"Only three Chinese were killed" (#128; Topic F)

The author of Oracle Bones (#127) was in Nanjing in May 1999 "when a United States B2 plane took off from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, flew to Belgrade, and dropped a series of satellite-directed bombs on the Chinese embassy, killing three Chinese journalists." (p 11) After the news was broadcast in China the following evening, there were protests, including thousands in Nanjing. Seizing the opportunity, our author followed the crowd, "hoping to ... interview somebody." Instead, he was asked: "Where are you from?" "An American journalist" (our author's job at the time was a "clipper" of newspaper articles for the Wall Street Journal's Beijing bureau) "What's your opinion about what happened in Belgrade?" "I don't know anything about it. I'm just here to report on the protest" (our author was making his "first research trip," planning "to write a newspaper travel article about the history of the city") When confronted with "how could it ["America, an advanced country"] possibly say that the bombing was a mistake," our author "admitted that the events had confused me as well." Fortunately, an Uighur came to his defense: "if America is such a great country ... they should be able to kill more than three Chinese people when they want to"(p 23). Our author was so impressed by the defense that he befriended him and asked him to be his guide in touring China -- analogous to asking a follower of Puerto Rico Independence to be one's guide in tourning USA. And our Uighur guide continued: "If Americans were trying to kill Chinese, you'd be dead right now." How true. Shortly after 9/11, a US citizen, seeing a turban-wearing "outsider" in a New York gas station and assuming him to be a Muslim, proceeded to kill him without bothering to ask "Where are you from?" As it turned out, the victim was a Sikh, and his only "crime" was wearing a turban. Oh well. Our author's book is a journal on China, not on USA.