His thoughts were interrupted by two new bathers flopping down into the water, one short with gray hair and beady eyes, one tall with an aquiline nose and beer-bottle-thick glasses. Apparently, they were continuing an earlier argument.

“Socialism is going to the dogs. These greedy, unscrupulous dogs of the Party officials! They’re crunching everything to pieces, and devouring all the bones,” the short one declared in indignation. “Our state-run company is like a gigantic fat goose, and everyone must take a bite or pluck a feather or two from it. Did you know that the head of the City Export Office demands a five percent bonus in exchange for his export quota approval?”

“What can you do, man?” the tall one said sarcastically. “Communism echoes only in nostalgia songs. It’s capitalism that’s practiced here-with the Communist Party sitting on the top, sucking a red lollipop. So what can you expect of these Party cadres?”

“Corrupt throughout. They don’t believe in anything except doing everything in their own interest-in the name of China ’s brand of socialism.”

“What is capitalism? Everybody grabs for his or her money-in spite of all the communist propaganda in our newspapers. They’re just like the beer froth in the tub.”

“The cops should have bang-banged a few of those rotten eggs!”

“Cops?” the tall one said, splashing the water with his big feet. “They’re jackals out of one and the same den as those wolves.”

Chen frowned. Complaints about the widespread corruption were not surprising, but some of the specifics did not sound too pleasant to a naked cop, or to a naked editor either.

“Chinese is still an evolving language. Corruption-fubai-literally means ‘rotten,’” Chen said in a quiet voice to Lei, “in reference to bad meat or fish. Now it refers exclusively to the abuse of power by the Party cadres.”