“Economic basis and ideological superstructure.” Chen managed to come out with a couple of Marxist terms he had learned in his college years, but then he checked himself. According to Marx, there is a corresponding relation between the ideological superstructure and the economic basis. What marked the present-day “socialism of Chinese characteristics” was, however, the very incongruity between the two. With the market economy totally capitalistic – and at the “primitive accumulation stage,” to use another Marxist phrase – what kind of a communist superstructure or spiritual civilization could be expected?

Still, he’d better think of something fast. It was expected of him – not only as an “intellectual” having majored in English before being assigned by the state to the police bureau, but also as a chief inspector, and an emerging Party cadre.

“Come on, Chief Inspector Chen, you’re not just a police officer, but a published poet too,” Commissar Zhang urged. A “revolutionary of the older generation,” long retired, Zhang still attended the bureau’s political studies meetings, believing that the current problems were the result of insufficient political study. “Surely you have a lot to tell us about the necessity of rebuilding a spiritual civilization.”

What was behind Zhang’s remark, Chen could easily guess. It wasn’t just an implicit criticism of his being a poet, but also of his being, in Zhang’s eyes, too liberal.

“When I came in to work this morning on a crowded bus,” Chen started over again, clearing his throat, “an old man with a crutch struggled aboard. He fell hard when the bus lurched to a stop. No one got up to give him a seat. A young passenger, seated, commented that it’s no longer the age of Comrade Lei Feng, Mao’s selfless Communist role model -”