[JOURNAL ENTRY, JANUARY 2005:]

Here in Shanghai, the golden city that attracts opportunity-seekers from all over the country, you see a vast range of Asian faces. There are the square, flat-planed ones from the north; the almond-eyed, somewhat Polynesian ones from the south; and some that are so Western-looking that you know a Russian fell into the gene pool somewhere along the line. There are many Japanese here, too, living in uneasy peace with the people their ancestors brutalized as recently as the thirties; they, also, have a look distinctly their own. My wife and I think that, in general, the Japanese are a very handsome-looking people. The Chinese, by contrast, are “prettier,” with more delicate features.

The interesting thing is to compare Western faces with Asiatic ones after you’ve been here awhile. Westerners really begin to look like oatmeal-colored lumps of flesh with hanks of reddish or brownish hair sprouting from their heads. It's actually a bit embarrassing—you begin to see why...

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