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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
From Beijing with love
>> Honolulu International
Of the two men who disembarked United's flight from Taipei, it was hard to say who was badder -- Le Nip, mastermind of the great Sutlej River flood of 2000 that killed thousands and just missed the Dalai Lama, for whom the man-made flood was intended, or the Dharamsala rapist, whom Le Nip knew only by the code name Devil Snake.
They came to kill the second Lama Jey Tsong Khapa.
The Snake was one of those sociopaths who so often over the centuries found employment with totalitarian states. Leaders of those regimes depended largely on the twistedness of men such as the Snake.
Sometimes Te-Wu gave precise instructions, such as his first trip to Honolulu, to knock off a loud-mouthed Taiwanese cabbie who harangued passengers with diatribes against China. Strung up by the ... painful parts. Other times, such as his assignment to Dharamsala, Te-Wu let the Snake freelance. Dharamsala, in the Himalayas of India, was the home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile, and a growing tourist destination.
It was one thing for the Dalai Lama and the last of the Tibetans to live their bleak existence. But once tourists started coming, glorifying him and donating money, and taking home his distortions of historical fact, that could snowball. The Chinese weren't afraid to use overwhelming force -- as they did in Tibet in 1959, as they were now considering in Hong Kong -- but a key component of the world domination plans of the Communist leadership was to mask their worst intentions, deny them, even while actively carrying them out. And whenever possible do the dirty deeds quietly, out of sight, while promoting the 2008 Olympics.
Devil Snake arrived in Dharamsala, not sure what kind of mayhem he would bring on behalf of the Communist regime. At the bus station, crammed with tourists from around the world babbling about the Dalai Lama, he bought a paper, the Dharamsala Occasionally Daily, and on the ride four kilometers up the mountain to McLeod Ganj, residence of the Lama, he skimmed it. And found inspiration. A Tibetan woman, returning home from visiting a friend, was raped on a recent night.
To hell with Tibetans. The Snake liked the lilting English accent he heard in the seat to his left, and the red head who came with it. He liked the busty Aussie sisters sitting ahead of him. He liked the well-preserved 50ish American woman behind the Brit.
And thus a plan was born, approved by Beijing. The Snake would fight Dalai Lama tourism by raping tourists. The word would get out. Female tourists would stay away. Without females, men would go elsewhere.
The Snake was so good at his job, soon the travel books were warning women about Dharamsala.
In Honolulu, with the young lama dead, he'd stick around and freelance.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek. His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin. He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com