Long Live the Army!

This is a strange and convoluted tale, over one hundred years old, yet replete with familiar themes: justice gone awry; deceit and corruption permeating the highest echelons of government; obscure criminal acts precipitating a transformational political crisis.

Saturday, January 5, 1895, the Jewish sabbath, dawns clear, cold, and crisp as an early morning crowd estimated at 20,000 packs the Place Fontenoy and the streets surrounding it near the entrance to Paris's Ecole Militaire. Inside five thousand troops from the city's garrisons and three hundred journalists await the commencement of a macabre ceremony. (Lewis, pp. 56-57)

At precisely 9:00 AM, flanked by four artillery officers and a lieutenant of the Garde Republicaine, his filed sword at "present arms," a uniformed man marches into the courtyard and approaches a mounted general, Paul Darras. (Lewis, p. 57)

He has been in a holding cell for about an hour, and later that evening, while hoisting drinks with reporters at the Moulin Rouge, his escort, Captain Lebrun-Renault, will either misconstrue or deliberately twist their conversation into an admission of guilt. (Lewis, p. 55)

Upon the clerk of the Court Martial reading the verdict, Darras rises in his stirrups and proclaims, "Alfred Dreyfus, you are no longer worth of bearing arms. In the name of the people of France, we degrade you." (Lewis, p. 57)

Seven-foot Sergeant-Major Bouxin steps forward, yanks the epaulettes from Dreyfus's shoulders, wrenches all the buttons from his tunic and the gold braid from his sleeves, rips the red stripes from his trousers, and, drawing Dreyfus's sword from his scabbard and planting its tip in the mud, snaps it with a thrust of his boot. (Harris, pp. 10-11)

Obliged to parade before the restless assemblage, his clothes in rags, the disgraced pariah confounds them all by exclaiming, "You have no right to insult me . . . On the heads of my wife and children, I swear I am innocent . . . Long Live France! Long Live the Army!" (Bredin, p. 5; Lewis, p. 58)

The troops, the press, the frenzied mob erupt with jeers of scorn: "Coward. Judas. Death to the traitor. Death to the Jew." (Bredin, p. 5; Lewis, p. 58)

The sobering truth is that once Alfred Dreyfus was targeted for selling information to German diplomats, his religious ethnicity became a flashpoint for the anti-Republican, militaristic, and anti-Semitic strata which were both embedded in late nineteenth-century French society and symptomatic of the general malaise which afflicted it.

Although presumptive dictator Georges Boulanger had been discredited and exiled in 1891, his ability to rally a critical mass of nostalgic Royalists, distrustful Catholics, xenophobic generals, and disaffected populists -- all those who detested the parliamentary system -- signified that bourgeois liberalism was hardly secure. (Bredin, pp. 32-33)

While Pope Leo XIII's encyclical, Amid Solicitudes, published in February 1882, may have invited Catholics to accept the Republic, bishops remained hostile, priests promoted the rehabilitation of the monarchy, and ecclesiastics aggressively opposed state-sponsored secular education. (Bredin, p. 35)

On the extreme left, anarchist bombers aroused an occasional panic, answering the call to action delivered by the martyr Ravachol at the Court of Assizes: "Society is rotting. In factories, mines, and fields, there are human beings working without hope of acquiring a thousandth part of their labor." (Bredin, p. 36)

In August 1892 at Carmaux, three thousand marched off their jobs to affirm their right to the free exercise of public functions. By 1893, six hundred thirty-four strikes would implicate 170,000 workers, and the established order could no longer ignore the peril. Although Parliament did make concessions -- implementing optional arbitration to resolve differences with management, limiting the workday for women and children to eleven hours -- the labor movement and the Socialist Party had been launched. (Bredin, pp. 36-37)

Humiliated by the Germans in 1870, the French Army had committed itself to a vigorous revitalization -- revising and streamlining antiquated regulations; establishing the Ecole Superieure de Guerre, where the critical study of modern warfare would be the focus; developing a comprehensive plan of mobilization, concentration, requisition, and transportation; adopting improved tools, caissons, boats, rifles, powder, and cannon; and organizing a powerful defensive network on its northern and eastern frontiers. (Bredin, pp. 14-15)

Relishing revenge and glory, manifesting traditional virtues -- obedience, hierarchy, and respect for authority -- starkly contradictory to the liberty, equality, and fraternity espoused by the Republic, this re-imagined Army, particularly its officer corps, emerged as a magnet for young men from the aristocracy and the conservative and Catholic bourgeoise. (Bredin, pp. 17-18)

Isolated by its culture and mission, the Army envisioned itself as the protector of French pride and religion, the preserver of male devotion, daring, and bravery, the incarnation of the concept of nationhood, and, quite possibly, the arbiter of the rule of law. (Bredin, pp. 18-19)

Although Jews had been emancipated and granted full citizenship in 1791, Christian anti-Judaic prejudices persisted. For numerous Catholics, Jews bore the cross of god-slayers. By 1880 this theological hostility had evolved into a more complex political and moral doctrine by which Jews were maligned not only for their anomalous religious beliefs but also as indolent, greedy moneygrubbers and as racially inferior non-Indo-Europeans. (Bredin, pp. 23-24, 29)

While some of this intolerance can be attributed to a surge in immigration -- between 1870 and 1886, fifty thousand Jews made their way from Alsace-Lorraine to Paris -- its real strength derived from a burgeoning resentment against the perceived evils of capitalism, secularism, industrialism, and liberal democracy and a gnawing hunger to identify a responsible agent. (Bredin, pp. 26-27)

The Jew was the logical scapegoat. He was a wanderer without a homeland, an international without French ancestry or property, a merchant enamored of profit, and the epitome of the decadence, materialism, and corruption of the era. (Bredin, pp. 27-28)

Two of the most articulate, anti-Semitic ideologues were Edouard Drumont, author of La France Juivre, published in 1886, and founder of La Libre Parole in 1892, and Leon Bloy, whose La Salut par les Juifs appeared the same year. (Bredin, pp. 28-30)

To them and others, the Jew was "evil" itself: a dangerous revolutionary, a ruthless capitalist, a devious German, a miser, a usurer, a speculator. He was hypocritical, obsequious, spineless, and cunning. He hated Christians and sought only to despoil them. He could be detected at once by his physiognomy -- his hooked nose and fingers, protruding ears, elongated torso, and square fingernails -- and by an inhuman voice that whined, barked, and screeched. His women were sensual, perverted, and debauched. (Bredin, p. 30)

In May 1892, La Libre Parole, along with La Croix, the self-proclaimed "most anti-Jewish newspaper in France," embarked on a virulent campaign to root out from the Army the large number of potentially treasonous Jewish officers, one of whom was Alfred Dreyfus, whose career was flourishing. (Bredin, p. 29)

He was a native of Alsace, the youngest of thirteen children (seven of whom would survive infancy), born in 1859 to a household prosperous and well-entrenched until its domestic tranquility was shattered twelve years later by the German annexation of the territory, which would force the family to emigrate. Young Alfred was shy, taciturn, and introspective, traits hardly predictable of his future course, yet, passionately loyal to his country and region, despising the foreign invader, and yearning for orderliness and security, he was drawn to the Army. (Bredin, pp. 12-13)

After earning his diploma from the College Chaptal in 1876 -- the last of several Parisian boarding schools he attended -- he applied and was accepted to, surprisingly, the Ecole Polytechnique, France's rigorous military engineering school. With a temperament well-suited to the institution's curriculum and ethos -- unemotional, mechanical, and logical -- he graduated 32nd in his class, and in 1880 entered the Army as a second lieutenant. (Lewis, pp. 7-8)

By 1890 Dreyfus had attained the rank of captain, earned praise for zealousness, spirit, conscientiousness, intelligence, and a thirst for knowledge, garnered a wife -- Lucie Hadamard -- and was emboldened to seek admission to the War College in Paris. His acceptance was a stupendous achievement. "Top graduates were guaranteed assignment to the Army General Staff on which no acknowledged Jew had ever served." (Lewis, pp. 9-11)

Maintaining a stellar record, Dreyfus was on track for third in his class until a negative evaluation by General Pierrre de Bonnefond, an unabashed anti-Semite, relegated him to ninth. He was appointed to the General Staff in January 1893. (Lewis, p. 19)

Like all trainees, Dreyfus entered a rotation through the Staff's four departments or bureaus. After receiving a superior rating in the Bureau of Organization and Mobilization, he moved on to Communications and Transport, where he encountered two anti-Semites. Chief officer Pierre-Elie Fabre described him as "incomplete . . . pretentious . . . and from the point of character, conscience, and service conduct, failing to fulfill the requirements of being employed by the General Staff." Assistant Bertin-Mourot reprimanded him for being "too aggressive with his intelligence." (Lewis, pp. 22-24)

The atmosphere at his next stop, Intelligence, was more congenial. Not only was he commended for excellence; after a day of special maneuvers, he was singled out by Chief of Staff Raoul de Boisdeffre for his brilliant commentary on the use of defensive artillery. In July 1894, when he assumed his duties in the Bureau of Operations and Training, eventual promotion to a generalship, which would be a rarity for a Jew, seemed not out of reach. (Lewis, pp. 25-26)

 

Realizing that future military success might hinge on competent intelligence, in 1876 the War Office had created a special Statistical Section to engage in espionage and counter-espionage. Shifty undercover characters drawing payments from a variety of sources were recruited for surveillance, shadowing, and thievery, and to distribute false information. The operation could hardly be deemed professional; there was no central registry or record of paper trails, and it is doubtful if officials knew which documents were bogus and which were genuine. (Chapman, pp. 48-49)

Although the titular head of the Section was Colonel Jean-Conrad Sandherr -- an Alsatian, a fanatic patriot, and an avowed anti-Semite -- the dominant personage, and the one responsible for fabricating reports and reconstructing and interpreting those supplied to him by his rakish network, was Commandant Hubert Joseph-Henry. A broad-shouldered giant with a heavy moustache, Henry was uneducated but cunning, courageous, energetic, ambitious, and infused with a blind respect for discipline and an unreserved admiration for his military superiors. (Bredin, p. 44)

Once or twice a month Henry rendezvoused at one of two nearby churches with "Auguste," actually Madame Marie Bastian, an elderly domestic working at the German Embassy, who would pass him trash bags full of torn or crumpled correspondence, bills, receipts, and miscellaneous documents, a few of which might turn out to be useful after they were pieced together and translated into French. (Bredin, p. 46)

Over time, this system, known as "the ordinary track," produced a revelatory series of letters between Colonel Maximilien von Schwarzkoppen and Major Alessandro Panizzardi, military attaches to their German and Italian embassies. Not only were the two dandies excessively fond of one another (penning such endearments as "dog, darling, bitch, and bugger"), someone was selling them large-scale plans of fortifications. (Bredin, pp. 46, 49-50)

For example, in April 1894, an intercepted letter from Schwarzkoppen to Panizzardi included "twelve master plans of Nice which that scoundrel D. gave me in the hope of restoring relations" -- which only confirmed what Henry had already heard second-hand from a retired attache to Spanish Embassy, Marquis del Val Carlos: that "an officer in one of the War Office departments was handing documents to a foreign power." (Chapman, pp. 52-53)

The identity of the traitor would remain elusive until September 26, when Madame Bastian delivered the celebrated bordereau -- the memorandum to Schwarzkoppen -- which stands at the heart of the Dreyfus Affair. It was unsigned, undated, torn partly across twice, and missing an envelope. Once repaired by Henry, it was easily deciphered:

"Without news indicating that you wish to see me, I am nevertheless sending you some interesting information, Monsieur: (1) A note on the hydraulic recoil of the 120 and the way it has behaved; (2) A note on the covering troops (some modifications will be introduced by the new plans); (3) A note on the modifications in the artillery formations; (4) A note concerning Madagascar; (5) The provisional Firing Manual for Field Artillery.

"This last document is extremely difficult to procure and I can only have it at my disposal for a few days. The Minister of War has sent out a fixed number to the corps and the corps are responsible for them. Each officer who has a copy has to send it back after the maneuvers . . . I am off to maneuvers." (Lewis, p. 79)

Within days the bordereau crossed the desk of Minister of War Auguste Mercier. Having recently come under fire for some grievous errors in judgment -- protecting a spy, releasing 60,000 conscripts without informing his president, spurning a weapons inventor, Eugene Turpin, who afterward threatened to sell his talents to Germany -- Mercier was in dire need of a notable triumph to redeem his reputation. (Lewis, pp. 86-87)

After a week of fruitless research by his Statistical Section, Sandherr in desperation transmitted copies of the bordereau to the General Staff's four departments. On October 6, newly appointed Deputy of Communications and Transport, Lieutenant-Colonel Albert d'Aboville, observed to his chief, Colonel Fabre, that only an artillery officer and a staff trainee would be privy to the classified material which had been enumerated. (Lewis, p. 87)

Among the short list of candidates who had passed through their bureau was Alfred Dreyfus, whose prejudicial assessment by Fabre was already a matter of record. After examining a sample of Dreyfus's handwriting, the two were convinced it matched that of the bordereau. They hurried down the hall to Sandherr's office; when shown the damning evidence, he slapped his forehead and exclaimed, "I ought to have thought of it." (Chapman, p. 59)

If Minister of War Mercier now had his spy, he at least understood that a more qualified analysis of the handwriting was imperative. Of the three individuals whose opinions were sought -- Major Armand du Paty de Clam, a frivolous and romantic-minded officer from the Bureau of Operations and Training; Alphonse Bertillon, head of the police department of Judiciary Identity and a notorious anti-Semite; and Albert Gobert, an expert from the Bank of France -- only Du Paty was confident that the samples were identical. (Bredin, p. 65)

Gobert concluded that "the anonymous letter could well be from some other person than the suspect," (Chapman, p. 70) while Bertillon concocted the bizarre theory that the bordereau might be a forgery, even a self-forgery, in which Dreyfus had imitated his own handwriting. (Bredin, p. 73)

Despite these inconsistencies and the advice of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gabriel Hanotaux, who feared the diplomatic consequences of a judicial procedure initiated on the basis of a document illegally obtained from an embassy, Mercier would not be deterred. On Saturday, October 13, Dreyfus was summoned by telegram to appear before Chief of Staff Boisdeffre two days hence and in civilian dress, an extraordinary violation of protocol. (Lewis, p. 27)

What transpired was a surrealistic Star Chamber. Du Paty, whose hand was bandaged to demonstrate that he could not write, asked Dreyfus to take down a letter for Boisdeffre's signature. He then recited some verbiage similar to that of the bordereau. After failing twice to provoke the amanuensis into indignation, Du Paty rose, clamped him by the shoulder, and shouted, "Captain Dreyfus, in the name of the law, I arrest you. You are accused of high treason." (Chapman, p. 72)

Now completely rattled, Dreyfus demanded proof. "The evidence is overwhelming," said Du Paty, but he refused to present it. Instead he placed a loaded revolver on the writing table, and announced that if Dreyfus would not confess, he must shoot himself. Dreyfus replied, "I won't do it. I am innocent," which he continued to assert as he was taken away to the Cherche-Midi prison, where he would be held in solitary confinement until his court-martial. (Chapman, pp. 72-73)

For the next two months Dreyfus's accusers scrambled to solidify their case. A search of his apartment turned up nothing of any value. During repeated interrogations, Du Paty harassed and threatened Dreyfus, ordering him to take dictation sitting, reclining, leaning, standing, and wearing a glove, trying to no avail to get him to acknowledge scraps of a photographed mystery document as his own handwriting. (Lewis, p. 33)

Francois Guenee, a civilian investigator employed by the General Staff, reported that Dreyfus was an inveterate gambler and womanizer; the claims were subsequently refuted by a police captain who clarified that Guenee had mistaken his subject for a well-known rogue of the same name. (Chapman, p. 83)

When a comprehensive review of Statistical Section records failed to yield any material of sufficient weight, Sandherr and Henry were stymied. How could they obtain a guilty verdict -- other than resorting to extreme measures?

In recommending a court-martial, military magistrate Major Bexon d'Ormescheville chose to ignore Dreyfus's affidavit in which he cited incompatibilities in the script of the bordereau and incongruities in the text itself, including incorrect artillery terminology and the impossibility of his "going off to maneuvers" which the General Staff had canceled. (Lewis, p. 43)

Acceding to Minister of War Mercier's expressed desire for a closed session -- ostensibly for security reasons, but perhaps also because of the flimsiness of the evidence -- the seven-judge panel so ordered it upon a request by prosecutor Commander Andre Brisset. (Chapman, pp. 91-92)

Dreyfus's attorney, Edgar Demange, was one of France's most distinguished, and he struggled mightily to justify his billing. Bertillon's bewildering explications prompted such objections as "If the handwriting was disguised, how could he be certain who was the author?" and "Indeed, since he was not really a graphologist, how could Bertillon be certain of anything?" And Du Paty was unconvincing when he spoke of Dreyfus's trembling as he wrote from dictation. (Lewis, pp. 49-50)

But when Demange challenged Major Henry to name the anonymous informant (it was del Val Carlos) who had warned of a traitor in the War Office ("who is sitting right there," he had shouted), Henry's stony response ("There are some secrets in an officer's head which his cap does well to ignore.") and his swearing to Dreyfus's guilt while pointing to a picture of Christ were hugely effective. (Bredin, p. 94)

On the final day of the trial, Demange argued for three hours that Dreyfus could not possibly have written the bordereau and that he had no motive for committing treason. If Dreyfus's own testimony was a "colorless, vacant, indolent" monotone, its lucidity and precision exposed the feebleness of the indictment. (Bredin, pp. 95, 93)

Shortly after the judges retired to deliberate, "a remarkable event occurred. Major Du Paty arrived with a small packet of papers. In the handwriting of the Minister of War himself, the packet bore the broadly scrawled message 'For the Officers of the Court Martial' " Could those persons be faulted for assuming they had been tendered some vital proof of treason, for believing they would be flouting the Minister of War if they found Dreyfus innocent? (Lewis, pp. 51-52)

What they did not know was that "the production of documents not shown to the defense was irregular and illegal in civil and military law." (Chapman, p. 95)

The so-called Secret Dossier contained, first, a biographical commentary authored by either Sandherr or Mercier revealing a history of suspicious behavior by the defendant, including a charge that Dreyfus had sold details of new explosive developed by Turpin and notes on troop mobilization to the Germans. (Lewis, p. 98)

Attached were five other incriminating documents: (1) The "scoundrel D" letter from Schwarzkoppen to Panizzardi; (2) A letter about securing information from un ami, written by Panizzardi; (3) A collection of fragments, "whose unintelligibility gave them an aura of malign significance"; (4) A summary of the warnings of del Val Carlos to the Statistical Section; and (5) The decoded text of a telegram sent from Panizzardi to his Italian Chief of Staff, which Henry had amended from "If Captain Dreyfus has never been in contact with you, it would be convenient to have the ambassador publish an official denial . . ." to "Dreyfus arrested, precautions taken, our emissary warned. It would be convenient to have the ambassador publish an official denial . . ." (Lewis, pp. 98, 93)

The verdict was now assured: guilty by unanimous consensus. After it was announced, Du Paty reclaimed the dossier and returned it to Mercier, who burned the commentary and ordered Sandherr to scatter the other pieces throughout the archives. But Sandherr disobeyed; he appended a copy of the original investigative report compiled by Du Paty, sealed the file, and locked it in his office safe. (Lewis, pp. 98-99)

The death penalty for political crimes had been abolished by Article Five of the Constitution of 1848. Dreyfus was therefore sentenced to forfeiture of his rank, public degradation, and deportation for life to a remote fortification. (Chapman, p. 96)

At this point the complications which had been foreseen by Foreign Minister Hanotaux materialized. (Chapman, p. 100) With the French press incensed over the Dreyfus-German connection, the German ambassador, Georg von Munster, delivered a cable from his chancellor demanding that the French government exonerate "the embassies and legations of Paris" of espionage. (Lewis, p. 99) After intense negotiations, the two governments agreed on the following communique: ". . . since certain newspapers persist in calling into question the foreign embassies of Paris, we are authorized, lest public opinion be led astray . . . to declare that the allegations concerning them are unfounded." (Bredin, pp. 109, 82)

The Dreyfus drama unleashed the anti-Semitic press, which seized upon it as the perfect vehicle to further its inflammatory agenda: hatred of the Jew; hatred of Germany; love of the homeland and the Army, which embodied it; and fear of treason. "The betrayal of the Jewish captain demonstrated the treachery of all Jews . . . He came into the Army with the intention of betrayal . . . As a German and a Jew, he detests the French . . . the Jews are vampires leading France into slavery . . . In every nasty affair, there are always Jews." These and other calumnies spewed forth from the pages of La Libre Parole, La Croix, and their ilk. (Bredin, pp. 78-79)

But they might have relented in their cries for Dreyfus's execution had they been aware of the fate that awaited him as he steamed across the Atlantic.

Devil's Island, a former leper colony thirty miles off the coast of French Guiana, was a desolate lump of rock four hundred yards wide and two miles long, baked by stupefying heat six months a year, drenched by malarial-breeding downpours the other six. Dreyfus was confined to a four-yard-square hut illuminated day and night and fronted by a booth from which a guard watched his every minute. (Chapman, p. 111)
 

"The chief warder had received instructions to shoot the prisoner down at the slightest movement to escape. He was permitted to exercise only on a narrow path two hundred yards in length. He was not allowed to communicate with the jailers." (Chapman, p. 111)

His food was scarcely adequate -- a serving of bread, occasionally a piece of raw meat, lard, dry vegetables -- and he had to prepare it himself, constructing a grill and pot from scraps of rusted sheet metal. (Bredin, pp. 130-131) As a result of poor nutrition, "his hair thinned, his teeth loosened, and his skin shriveled to little more than yellow membrane stretched over weakened bone." (Lewis, p. 108)

He suffered from headaches, colic, fever, and chronic insomnia. "Inside the clammy hut insects materialized as if by spontaneous combustion. During the day the hut was a miasma of smoke from the primitive stove, of decomposing insect carcasses, and of human excrescence. During the night the endless drubbing on the roof, the dampness, and the bugs made sleep impossible." (Lewis, p. 112)

In September 1896, by order of the Minister of Colonies, Dreyfus was chained indoors twenty-four hours a day -- and double-shackled at night -- not as a punishment, but as a security measure following an announcement by an English newspaper that he had escaped. (Bredin, p. 133)

Throughout his ordeal, in his journal and in correspondence to his wife Lucie, Dreyfus repeatedly emphasized his honor, his innocence, his loyalty, and his faith in justice and reason. On October 5, 1895, he addressed the president of the Republic: "Accused and convicted on the basis of my script of the most infamous crime a soldier can commit, I declare again that I did not write the letter attributed to me, that I have never betrayed my honor." (Bredin, pp. 127-128)

He asked his diary: "How can it be said that in our century and in a country like France, imbued with ideas of truth and justice, something as fundamentally unjust as this can happen?" He believed that the authorities must already suspect a terrible mistake had been made and were on the trail of the real spy. (Lewis, p. 109)

But of the powerful forces arrayed against him and determined to bury this affair in the footnotes of history, could anyone ferret out to truth, and, if he did, would he be courageous and honest enough to speak up?

REFERENCES

Bredin, Jean-Denis. The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus. Trans. by Jeffrey Mehlman. New York: George Braziler, Inc., 1986.

Chapman, Guy. The Dreyfus Case: A Reassessment. New York: Reynal & Company, 1956.

Harris, Robert. An Officer and A Spy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.

Lewis, David L. Prisoners of Honor: The Dreyfus Affair. New York: William Morrow & Company, 1973.

Baseball Madness

"Don't you get bored looking at those little dots?" queries JSG, rhetorically, of course, since she already knows the answer, as I slide not very surreptitiously into her computer alcove, fire up her magnificent iMac, type in my second favorite (after "My Occasional Pieces") web site: mlb.com (the acronym for Major League Baseball), and open the Gameday window for the Oakland A's vs. whomever their opponent might be.

"You do realize," I reply, trying not to sound overly pedantic, "that they don't make them just for me," a judgment I admit to having rendered upon other frequented but better left unmentioned internet destinations. And if further evidence of their proliferation be required, I submit that my cantankerous phone (a Droid, not an Apple) has driven me to surf for alternates like espn.go.com and mweb.cbssports.com for similar entertainment.

Those ornery dots she's referring to are real-time (or slightly delayed) pitches that come sizzling into the hitting zone from the vibrant background of the home stadium before exploding into their telltale color codes -- red for a strike (or foul), green for a ball, and blue for multiple in-play options: no out, out(s), or run(s) -- while an image of the batter stands suspended in his proper right or left-handed alignment awaiting along with the viewer the good or bad breaking news.

JSG's bewilderment at my curious fixation is not without foundation; why would I, and presumably thousands more, subject ourselves to this bizarre and excruciating exercise when for a mere $19.99 a month we can enjoy a televised broadcast? The pithy answer is that what is sheer madness to the unenlightened makes perfect sense to the zealot.

Consider first that the only team worth three hours of my undivided attention is that obscure Oakland stepchild, which rarely emerges from the Giant shadow of its Bay Area counterpart unless sewage floods the visitors' locker room in its antiquated football coliseum, its clean-up hitter is traded to the Red Sox, darling of the East Coast media, which finally figures out how to pronounce his name correctly (Ces-pe-des), or Hollywood casts Brad Pitt in the movie Moneyball as heroic underdog Billy Beane, the shrewd general manager struggling to compete on a shoestring budget against the deep-pocketed New Yorkers and Bostonians.

Long before the book of the same name hit the silver screen -- back in 2004, shortly after its publication -- a timely reading convinced me to switch loyalties. A diehard Cubs fan since the late sixties, I had become disenchanted with a management that suddenly gulped the free agent Kool-Aid, signing purported superstars to expensive long-term contracts. The maneuver backfired, turning the formerly lovable losers into mere sputtering spendthrifts.

A dearth of coverage by ESPN -- which is televising to a national audience only four of their games all season despite a four-month first-place standing -- is only one problem with being an Athletics supporter. The other is that at least half of their games don't start until 10:00 PM, which is generally past my bedtime, unless an occasional outbreak of insomnia or an irresistible urge to tune in to the proceedings should disrupt my routine. Even when neither does, another persistent symptom of male aging -- the after-midnight wake-up call -- usually enables me to check the final score, which can be either a soothing soporific (if favorable) or an annoying stimulant (if not-so-favorable).

Is it conceivable that those late hours are simply a convenient justification of both my parsimony and my eccentricity and that, persistently captivated by the tripartite symmetry with which it replicates the statistical, contemplative, and spasmodic nature of the game, I actually prefer the static, transcribed version to the live one?

Flanking the batter on the left are the specifics of each pitch -- type, speed, break, nasty factor, accumulated total -- followed by, after a brief but suspenseful wait, a posting of the result when the ball is put in play: out, hit, or error. To his right is the box score, the minute-by-minute record of each player's performance for the day, including his batting and earned run averages, which are recalculated after every at-bat. Underneath is displayed the line score of runs per inning, the ball and strike count, and the number of outs -- so that regardless of when one tunes in, he grasps the immediate situation. And with the click of his mouse, he can summon videos of highlights he has missed.

Absent the intrusive commentators and analysts whose superfluous blather diminishes rather than enhances the rhythmical pace -- which, like the graph of an electrocardiogram, flatlines for extended periods before erupting in a flurry of movement -- a blessed silence envelopes me and, oddly enough, amplifies the intensity as my imagination conjures up an A's positive outcome for each successive pitch, only to be foiled time and again.

In one respect, the virtual experience surpasses the camera lens's capability: whereas the former envisions the entire field and team positioning, so critical to superior defense, the latter of necessity focuses on players either in isolation or in two or three-men combinations, darting from pitcher to batter to infield to outfield as the action unfolds. Which is why no electronic medium can capture the placid beauty and intermittent frenzy of what is still America's pastime -- even though it may been overtaken in popularity by the orchestrated violence and addictive monotony of public pornography by another name: football.

And why, once or twice a season, I pack an overnight bag and journey by plane, train, or automobile, with or without a companion, to some ballpark within reasonable proximity (which excludes the west coast) to cheer the visiting Oakland A's to victory over the home team.

I've tracked my heroes to Toronto, New York, and Chicago, but the closest venue is, of course, Baltimore, where the splendid Orioles Park at Camden Yards overlooks a bustling Inner Harbor. The A's are making their once-a-year road trip there the first week in June, which looks good to me until I fracture my right fibula early one morning while running in Phoenix, Arizona, and end up in an orthopedic boot just as the crowd is rising for the National Anthem.

Interleague play will be bringing the A's cross-country in mid-August for a rare three games in Atlanta, but my daughter Sara has enlisted JSG and me for granddaughter-sitting (she's a fourteen-month-old in perpetual motion) duty in Ithaca, New York -- exquisite timing, as it turns out, since the Braves break out the brooms and sweep the series.

That leaves two options -- Arlington, Texas, home to the Rangers, or Houston, launching pad for the Astros. The Lone Star State is miserably hot and humid in mid-summer, advises JSG, who grew up there, prompting me to verify a suspicion lodged deep in the furrows of my brain: the Astros play in a climate-controlled indoor stadium with a retractable roof, the judiciously rechristened Minute Maid Park, formerly Enron Field. As if I needed any further incentives, lower-box home-plate tickets for these perennial laggards are very reasonably priced, and Houston, the nation's fourth largest city, is a place I've never been to before.

The schedule offers another advantage: getaway day, a Wednesday afternoon game so timed as to allow visitors (who include the A's and me) to catch an evening flight home. And a Tuesday morning departure from Lynchburg deposits me in Houston around noon, giving me several hours to relax, dine, and find my way to the ballpark before the seven o'clock start.

As I'm sitting in the airport lobby waiting for a shuttle to my downtown Club Quarters Hotel, baseball madness sneak attacks like a ninth-inning uprising. Beside me is a peculiar character all decked out in a khaki suit and houndstooth fedora which I shrug off as some retro idiosyncrasy until he shouts across to the room to a New York Yankee tee shirt garbed fellow, "Hey, Sam, are you going to the convention?"

My curiosity piqued, I make it a point to slither aboard next to him in order to learn what that is all about. His name is Maxwell Kates, and he's taking a few days off from his accounting practice in Toronto to attend, along with about three hundred other diamond devotees, the 44th annual convocation of SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research.

Founded in 1971 at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, by L. Robert Davids, the organization has mushroomed from a modest roster of sixteen to over six thousand worldwide. While many major and minor league officials, writers, broadcasters, and former players belong, the vast majority of the members are "just plain fans" furthering their enjoyment of the game by exploring its rich history.

Featured on this year's agenda are such tantalyzing topics as Why Does the Home Team Score So Much in the First Inning; Jackie Robinson Wasn't the Dodgers First Choice; Was Mantle's Peak Value Greater than Mays's; and "The Bikers Beat the Boy Scouts": Facial Hair and the 1972 World Series, presented by none other than Maxwell Kates.

Yes, in an excerpt from his forthcoming book about the 1970's Oakland A's, my scholarly seatmate will describe the origins of baseball dress codes in the 1960's, the role the A's green and yellow uniforms, straggly locks, beards, and moustaches played in fomenting change, and the staunch resistance exerted by staid, conservative teams like the A's 1972 opponents, the Cincinnati Reds, who forbade the hairy garnishments. Which explains Kates's outlandish attire: he's posing as the A's owner of the period, the flamboyant and innovative Charley Finley.

My hotel wants to charge me $60 to check in early, which I politely decline, but does offer a spacious common area with comfortable seating for reading or television viewing, four desktops and free internet service, and complimentary all-you-can-consume coffee and chex mix. During the course of three leisurely hours I run across another Oakland A's crazy (easily identified in his green and gold cap), who's pursued his prey even further than I, all the way from Seattle; he and a buddy from his native Bay Area are in the midst of their annual two-city road trip, catching the A's in Arlington and now in Houston.

Minute Maid Park is about a fifteen-minute walk; I'll either enjoy some coliseum cuisine or pass an enticing restaurant along the way -- like "Irma's Southwest Grill," which appears to be the hottest spot to seek refuge from the blistering heat. Ducking indoors, I ask the hostess to see a menu, to which she replies, "I'm sorry, sir, we don't have menus."

I try, "How much are your entrees?" only to be greeted with, "It depends on what you order." It usually does, I think to myself. Pointing to a group of loitering diners sampling quesadillas and nachos, I plead, "How much is the buffet?" to no avail since, "It's not a buffet; it's a private party."

I'm hungry, but frustrated and just about to leave when an energetic fellow approaches, introduces himself as Louis, the owner (Irma is his mother), and proceeds to give me a brief history of the family business, which has thrived in two locations for years without menus. He steers me toward a small two-top beside a window, and recommends his famous chile relleno with chips and guacamole, promising I won't be disappointed by the recipe nor impoverished by the price. When I decline the guacamole, recalling the $45 tableside-prepared variety at Rosa Mexicano's in New York City, he brings it anyway, gratis, he says, which limits my bill to a reasonable eighteen dollars, half of which I allocate to the food and half to the pleasure of his company.

Houston has more surprises in store for me the next morning. Salivating for Starbucks, I ask my phone to find me the closest one, which is about three miles away, too far to walk; when it pinpoints a Seattle's Best within four blocks I decide to take a chance.

Granted it's already ninety degrees with the humidity a few ticks higher, yet at ten in the morning one would expect to see the sidewalks of this downtown metropolis jam-packed; instead the only glimmers of life are a few delivery vans, construction workers, and barricades that complicate my route. Arriving at the address, 777 Walker Street, I look backward, forward, across the street, and even around the corner, but either this coffee shop never was or has abruptly ceased operations. I'm about to head home when, peering through the glass door of the massive office building rising before me, I notice a woman riding an escalator from a lower level up to the first floor, coffee cup in hand.

"Aha!" I shout (to no one), as I stride across the gaping lobby and bolt downstairs. I spy not only my cafe but two or three other upscale fast-food eateries, some weird color-coded signage and diagrams plastered to the walls, and corridors branching right and left from the space where I'm standing, mystified. I've landed in a vast pedestrian underground, seven miles of labyrinthine tunnels connecting seventy-seven buildings and ninety-five city blocks, categorized as street loops in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and black, and "crammed with Houstonians lunching, shopping, and power-walking in dry, air-conditioned comfort." (Blumenthal, Ralph, New York Times, August 21, 2007)

It's neither centrally planned nor linked to a subway or elevated train. While nothing says north, south, east, or west, I don't find the system as intimidating as some locals contend, including David Gerst, who counts 3000 potential customers passing by his sandwich shop daily and says, "You have to memorize the buildings." For about an hour I explore this subterranean mall, navigating a path to the exit closest to my hotel, wending my way through a warren of restaurants, boutiques, florists, jewelers, pharmacies, beauty salons, banks, post offices, and printing services. (Blumenthal, Ralph, New York Times, August 21, 2007)

If the tunnels are cool, Minute Maid Park is even cooler, with the thermostat dialed down to a sub-seventy setting that prickles the hair on my exposed arms and legs. Or maybe that's just the normal rush that suffuses me every time when I reach my section entry point and gaze out over the glorious landscape of a major league ballpark.

And this one's a beauty: three levels of amphitheater seating soaring almost to the steel-beamed ceiling; a towering glass wall five hundred feet distant protecting the enclosure from the nearly visible shimmering heat waves; the immaculately manicured and unblemished outfield lawn sloping in its far reaches up Towle's Hill; the perfectly-groomed topsoil diamond, soon to be roiled by darting defenders and sliding speedsters; the gigantic high definition smart scoreboard suspended in center field, powered by Daktronics, Gameday on steroids, tracking every pitch, hit, and play with sound, lights, and statistical precision, while seizing down time for crass commercial messages, topical quizzes or brain teasers, and roving candid camera shots.

Over behind the visitors' dugout a raucous swarm of green-and-gold clad A's faithful is buzzing the hive in hopes of luring royalty from the honeycombs. And indeed they have: pitcher Scott Kazmir, a fuzzy-faced, grinning youth who looks like a Little Leaguer is autographing balls and programs as fast and furiously as his admirers can thrust them over the rail and into his hand. His magnetism can be attributed to his all-star status and Houston roots.

Signing Kazmir to a two-year $22 million contract was one of General Manager Beane's most astute moves during the off-season. A breakdown in his mechanics and a groin injury derailed his promising career and drove him into early retirement in 2011 and 2012; last year the Cleveland Indians gambled on his reconstructed delivery and were rewarded with ten wins, a number he has already exceeded by two thus far (it's July 30th) while posting an impressive 2.37 earned run average.

He's one more cog in the well-oiled machine Beane has brilliantly constructed on the sixth-lowest payroll in baseball, about $84 million. His success lies in having reconfigured his statistically-based Moneyball formula into a four-pronged strategy: mining major and minor league rosters for the undervalued nugget who can be had for a pittance; identifying the productive second-tier free agent who won't demand the long-term contract that can hamstring team and financial flexibility; jettisoning peak performers when they can yield the maximum return in prospects or immediate contributors; and leveraging platoon splits (left-handed batters' superior prowess against right-handed pitching, and vice-versa) to assemble line-ups of depth and versatility.

Three years ago he swapped star pitcher Gio Gonzalez for (among others) right-handed-hitting catcher Derek Norris, who shares duties behind the plate with another trade acquisition, left-handed hitting John Jaso. A third catcher, Stephen Vogt, who spends more time in right field or at first base, went hitless in twenty-five appearances for Tampa in 2012 before Beane took a flier on him; he's batting .351 with Oakland since being called up from the minors in May. The team's runs batted in leader, Josh Donaldson, also a former catcher, was a low-level throw-in when Beane dealt the talented but sore-armed Rich Harden to the Cubs in 2008. Free agent Brandon Moss languished for five years as both Boston and Pittsburgh tried to convert him into a spray hitter; when Beane unleashed his left-handed power, he became a legitimate home run threat. Although right fielder Josh Reddick has struggled to duplicate his thirty-two homer output in 2012, he has far outperformed injury-hampered reliever Andrew Bailey, for whom he was obtained that year from Boston.

Anchoring this eclectic assortment is Cuban refugee Yoenis Cespedes, whose uncharacteristic 2012 signing by Beane (four years, $36 million) surprised the pundits but whose brute strength and rifle arm have more than compensated for his flailing at down-and-away sliders and misjudging fly balls.

Epitomizing the Beane magic is thirty-year-old Jesse Chavez, who was owned by four different teams since 2004 before Oakland purchased his contract in 2012. Adding a cutter to his fastball, change-up, and curve enabled him to progress from 2013 long-relief man to this season's rotation, where he has won eight, lost six, and allowed just over three earned runs a game.

The rap on Beane is that he has never taken home a World Series ring, nor even reached the final round, having been bounced five times in either the Divisional or League Championship preliminary. "The playoffs are a crap shoot," he said after one heartbreaker, and indeed luck is more likely to be a determining factor over five or seven games than over 162. Which begs the question: how to minimize the effect of the untimely missed catch or bloop single?

Beane's answer is to shore up his pitching staff. Despite owning the best record in baseball (indeed, the best since Opening Day 2012) and a team run differential (the excess of runs scored over runs allowed) of 127, twice that of the runner-up, on July 5th he sacrifices an uncertain future (two of his most prized minor leaguers) for a presumed Chicago Cubs' guarantee: Jeff Samardzija, a flame-thrower in his prime, and Jason Hammel, a journeyman throwing like a Hall of Famer, both of whom, oddly enough, will be starting the two games I'm in Houston to see. To make room on the roster, he options a three-year mainstay of his rotation, Tommy Milone, to the minors, convinced that his six victories in his last seven opportunities are an aberration, given his mid-eighties mph fastball.

Some might say it's madness to attend a baseball game without a mate; I maintain it's a place where one is never alone, where cerebral engagement invites jovial camaraderie. Although the crowds are sparse -- the Astros are only one game from the League basement -- my green-and-gold cap proclaims a loyalty that sparks conversation with both fellow acolytes and home town boosters. I encounter a Bay Area transplant now living several hundred miles north of here who never misses the A's when they come to Houston. A father and son from Oakland have detoured en route to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where the latter is a returning sophomore. One row down is a proud gentleman cheering as his high school all-star grandson is presented a bat from A's hitting coach Chili Davis. Beside me is a local whose father was a long-time executive with the original Colt .45's.

I can't ever remember sitting this close to home plate, almost at ground level. There's one unintended consequence: the on-deck area is directly in front of me, and, depending on where he stands while loosening up and practicing his swings, the batter due up next may be obstructing my view -- an irritant easily remedied by my relocating to one of the hundreds of vacancies surrounding me.

On the other hand, my vantage point gives me a whole new appreciation for the skill sets required to master this game at its highest level. To control the placement of a three-inch diameter projectile hurled sixty feet at speeds varying from 80 to 95 mph within a four-foot rectangle; to make contact almost instantaneously with that projectile while it's darting left, right or downward, much less drive it 400 feet, with a shaped wooden club; to snag that projectile or pick it off the ground while it's traveling at an even greater velocity and throw it with accuracy 120 feet while running or off balance; even to judge the arc of a fly ball curling in various directions -- the difficulties of these feats are magnified by my startling proximity to them.

What I'm about to witness will take me on an emotional roller-coaster ride. Despite their stellar record, the first-place A's are looking over their shoulders at the hard-charging Los Angeles Angels, who trail them by only one-and-a-half games. They stumbled yesterday against an Astro team which, while more competitive than last year's one-hundred-eleven loss punching bag, represents the soft underbelly of the league.

And they're no easy mark tonight either. I'm keeping a scorecard, recording the result of every player's at-bat -- strikeout, walk, ground out, pop out, line out, single, double, triple, or home run -- employing an esoteric system of numerical and alphabetical symbols, and the narrative is depressing. Astro's shortstop Marwin Gonzalez homers to right in the second inning. In the fifth, center fielder Enrique Hernandez blasts a triple to center, driving in Robbie Grossman, who singled and stole second base ahead of him, and then scores himself on a single by the Astro's bona fide star, diminutive Jose Altuve. Two innings later a Hernandez double plates Jon Singleton, who had walked, sending A's starter Samardzija to the showers.

Meanwhile, Scott Feldman, veteran of four teams spanning an unremarkable ten years, limits the lifeless A's to three walks and five hits, including a rather innocuous Josh Reddick home run. And after Josh Fields retires them quietly in order in the eighth inning, they're down to their last three outs, staring up from a 1-4 deficit.

Since 2012 these gritty battlers have established a reputation for stunning come-from-behind and walk-off (or final at-bat) wins, inspiring one of their announcers to coin the phrase, "Never give up on the Oakland A's." He might claim they've got the Astros right where they want them, but frankly, while I'm here for the duration, I'm not anticipating much more than a swift, somber exit.

And then, suddenly, with nary a cloud in sight, a bolt of lightning penetrates our protective dome, and strikes unsuspecting closer Chad Qualls. After Vogt goes down swinging, a Norris infield dribbler and a ringing Reddick double put two men on base. Manager Bob Melvin decides to pinch hit the weak-hitting Alberto Callaspo for the even more challenged Eric Sogard. My jaw drops as Callaspo strokes a line drive into center field, drawing the A's within one run and arousing their several hundred slumbering fans.

A Jaso fielder's choice pushes the A's to the brink of ruination. But Jed Lowrie works a walk, and up steps the menacing Yoenis Cespedes. He doesn't disappoint this time, muscling a soft liner into right and tying the game. The rest is pure icing, as a Donaldson double on the heels of a Moss single brings in three more runs.

It's an exhilarating win, a crushing loss, an amazing ninth-inning turn of events which, regardless of which dugout one is wedded to -- I assert with utmost sincerity -- confirms once again that this is, and always will be, the greatest game. Even JSG can't contain her excitement. While she still discards the sports section of the newspaper as perfunctorily as I do the advertising inserts, she's absorbed through osmosis enough propaganda to induce her to inquire of her Apple Siri, "How are the A's doing tonight?" Shame on me for ever having doubted the breadth and depth of Siri's intellect; upon returning to my hotel room, where I have left the cell phone I am not enslaved to, I discover this gratifying yet somewhat gratuitous text from JSG: "I hope you stayed till the end."

Because baseball is played almost every day, the euphoria of victory (or the agony of defeat) is often fleeting, as evidenced by the following afternoon's game, which is a grotesque mirror image of its predecessor. If Jason Hammel has been abysmal since coming over from the Cubs -- he's lost all three of his starts, lasting a total of thirteen innings, and surrendering ten earned runs -- his redemption will have to wait. Before the paltry crowd of ten thousand or so is settled in, the Astros match the A's six-run inning with one of their own -- in their first at bat.

Hammel almost escapes, although it only would have delayed the inevitable. After two one-out singles, Marc Krauss's grounder to second baseman Nick Punto looks tailor-made for a double play, but shortstop Jed Lowrie's relay to first is late, allowing one run to score and leaving the door open for further damage. A walk and two singles bring home three more, before Robbie Grossman launches a two-run shot to right field. Hammel will show some flashes of competence, allowing only two more batters to reach base until the fifth inning, when Jon Singleton ends his night with another two-run long ball.

The A's are helpless against young lefthander Dallas Keuchel, managing only three walks and four hits, including a solo home run by Josh Donaldson in the second inning. I have to leave in the eighth to catch my plane, as certain as looming mortality that there will be no resurrection from this 1-8 interment; Keuchel's going the distance on a nifty one hundred eleven pitches, lest the Astros' leaky bullpen squander his sterling effort.

Two thrashings by the lowly Astros sandwiched around a miraculous rally -- is this embarrassing performance an ominous harbinger of some grievous reversal of fortune? Victimized by shoddy execution on the mound and at the plate, are the A's showing cracks in their previously invincible armor?

More madness ensues the next day, Thursday, July 31st. Flummoxed by the Hammel implosion, pondering a Kazmir injury or a Chavez innings overload, confident in his line-up's ability to sustain excellence despite some recent disturbing futility, hungry for the ace he's always lacked to nail down that one big victory, Beane puts all his chips on the table.

In a move even more audacious and shocking than his original signing, he sends Cespedes -- the reigning Home Run Derby king; the stable hitter whom, along with Donaldson, Manager Bob Melvin can place in the middle of the order every day to build his platoons around; the flawed slugger whose potential is forever out of reach yet who, at any moment, with one mighty swing, can change the course of a game; the possessor of some indefinable elixir that enables his team to win 67% of the time when he plays but only 40% of the time when he doesn't -- to the Boston Red Sox for Jon Lester, one of the best pitchers in baseball.

Lester's only going to be around for two months; Beane won't be able to afford him when his contract expires at the end of the season. He's in town for one purpose: to help the A's win the World Series, where he's undefeated (3-0) with an earned run average of 0.43.

But first they have to get there. And as a fan who's touted Beane's genius and reveled in the exploits of his handiwork, I'm wondering whether this is a case of tinkering too much with what isn't really broken. What front runner trades its number three hitter in the midst of a pennant race? Can a pitcher, no matter how good he is, who only influences the outcome every fifth day, compensate for so great a loss? What is the impact on a team's morale -- and chemistry, if the concept exists -- of such a wrenching disruption? And how will this formerly loose, carefree band of upstart overachievers respond to the burden of rising expectations, to the pressure of knowing that nothing less than a championship will constitute calamitous failure?

POSTSCRIPT

Following the Cespedes-Lester trade, plagued by nagging injuries, prolonged batting slumps, and mediocre pitching, the Oakland Athletics will suffer a monumental collapse, losing twenty of their next thirty-four games, relinquishing first place in the American League West to the streaking Los Angeles Angels, and relegating themselves to the dreaded Wild Card play-in game, if they can hold on to that. Meanwhile, Cespedes will hit .295 with four home runs and twenty-seven rbi in thirty-three games for the Red Sox.

Shanghai Junket

"Tell me about your viaje a Shanghai," writes my friend and the father of my daughter-in-law, Julio M. Rodriguez, from his native Dominican Republic. "I was there in 2006. The food was horrible."

Don Julio is a remarkable man. Tall, slender, and aristocratic, he exudes the subtle magnetism of a benign godfather. At seventy-six years of age his energy is undiminished as he continues to practice pediatrics at the Santo Domingo hospital where he was formerly Chief of the Medical Staff and a professor. He is a scholar, journalist, and historian who has written extensively on the Trujillo era and whose columns have appeared in the local press. Not only does he speak English fluently, he also speed reads it, which apparently is why he has never complained about the length of "my occasional pieces." If he's rarely met a topic about which he lacked an opinion, it's always proffered with aplomb and backed by an impressive grasp of the facts.

Considering his roots, it's not surprising that his third passion, after his family and his profession, is baseball, which he gets to indulge in during a recent visit to Washington, D.C., ostensibly to meet his one-month-old granddaughter. Sparing no expense, he treats himself and four guests -- his wife Josefina, his son David, who drives down from Youngstown, Ohio, my son Matthew, and me -- to Diamond Lounge all-inclusive food and beverages and lower-level home-plate box seats at the Nationals-Cubs game, although both are poor substitutes for his favorite team, the Cardinals. He's been a rabid Redbird ever since his St. Louis residency days back in the early sixties when his countryman, second baseman Julian Javier, comped him tickets to the old Busch Stadium.

With typical frankness Don Julio is eager to expand upon his perfunctory indictment of JSG's and my latest international destination. "We went there anticipating a better, or at least equivalent, version of the Chinese food we were accustomed to at home, and instead were introduced to something entirely different. Thank goodness for the breakfast buffets, which included good old American (or Dominican) eggs, omelets, waffles, bacon, sausage, fruit, and pastries."

While "horrible" may be a little harsh, let's just put it this way: our best meals are the ones served to us at 38,000 feet: shrimp the size of popsicles; filet of salmon with steamed rice and green beans; beef tenderloin in peppercorn sauce with gnocchi and vegetable medley; choice of dinner rolls or garlic bread; ice cream sundaes drenched in caramel, butterscotch, and hot fudge; and bottomless glasses of champagne, wine, and Bloody Marys. Yes, after five overseas journeys crammed in coach with the hoi polloi, we're finally salivating in business class.

Although our host is picking up this and all of our other expenses, even for jetsetters like JSG and me the amenity is a necessary inducement -- if not our prime motivation -- to sacrifice forty-eight hours of our life in the air in return for ninety on the ground in a place that has always been relegated to the bottom quartile of my bucket list.

The junket is the grand opening of a new showroom in Shanghai by one of Schewel Furniture Company's major suppliers, Lifestyle Enterprises, from whom it purchases about thirty per cent of its bedroom and dining sets and two sectional seating groups. It's difficult for me to fathom why Lifestyle would spend a minimum of $3 million (about one per cent of its total revenues) to transport, house, feed, and entertain the three hundred or so dealers who are deplaning along with us -- other than to guarantee a captive audience for its ribbon-cutting. As a gesture of appreciation for past patronage, it's rather excessive; as a down payment on compensatory future returns, it's problematic in an arena where loyalties are as fickle as those of basketball free agents; and as an enticement to lay down on-site orders, it's irrelevant since most buyers tend to make their decisions at the larger multi-vendor expositions of High Point or Las Vegas.

While a few larger retailers may engage directly with Asian producers and save the fifteen to twenty per cent middleman fee, most are like Schewel and prefer to work through companies similar to Lifestyle which maintain U. S. offices and sales organizations, originate designs based on market trends, contract with factories (some may be owned outright) for fabrication or assembly according to their specifications, and assume responsibility for quality control. Finished goods are shipped in forty-foot high-cube containers from Far East ports through the Panama Canal to Norfolk, and then hauled by truck to Schewel's Distribution Center in Lynchburg, at total charges of about $4800 each.

Dividing this amount by an average capacity of twenty-four bedroom suites (dresser, mirror, chest, queen bed, and night stand) and one-hundred-twenty five-piece dining sets (table and four chairs flat-packed) per container equates to $200 freight on each bedroom suite (or forty percent if its fob, or free on board, cost is $500) and $40 on each dining set (or twenty per cent of an fob cost of $200).

For years U. S. furniture manufacturers assumed that such an exorbitant freight factor -- a function of the bulkiness of their product -- inoculated them from the overseas palgue that had decimated their textile and footwear peers. Arrogant, myopic, and complacent, many remained oblivious to the looming threat, or found themselves so saddled with leveraged-buyout debt that even the prescient lacked the capital to upgrade their plants and equipment and maximize efficiencies. Meanwhile Asian entrepreneurs were building state-of-the-art facilities that combined low-cost labor with advanced technology to churn out merchandise that, regardless of price point -- low, medium, or high -- so far surpassed their stateside competitors in style, quality, and value (including freight) that the latter expired faster than an oxygen-deprived candle.

The attack was launched initially in Taiwan in the late 1980's, and then migrated progressively to mainland China, Malaysia, and Vietnam in reaction to higher tariffs and increasing wages.

This blitzkrieg was not limited to wooden case goods. Even a seemingly prohibitive shipping cost of $150 could be absorbed when applied to the deeply-discounted $250 for which a reclining or genuine leather sofa could be manufactured in China. For promotional upholstery continuing to be made in the States, costs could be further contained by importing fabric patterns that were cut and sewn overseas -- the most labor-intensive component of the process -- and then attaching them to frame and spring units.

It amuses me when disinterested observers and journalistic gadflies lament this precipitous exodus, clinging to a bogus nostalgia and professing a self-righteous affection for their idealistic notions of American craftsmanship. While I sympathize with the thousands thrown out of work by this turn of fate -- especially in our region where an entire community like Altavista, Virginia, can be devastated by the shuttering of a Lane Company -- why should home furnishings become the whipping boy for a fundamental axiom of economics simply because it was the last commodity to weigh anchor, following the embarkation of clothing, shoes, and electronics?

And in the fierce war for the disposable dollar, why should furniture retailers be handicapped by paying a premium for "Made in America" products when such labels are rare sightings in the aisles of mass merchants, department stores, and specialty shops? These are my true adversaries, and in order to generate profitable sales and maintain market share, I need to offer the same values to my customers that they do.

Milton Friedman articulated the rationale for free trade thirty-five years ago in his seminal work Free to Choose. Lower prices on Chinese imports, for example, translate into a higher standard of living for the Americans who buy them, as they have more money to spend on a multitude of goods and services. Counteracting the negative effects of globalization on domestic manufacturing is the assumption that the sector possesses the flexibility and ingenuity to reinvent itself, to create the next new object of universal desire. Meanwhile, a rising tide in China is spawning a vast marketplace for investment and consumerism.

Critics will rightfully argue that the Asian playing field is rife with pitfalls and potholes: minimal legal and moral recognition of intellectual property; sporadic regulation of environmental and resource contamination; child labor abuse and exploitation; state subsidization of selected industries; and manipulation of currencies to maximize pricing advantages. But does anyone doubt that most of his fellow citizens would rather turn a blind eye toward these inequities than be deprived of their twenty-dollar shirts, forty-dollar sandals, and four-hundred-dollar big screens?

Now, thanks to Lifestyle Enterprises, I'll get to witness the "Chinese Miracle" in person, albeit through a telescopic and pre-focused lens.

This is the first country I've been to which requires a visa, and since I was skeptical about the trip to start with, I'm almost willing to let that inconvenience give me an excuse to bow out. JSG and I fill out our online applications twice, fearful of having made an error the first time. I'm ready to submit them electronically to the Chinese Embassy with the $120 fee when I learn I must use a third party, which collects an additional $280 to expedite them. When I grumble about this boondoggle to a friend who travels overseas frequently, he placates my ire by informing me that obtaining a visa for entrance into the United States is more difficult and expensive than for any other place in the world.

Since JSG is already in San Francisco visiting her son after a four-day college reunion of sorts at Lake Tahoe (a long way from her alma mater, Williams), we've asked Lifestyle to route us through that city. That's no problem until I look at my itinerary. Although I've flown a hundred thousand miles in the past four years and am convinced air travel is safer than driving to the airport, I'm surprised that our equipment is a four-engine Boeing 747-400, which I thought had been rendered obsolete by the more modern dual-engine 777's and Airbus A330's.

Some fast internet research not only allays my concerns; it sparks an appreciation for this iconic pioneer of long-distance travel.

The 400 variant of the 747 debuted in 1989, and incorporated significant improvements over its twenty-year-old forbear: a glass cockpit that eliminated the need for a third pilot, redesigned wings with reduced drag, and new engines with lower fuel consumption and greater thrust. Six hundred ninety-four were sold until production ceased in 2005 as airlines began phasing in their 777's and A330's, which have less passenger capacity (and are thus easier to fill) and are more efficient. Many operators, including our United, will continue to fly their 747s to the end of their useful lives rather than spending $300 million each to replace them. (Boeing has actually developed and put in service a third generation 747, the -8, but its future may be limited as it is likely to be eclipsed by the 787 Dreamliner.)

The only luxury lacking on board our humpbacked "Queen of the Skies" (as it was nicknamed back in the eighties) is an elevator to lift us to our upper-deck business class cabin. In this insulated stratosphere, takeoff is as quiet as my Hyundai Genesis, landing as graceful as a ballerina, and cruising as smooth as downhill skiing. Even the turbulence we encounter along the northern Chinese coast is no more annoying than a few scattered moguls.

Each of the twenty seats arranged in pairs along both sides of the fuselage borders either the aisle or a window; under the window is a storage bin big enough to accommodate the orthopedic boot I'm wearing to protect the fibula I fractured when I twisted my ankle a few weeks ago. A control panel electronically adjusts the head and foot rests to multiple positions, including a full lay-out for bed-simulated sleeping comfort. There are no pajamas, such as are provided on Emirates Air, according to our frequent-flier friends FGD and JFD, but a large pillow, a soft duvet cover, and an accessory kit containing toothbrush, toothpaste, earplugs, and eyeshades are frills aplenty for a person accustomed to the constraints of coach.

In fact, I'm so stimulated by my new toys that wakefulness sticks to me like a damp tee shirt; JSG of course shuts down faster than the dimming lights. A click of my remote fires up the fifteen-inch screen planted three feet in front of me (but toward the rear of the plane, which is strange at first but quickly forgotten once we're in the air), and unveils an entertainment bonanza: tv shows, movies, news, games, music, and the irresistible up-to-the-minute report on our location, speed, altitude, distance (traveled and remaining), time since departure and to destination, wind effect, and outside temperature (it's cold).

But none of it is sufficiently appealing to distract me for long from my latest volume of escapist fiction (The Burning Shore by Wilbur Smith) until, surfing the game channel, I stumble upon a former avocation and a mesmerizing way to make the hours fly by: bridge, which I haven't touched in twenty-five years but which I still enjoy vicariously by reading the daily newspaper column. Nothing much has changed, other than the stony silence with which my mute partner rebuffs my accusations of his inscrutable bidding and incompetent play. And just when we seem to be establishing a proper rapport, our game is interrupted by a piercing blast of verbiage over the intercom system, which is interminable, redundant, and exasperating enough when delivered in English; in translation it's like being condemned to a Chinese torture chamber.

It's a minor irritant, but validates my reputation as an inveterate cynic; as JSG says, I'm not happy unless I'm complaining. But that's about the only fault line. The lavatory is six paces away. Our flight attendant is pleasant, charming, chatty, and professional -- mindful of our needs but never obtrusive. When she deduces that I'm hooked on seltzer water, she keeps me replenished. When she finds out I'm in the business, she's ready to refurnish her whole house. (Too bad she lives in California.)

Hostessing business class is obviously a perk for senior citizens, which puts her squarely in my demographic sweet spot. With a sly grin she acknowledges my "I'll have what she's having" dinner order as the famous remark from the film When Harry Met Sally addressed to a waiter by a woman in a restaurant who overhears Meg Ryan at an adjacent table faking an orgasm for Billy Crystal; I only remember it because I have just read Crystal's memoir, Still Foolin' 'Em, in which he describes director Rob Reiner's embarrassment at demonstrating the proper technique in front of his mother Estelle, who played the part of the envious eavesdropper.

Touchdown at 7:00 in the evening is a foreshadowing of our next three days: we feel the tarmac almost before we see it, so dense is the low-hanging smog, fog, haze, or mist -- the term varies depending upon the weatherman -- although our pilot assures me that the runway lights here are as bright as a Bat-signal. In response to my inquiries, a number of natives did attest that the sun was known to shine on Shanghai, although I suspect they may be either referring to revolutionary hero Sun Yat-sen or merely touting the Communist Party line.

Along with about twenty other junketers JSG and I are shepherded aboard a van for another harbinger of things to come: a ninety-minute ride past miles of towering apartment buildings until we reach the central area, where we are brought to a dead stop by the clogged roads. A lot of people live here, over fourteen million, making it the largest city in the world, and they drive a lot of cars, about two million. The government is trying to contain the propagation of both creatures, restricting couples to one child and charging $10,000 for a license plate.

Our five-star Grand Hyatt Hotel is a stunner. The spacious room features Art Deco king bed, lounge chair, and work desk; oversized double-sided closet with storage drawers; marble bath with glass sink, separate tub, and scintillating three-headed shower tower; remote-controlled curtains and lighting which are beyond my level of sophistication; and corner floor-to-ceiling windows that, from our 84th floor, offer expansive views of the suffocating cloud cover. I don't like heights anyway, so the wide open atrium dropping all the way to the ground satisfies my lust for thrills.

The next morning, Tuesday, in a scenario that will recur four times in the next two days, our wagon train of half a dozen packed buses creeps out of the parking lot and lumbers toward a selected landmark. Leading off, of course, is our raison d'etre, Lifestyle's new showroom, which is located in the JSWB Global Home Furnishings Center, four million square feet of exhibition halls housing over two hundred manufacturers. It's open to the public, but I can't imagine that many retail sales are made, considering the outrageous prices posted on the samples (for which the freight expense is negligible), unless they are merely inflated starting points for the Chinese custom of haggling for discounts of up to seventy per cent.

But we're not here to shop -- as much as our hosts might like to think so -- just to put on a game face for the grand opening extravaganza along with three hundred other imported dealers and a handful of dignitaries, reporters, and company officials. The master of ceremonies is industry legend and U. S. Lifestyle president, JCR, whose repeated references to owner William Hsieh as the "magician" who has fathered this worldwide assemblage are equally appropriate for his own illustrious tripartite career: first as a six-million-dollar pitch man who could (and still can) transform the cheap-and-ugly into a glorious work of art with a politician's fluency; then as the merchandise manager for former chain-store giant Heilig-Meyers, a one-hundred-eighty degree flip from salesman to buyer which he performed with the grace and good humor of one who never forgot his roots; and last as an international marketer through a timely resurrection.

Granted that JCR's southern gentlemanly blue blazer, khaki slacks, and penny loafers are no match for the sartorial splendor of Hsieh's delicately-embroidered tangzhuang suit and Gucci tennis shoes, all in yellow, the traditional color of the Qing dynasty; at least he's intelligible, which is more than can be said for the Mandarin speechifying which inundates us in his wake. And, as JCR protege and Lifestyle representative JMM wittily observes, "There are no subtitles." It's like attending Yom Kippur services in an Orthodox synagogue -- ninety per cent Hebrew to me. Thankfully we can snack afterward on very much appreciated non-Chinese and non-kosher pepperoni pizza and pork barbecue.

There's no disputing Hsieh's a showman. A festive troupe of dancing girls cavorts across the stage accompanied by mini-Las Vegas sound and light theatrics and some pre-Fourth of July fireworks. The impresario unfurls a velvetine ribbon longer than Rapunzel's tresses which the various actors in this melodrama snip away in suspenseful slow cuts.

Once we're inside it's deja vu "Forbidden City" (the name adorning Lifestyle's palace replica in High Point), three floors of -- how do I say this tactfully -- very familiar furniture, although I don't know why I would have expected anything different. I've always regarded Lifestyle as primarily a case goods resource, but here two-thirds of the space is devoted to upholstery, mainly reclining sofas in brown, beige, and tan, with a few black or white sectionals and some stationary pieces in red or blue interspersed for variety. A new bedroom suite we've ordered but not yet received looks even better the second time around. We enjoy mingling with other guests, including one woman intent on expanding into the credit business until I discourage her by offering to sell her all of my accounts. Before long we've seen enough, and wander outside to explore the complex.

Sited on the estuary of the Yangtze River, Shanghai germinated as a commercial mecca, but its growth since the Nixon-Kissinger initiative has been meteoric and is gaudily on display on our evening cruise along the city's bisecting river, the Huangpu. We pass one skyscraper after another, each one more architecturally opulent than the last, each one a living Christmas tree decorated in a glittering neon rainbow of intricately-patterned strobe lighting. Somewhere out there is the Bund financial district, the Peace Hotel's blazing green pyramid roof, and the Customs House Clock Tower, but frankly it's been an almost sleepless forty-eight hours; nestled in a lower-deck cubicle sipping champagne, I'm too weary to take it all in, while JSG, camera in hand, darts fore and aft, port to starboard, loath to forgo a single opportunity.

"What's that tv show? The keyboardist and singer sound mighty good," I say to JMM sitting beside me as I point to a big screen at the front of the cabin. "They should," he replies. "They're upstairs, right above our heads." It's time for me to crawl into bed.

Perched on a tripod of slanting stanchions and ascending above the skyline like an alien spacecraft is the Oriental Pearl communications tower, so named for the three large and eight small steel spheres strung vertically from a height of 1500 feet, which made it the tallest structure in the country from 1994 until 2007, when it was surpassed by the Shanghai World Financial Center. We could have walked there in ten minutes, discovers JSG on Saturday; but this morning, Thursday, we're back on the bus, and the ride takes thirty.

A high-speed elevator rockets us a quarter-mile to the large upper sphere in about sixty seconds, barely enough time for the red-and-white robed and robotic attendant to brief us in two languages. We skirt the shops and restaurants as the main attraction here is the glass-encased outer platform which offers spectacular views not only outward in all directions but also straight down through the translucent flooring -- on a clear day, that is, which this one predictably is not. That's just as well for me; clouds or not, I feel like I'm in an Alfred Hitchcock movie -- Vertigo -- and beat a hasty retreat indoors and to an instantaneous plummet to the basement, where I land in my comfort zone.

It's the Shanghai Municipal History Museum, and I'm lured into an exhibit that whets my appetite for more: rickshaws and pedicabs, ancient trolley cars, 1920's sedans, a primitive jeep, and later editions of a Buick and a Volkswagon. I've been wondering why those two brands dominate the roadways, and now I know: they were the first Western automobile factories built in China.

For the next ninety minutes the great city's past, with an emphasis on the colonial period from 1860 to 1949, comes alive in a Disneyland display: waxwork mannequins engaged in jade carving, furniture making, calligraphy, painting, cloth spinning, and arts and crafts; vintage scenes of subsistence farming, fishermen, tailors, wine and coffee bars, a medicine stall, an opium den, the stock exchange, and a courtroom; dioramas of the Bund featuring streetcar sounds, of the Dangui Teahouse with an opera soundtrack, and of Nanking Road with window lighting; scale models of historic buildings and famous residences; and a stark expose of the unpleasant aspects of the foreign concessions, during which natives were treated as second-class citizens.

Intermittent showers are a fitting backdrop to our deeper cultural immersion after lunch: an excursion to the ancient Zhouzhuang water village. En route our chipper guide Marco (or Lin in Chinese) saturates us with a flood of juicy tidbits, punctuating every sentence with a bubbly double chuckle ("ha-ha"): most young adults are highly educated, and not marrying till later in life (as if there's a connection); their impatient parents will go to public parks to arrange dates for them; the poverty level in the country has fallen drastically in recent years, to about 15%; if a husband and wife are both only children, they may have two offspring; since the Chinese are predominately non-religious, weddings are civil ceremonies; and Mandarin has six thousand characters, half of which are in common usage.

Marco is wise enough to bring along a carton of plastic slickers, soft pink for the females, pale blue for the males, which he distributes as we exit the bus and trek down to the ferry.

Surrounded by lakes and crisscrossed by rivers, canals, and fourteen stone bridges that present elegant watery views, this "Venice of the East" is a bleached, quieter version of its namesake. Over half the houses date back seven hundred years to the Ming Dynasty. A gaggle of gawkers is gathered around the signature site where the round-arched Shide Bridge intersects with the square-arched Yongan Bridge; captured on canvas by Chen Yifei as "Memories of My Hometown" and purchased by Armand Hammer for his private gallery, it garnered widespread acclaim for the artist and sparked an international tourist firestorm. Hammer later donated the painting to Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping.

After introducing us to a plump, contented Buddha, Marco leaves us to explore the environs on our own. My main concern is not to slip on the wet cobblestones, which are made more treacherous by the clumsy boot I'm wearing. If we are anywhere in the vicinity of either of the town's two largest estates, belonging to Shen and Zhang, each 20,000 square feet with multiple courtyards and ornate stonework, stumbling upon them absent a guide, manual, or map will be blind luck. Instead, wandering along streets and alleys flaunting a cornucopia of souvenirs and crafts, we get the impression that commercialization has superseded authenticity in most neighborhoods.

Of particular interest are the epidemic of pork knuckles (a local specialty which I thought were chicken legs until corrected), necklaces and bracelets strung with freshwater clam pearls, and calligraphers stroking away on silk and paper, eager to make me a personal seal in Chinese characters. Peeking into one stall, I'm tempted to don a military uniform and have my picture taken with Chairman Mao in the background, but fear I will be detained by Homeland Security as a subversive.

The rain abates in time for the day's grand finale -- an evening outdoor production, "Four Seasons in Zhouzhuang," straight from Broadway by way of Chinatown. The prosperous Shen Wansan falls in love with fetching Lu Liniang, thwarts the blandishments of another suitor, and weds her in a sumptuous ceremony. Their romance is infused with song, dance, lights, acrobatics, music, and humor, while along the narrow river that encircles the stage are depicted the folk customs of a fishing village: greeting the God of Wealth, setting straw on fire, drinking granny tea. It's like an opera to me: one intuits he's supposed to be awed, yet much is lost in non-translation.

Our last day, Friday, is a roller coaster from the sublime to the ridiculous. Epitomizing the former, in conception as well as design, is the Yuyuan Garden in Shanghai's Old City. If "honor thy mother and father" is the primary Chinese commandment, surely sixteenth century mandarin Pan Yunduan more than fulfilled his filial responsibilities when he decided to build this elaborate retreat for his parents to enjoy in their declining years. But before he could break ground, he was dispatched by the emperor to Sichuan on an administrative assignment that lasted twenty years. Undaunted, he returned home in 1577 to complete the project, by which time not only was he almost  bankrupt, the intended beneficiaries were near death.

After centuries of neglect, the five-acre tract was rehabilitated and opened to the public in the early 1960's. Tranquility, however, has been trampled by the masses whose trip advisors have convinced them that this is Shanghai's answer to the Great Wall.

Marco does yeoman's work navigating us through the congestion and illuminating the highlights: the zigzag bridge leading to the entrance, so constructed to confuse pursuing evil spirits; a menacing sculptured dragon's head perched atop a wall, its body and tail fleshed out in trailing gray tiles; graceful vase-shaped passageways carved into whitewashed masonry; another crooked bridge, this one covered, overlooking a small stream teeming with schools of carp and goldfish; the Grand Rockery, a forty-six foot high twisted sculpture of fused yellow stones evoking mountainous peaks, cave, and ridges; the Exquisite Jade Rock, a honeycombed slab prized for the porousness which allows water to flow downward and incense to swirl upward through its numerous openings; and Dianchun Hall, headquarters of the Small Sword Society which plotted to overthrow the Qing Dynasty in 1853 and a repository for a collection of the rebels' coins, weapons, and publications. Twenty-nine other lacquered pavilions offer contemplative perspectives on the classical landscaping.

We emerge from the labyrinth like enervated lambs being led to slaughter. We're in the midst of a large square swarming with all nationalities and bordered by a shopping mall. Within seconds we are accosted by street vendors thrusting Michael Kors watches and Longchamp bags (at least that's what the tags say) in our faces and unleashing monlogues that put the inimitable JCR to shame, in spite of their limited vocabulary. This is the strangest bargaining I've ever encountered. One merely stands like a mime, shakes his head in denial, or mouths a silent "no," and the price steadily drops, until before he can say, "I don't yuan any," one hundred dollars have shrunk to twenty. They think we're rejecting the number, not the item, and are harder to shake than mosquitoes in the tropics.

We escape to the interior, where JSG continues her search for the perfect mementos for herself and her daughter, grazing the aisles of a mini-department store chock full of toys, silks, embroidery, dry goods, packaged food, and more pearl jewelry, while I'm fascinated by a row of booths where masters are demonstrating their skills at miniature crafts: assembling tiny ships in bottles; painting or writing on postage-stamp fragments; carving on slivers of bone or jade. It's but a prelude to our final afternoon activity: the Fake Market.

Yes, the Chinese have been considerate enough to consolidate over one hundred purveyors of faux-branded merchandise in one convenient (an hour by bus from our hotel) four-story building. Oakley sunglasses, Beats bluetooth speakers, Samsonite backpacks, Burberry trenchcoats, North Face windbreakers, Louboton high heels, Diesel leather belts, Montblanc wallets, Uggs high-button boots, Abercrombie and Fitch boxers, Jimmy Choo handbags -- they're all there, although some exclusive labels, like Rolex, Gucci, and Prada, which are illegal to copy, according to a sign posted at the entrance, are hidden in back rooms and available only upon request.

The actual warning should read "Enter at your own risk" or "Beware of the sharks." Should one peer over a threshold to examine their wares, the beguiling clerks -- who look like adolescent ingenues -- attack with the ferocity and tenaciousness of hungry predators. Shopping here is a matter of trying to make one's selection while fending off these carnivores, then having to negotiate with them. But we've been down this road before, so we know to start with an embarrassingly low offer and raise it in small increments, always willing to walk away from a deal we don't like.

I'm one of the few people in the world who still travels with an over-the-shoulder soft duffel bag (it fits in any overhead compartment) rather than a rollaboard. Purchased in Hong Kong in 1989, it's finally showing the wear-and-tear of more mileage than a United 747: zippers broken off to the nub; the inner lining crumbled away; the outer stitching fraying badly. For pure sentimentality, what better time and place than here and now to swap it for a similar model that if it lasts as long as its predecessor did -- twenty-five years -- will certainly outlive me? I'm ready to pull the trigger on the closest look-alike I can find when JSG swoops in to advise me I can do better at Target. Meanwhile, she's toting two takeaways guaranteed to delight her fashionable daughter: a Longchamp handbag and a pair of Ray-Bans.

There's one more gift we're looking to bring home: a brand new Chinese red Tesla sports sedan which will be awarded by lottery this evening to some lucky Lifestyle customer. JCR once again assumes center stage, repeats his remarks of two days ago, and promptly deflates the audience by reminding everyone that winning the car will cost about $50,000 in income taxes. "We'll worry about that later," I whisper to JSG as we watch the ticket being drawn and wait with bated breath for JCR's tantalizing pronouncement of the name thereon inscribed. An instant of euphoria -- "It's Mark . . . " -- succumbs to the reality of the odds against us when he concludes with "Stewart," whom ironically we just had dinner with. In accepting his keys, the other "Mark" appends the perfect epigram to this week-long junket: "I was wondering how I was going to get to the airport tomorrow."

Recalling Don Julio's verdict on Shanghai cuisine, I wouldn't say that I agree with it entirely, although another comment I heard proved to be more than a harmless quip: "Whenever I see a large lazy susan, I get worried." To which I might add, "not just about the food, but also about the hygiene." Just what is the proper etiquette when we're sitting at a revolving buffet with foreign utensils? To transfer servings via spoon onto our own plates from the various bowls, or to eat directly from them with chopsticks, which is no easy task for an uncoordinated Westerner. (Apparently the latter; spoons are for soup only.)

As for the dishes themselves, they're neither describable nor memorable: plenty of rice, noodles, and dumplings; meat, fish, and tofu cut into small pieces and flavored with dried chili, wild pepper, anise, cinnamon, and water chestnut powder; lots of vegetables (some unidentifiable), particularly tomatoes, potatoes, and carrots, but no broccoli; and two specialties, duck blood vermicelli soup and tomato egg dish, although frankly I can't say whether we ever have the pleasure.

It's been interesting. Kudos to Lifestyle for precise planning, and thanks for the royal treatment. Now I can't wait to get home and enjoy some good old King's Island American Chinese food.