is described in chapter 3 exists, including the Chinese pagoda The Café Norden (chapter 13) anchors Højbro Plads in Copenhagen and continues to serve some delicious tomato bisque
Sadly, child stealing plagues China (chapters 8 and 9) More than 70,000 children do, in fact, disappear there each year, the vastboys, sold to fa this incredible reality in the story isattention to the problem There’s an excellent documentary, China’s Stolen Children, that you can watch if you want to learn more
The debate between Confucianised for 3,000 years (chapter 10) One of these two co dynasty, including that of the coinal texts have survived All that reinals The failures of Mao (chapter 49); the rise and fall of so many corrupt in (chapter 45); and the disastrous Cultural Revolution are all reported accurately Likewise, violent divisions within China’s political structure are common, as are destructive internal civil wars The battle between the Gang of Four and Deng Xiaoping did occur in the late 1970s (chapter 12) Three of the four in the defeated gang lost their lives Here, I simply created another war for political control between t contenders
Centuries ago, the Ba flourished The history of hegealisemony (chapter 45) is a concept uniquely Chinese, one that has long defined its national conscience in ways the West has difficulty co realizes in chapter 24, totalitarianism is a Chinese innovation
Antwerp is a wonderful European city with a distinctive Old World feel (chapter 18) I’ve long wanted to include it in one of h, is , I thought soly, though, I modeled it after an actual Antwerpwritten
Lev Sokolov and Cassiopeia Vitt have a history, which is hinted to starting with chapter 36 If you’d like to know the full story of how these two met, and why Cassiopeia owes him, there is a short story, “The Balkan Escape,” which can be downloaded as an e-book original Check it out
Eunuchs (chapter 7) are an important part of Chinese history Nowhere else on the planet did they exert so ood (chapter 51) and bad personalities Their history as told throughout the story is accurate, as is the process of their e eunuchs with the Ba is h most certainly they would have played some role in that movement
Two tortures are utilized: the first with scalding chili powder (chapter 23), the second with rats (chapter 39) Both were created by the Chinese The Records of the Historian, or Shiji (chapter 38), rees cited throughout the story are faithfully quoted China’s censoring of the Internet happens every day (chapter 43) An intranet, solely for use within the country, is currently being created
Quotations from Chairman Mao, or The Little Red Book (chapter 43), is the most printed book in history with some 7,000,000,000 copies Once, every Chinese carried one Not anymore
The sky burial, described in chapters 63 and 82, is a part of death in both Tibet and the western Chinese highlands The dragon lah found in another Chinese imperial tomb, adapted here to Qin Shi
Halong Bay, in northern Vietna locale that I could not resist including Mao’s tomb (chapters 42 and chapter 43) also fascinates me The stories of the Chairy, and the possibility that the body itself is gone are all real And though it’s much more recent history, what happened in Tiananmen Square, and what happened there in June 1989 (chapter 43) remains a mystery To this day, no one kno many people died Many parents did indeed venture to the site, after the tanks withdrew, looking for their children (chapter 43) And as related in chapter 66, all books and websites that even mention the incident are censored in China
The terra-cotta warrior museum (chapter 6), near Xi’an, for warrior exhibit visited the High Museuia, I visited twice I was so enthralled that I purchased a replica, which now stands in my den I tried to incorporate ason thePit 3 (chapter 53) Of course the imperial library chamber (chapter 10) isleft and the lack of any warriors displayed on the left side of Pit 3 (chapter 53) is not mine That came from The Terracotta Warriors: The Secret Codes of the Emperor’s Army by Maurice Cotterell
Qin Shi’s toround are tunnels, dug round (chapter 55) The description of the tomb interior, quoted in chapter 38, is the only written account that exists My vision of the interior (chapters 55–57) is iined, but I tried to stay accurate to not only Shiji but also other known iovern place The description of Qin Shi in chapter 38 is based on the most popular representation, but it was fashioned centuries after his death In reality, no one has a clue what the man looked like