Chinese antiques were so vastly superior to the more clumsy artifacts that Marco Polo brought to the Great Khan in China. Marco and his father and uncle traversed China, although he never mentions the Great Wall, so we know most of his time was spent in the more idyllic south with its canals and tropical abundance. There were small foundries making early iron into steel with coal, and they did have fireworks, and this knowledge followed in the minds, as much as diamonds and Chinese delicate antiques, not bags of coal. But Dragon Coal has taken over, and his unfiltered smoke stacks are killing us now. Is there anything we can do?



Yes, there is. We can use our brains, and give our habits a rest. If we can think like Einstein, or at least the Fonz, we would get back to 1970, or 1956, and live simpler lives. Not line up with huge buggies at discount stores and buy packaged goods we do not need, can not afford, will fill our credit cards with, and some day find it moves slowest at the garage sale as everyone else on the block has the same fake too, made by the same coal spewing factory. Almost like the real thing, right?

Wrong, Wong. We need a wake up bong, skip the huge buggy, buy some organic, eat, consume less, invest more. Invest more? Well, yes, if we are going to get logical and historical. Recall when Japan and Taiwan took off when we taught them democracy and capitalism so well they were soon beating us at our own game. We should have been buying their heritage treasures rather than their cheap products. For as they got rich from us buying modern and cheap, they began to search the world for any of their own heirloom treasures and pay too much to redeem them.

Can you see that a new Chinese home run hitter keeps hitting balls out of the park, and he is quite new to the game. Still at a bargain price, but his stock is rising. And with Chinese antiques, act now. The young Chinese now fascinated with their cell phones and household gadgets in their new tower home are getting adjusted, millions of farmers released into the factory towns. When the richest rise, they will realize the others have their great grand mothers Ming Vase, and are prepared to add several zeros to whatever you paid.

That may be a decade from now, perhaps sooner; the longer you can last, the more into your retirement. Go for it, Sampson, no guts, no glory. Find your inner Marco Polo, and you can avoid the infamous ice monster up in the mountains on the way from Venice to Shanghai.

The great fortune for America is that their red spots of nuclear or industrial hot spots are spotted all over America, dispersing any concentration of all this into one great insect infestation where the sky darkens with this alien horror. As in China right now: that angry hornets dark sky of CO2 carbon ash is floating over the Pacific, and if you wonder about that ash on your plants, it is from the far west, over the sea, here now, more each day, for you to inhale, and for me.

Now it is our turn, while this head long rush is happening. China is having their to get rich is glorious phase, and that right now involves tearing down much of existing cities and raising greater new modern marvels to the world. Time for us to do some quiet guerrilla marketing, and pick up, as you notice, Chinese antiques still very reasonably priced. And if you make some low bids on items you sense more truly belongs in the newly rich home of some rising Chinese executive, buy it. Enjoy it, do not let the grand children play touch football with it, it may see you through some unforeseen emergency a decade from now.

When you see a meteor rising, you can stand back and marvel. Or quietly buy up the reward antiques near the landing site. Be full of bargain to riches elegant Ming, not lead heavy coal all Wong. China will get filters on those burners before the atmosphere ignites, surely, they know how to get rich, will want quality, not face masks in the greatest civilization. We await.