Only Nixon.

What strikes you most about this image? 

For me, it’s Nixon’s impressive chopstick technique. 

Bear in mind he had likely never used them before. 

Among the months of preparation were briefings to Nixon and his team on the intricacies of the banquet, with one memo stressing that “the Chinese take great pride in their food”. The President studied Chinese custom and etiquette carefully and took lessons on how to use chopsticks.⁣⁣⁣

1972. The lavish state banquet was broadcast non–stop for four hours on US television, and Nixon knew that the event was symbolic of more than just the food and drink. As the cameras beamed back close–ups of Nixon’s observant use of chopsticks, correct glass clinking and diplomatic toast making, it was clear that his hard work paid off. In ‘dining for Détente’, he had convinced the American media and public that the trip was a success.⁣⁣

"To understand that The Metaphysical Mystery is :- 

To Go PAST All Opposites

Where you have Opposites of "Good" and "Evil", you are simply in The Field of Ethics.

 Adam and Eve were thrown out of The Garden when they knew The Difference Between Good and Evil.

 Nature Knows Nothing of That --

The Neutral Angels, Neither on God's Side, Nor on The Devil's Side. 

And Wulfram interprets "Parzival" to mean "The One Who Pierces The Veil - 

To Go Between The Two Two Peaks of Good and Evil. "

ALL YOU CAN DO -- is 

Lean Towards The Good.  

Libretto/Lyrics/Text/Testo:

(The photographers have finished; Chou ushers

them out into the hall. When he returns he sits a

little straighter, as do the President and Dr. Kissinger.

Only Chairman Mao continues to lean back, his arms

over the chair’s arms, as the conversation moves on)

MAO

You know we’ll meet with your confrere

the Democratic candidate if he should win.

NIXON

That is a fate

we hope you won’t have to endure.

I’d like to make another tour as President.

MAO

You’ve got my vote.

I back the man who’s on the right.

KISSINGER

Who’s in the right you mean.

MAO

No, no.

NIXON

What they put forward

we put through.

MAO

I like right-wingers:

Nixon, Heath...

NIXON

De Gaulle.

MAO

No, not De Gaulle. I’m loath

to file him in that pigeonhole.

KISSINGER

But Germany’s another tale.

MAO

We’ve more than once led the right wing

forward while text-book cadres swung

back into goose-step, home at last.

How your most rigid theorist

revises as he goes along!

NIXON

Now you’re referring to Wang Ming,

Chiang, Chang Kuo-tao and Li Li-san.

MAO

I spoke generally.

The line we take now is a paradox.

Among the followers of Marx the extreme left,

the doctrinaire,

tend to be fascist.

NIXON

And the far right?

MAO

True Marxism is called that by

the extreme left.

Occasionally the true left calls

a spade a spade and tells the left it’s right.

CHOU

You’ve said

that there’s a certain well-known tree

that grows from nothing in a day,

lives only as a sapling,

dies just at its prime,

when good men raise

it as their idol.

NIXON

Not the cross?

MAO

The Liberty Tree. Let it pass.

I was a riddle, not a test.

The revolution does not last.

It is duration ... the regime

survives in that, and not in time.

While it is young in us it lives;

we can save it, it never saves.

KISSINGER

And yours will last a thousand years.

MAO

Founders come first,

then profiteers.

NIXON

Capitalist?

MAO

Fishers of men.

An organized oblivion.

NIXON

The crane...

MAO

Let us not be misled.

NIXON

The Yellow Crane has flown abroad.

Think of what we have lost and gained

since forty-nine.

CHOU

The current trend suggests

that China’s future might...

NIXON

Might break the Futures Market.

MAO

That would be a break.

No doubt our plunge into the New York Stock Exchange

will line some pockets here and there.

Will these investments be secure?

No. Not precisely.

NIXON

There’s the catch.

You don’t want China to be rich.

MAO

You want to bring your boys back home.

NIXON

What if we do? Is that a crime?

MAO

Our armies do not go abroad.

Why should they?

We have all we need:

new missionaries, businesslike,

survey the field and the attack,

promise to change our rice to bread,

and wash us in our brothers’ blood,

** and give us beads **

and crucify us on a cross of usury.

After them come the Green Berets,

insuring their securities.

NIXON

Where it the Chinese people’s faith?

MAO

The people’s faith?

Another myth to sell bonds.

It’s worked well for you.

The people are determined to divide the land

to make it whole.

Piecing the broken Golden Bowl

the world to come has come, is theirs.

We cried "Long live the Ancestors!",

once, it’s "Long live the Living!" now.

NIXON

History holds her breath.

MAO

We know the great silent majority

will bide its time.

KISSINGER

There you’ve got me. I’m lost.

CHOU

The Chairman means the dead.

NIXON

Confucius...