MDMD(1) - Comments: china

[doktor at primenet.com]

Thomas Vieth writes:

[snip]
>I think that China stands metonymically for
>the East as a whole and the polarity of East-West and esoteric-exoteric.
>The luo pan, for instance, is the esoteric equivalent to a compass (in
>today's Chineses it denotes the compass itself). TRP has used esoteric
>devices of the East frequently (i.e. the I Ging that has links to Tarot
>and Kabbalah as well) and it is a reference to the above mentioned
>dichotomy.

[snip]

All the Chinoiserie in M&D made me think of the scene in V. where Melanie
dances the part of Su Feng (question: is this name related at all to Feng
Shui?) in the Rape of the Chinese Virgins, and winds up being genitally
impaled and killed.  She dies for her attempt at portraying the occidental
view of asian exotica.

I know I'm getting ahead of the MDMD here, but in Mason & Dixon there may
be another attempt at portraying an asian exotic in the Capt. Zang/Jesuit
hitman identity confusion.

Any thoughts on what this tie-in implies?

--Jimmy (who's too tired right now to do much thinking for himself)

  http://www.angelfire.com/oh/Insouciance/