War

The following weekend proved to be particularly pleasant for Tarja. At Saturday she went hiking and shopping, and of course a Sauna at night, then Sunday a group of her die hard fans stormed into the state TV station as well as the Parliament house, demanding the restore of her as the vocalist of Nightwish. An emergent session was immediately hold at the parliament, after 30 minutes of intensive debating and voting and a coffee break, the decision was made, that Tarja would be the president of Republic of Finland and was given the power to disassemble the parliament, impose the Tax, wage the war, or, receive a formal apology from the band Nighwish. The former president, whose name happened also to be Tarja, addressed shortly after the resignation, saying, "Nothing really changed indeed, we are both women, both called Tarja, and both Finish, the nation is again in good hands."

The very next day president Tarja called for a top level military meeting, during which she asked, "When was the last time we fought a war?"

"In nineteen forties", an office said, "to fight Russian first and then later shortly with German."

"Great, now we are to fight with China."

There was silence, until someone broke it.

"Excuse me, would anyone mind my smoking?"

"Yes, all of us."

Silence again, until somebody else broke it.

"Mrs President, I know as a man in uniform I shall just follow the order, but you see, the idea to go to a war with China, is, shall I say, pretty insane."

Tarja stared at the officer, articulating the words very clearly. "Our forefathers fought with Russia, which was bigger, more powerful, and alcoholic. I can't see a reason why we shall not have a war with China. Unless you care too much about the panda."

Everyone seemed to be convinced.

"That said, shall we start the plan?" asked an air force officer, "My cousin is working with NATO and probably he can help me get some long range stealthy bombers."

"Not necessary." Said Tarja, "We just send them the message, and the message will be broad casted on MTV."

Mad woman

Paul is sitting in front of the computer, debugging over some code whose logical structure closely resemble a pile of spaghetti in a five dimensional space. Like many other Chinese white collar workers in this city, like Frank, Samuel, Lily, Jinglebell and Ihatecoke, their original Chinese name can only be vaguely reminded by their genetic parents, during public holidays.

He is eager to get things done before Jan 23, a very important day, the day he will be dressed up well, have half day off, and go to a rock concert, performed by the Finish band Nightwish. He already booked the ticket for 480 RMB and have since kept it very secretly. He knows otherwise some woman, more precisely his girlfriend, would be very mad knowing this, as he chooses to spend half night listening to another woman yelling, and worse, he paid for it.

So there is one woman very mad about it, and her name is Tarja. Tarja was the vocalist of Nightwish and only got dismissed last year for arguable reasons, replaced by a Sweden woman whose voice sounds so Within Temptation. She is still mad at the band, because although she hates to tour with the whole band, she hates it even more when the whole band is on tour without her.

She dialed the number of one of the globally most wanted terrorists, and was received by a sweet voice.

"Hello there, this is the office of Mr Unspeakable, To blow off some building, please press the button 1; to assassin some government officials press the button 2; to buy a weapon of mass destruction press the button 3; to order a T-shirt reads "Be terrorized and relax" press the button 4; to talk to Mr Unspeakable in person press the button #.

Tarja pressed the button #.

The same sweet voice sounds again. "Hello there, Mr Unspeakable is on a desert golf game with some very important guys from CIA. I am his 2nd secretary and 101st secret lover, can I take a message?" “Sure," said Tarja, "I am Tarja, just ask him to do me a favor and I will return him with my best hits collection." "That's very sweet." answered the sweet voice merrily, "What can we do for you?" "Mess up a concert, by blowing off the Hongkou Stadium in Shanghai and a couple of hundred nearby buildings. I want a full scale revenge against those who betrayed me, and terrorize all people in Shanghai who has potential not to listen to me." "That's very sweet." said the voice, followed by some sounds of typing, "wait, why in Shanghai, or say, China? Nightwish is going to US in a few months, isn't there a fonder place?" "Can't you see that? I want to make it big, as big as a blockbuster movie. The X'mas season ended one month ago and the Chinese new years is coming in a couple of weeks."

Apparently this reason is very convincing but the voice doesn't seem to be very convinced. "Okay, but look, to blow off building in China still doesn't sound as a good idea." "Why is that?" "Well, basically there are three reasons. First, those buildings, essensially speaking, are not even as valuable as the explosives to take to blow them up, they will smash themselves someday when their design lifetime, which is very short, expired, so why do we bother? Second, Chinese people, in general, are so cool on these blowing things that they can read those online news over lunch about coal mine blasting taking away the life from a couple of hundred workers and say oh, not again, then keep on watching videos of a short-skirted female dancing, so I will assure you they will choose to forget about it well before the eve of Chinese new year. Third, Mr Unspeakable just recently invested a couple of billion dollars on real properties in Shanghai seeing the potential their prices can shortly catch up with those in Manhaton, so it's definitely not of his interest to do as you suggested."

"So, what else can you do for me?" asked Tarja.

"Nothing." said the voice, "Sayonara." Promptly was the phone hanged off.

Prelude

The Hitchhiker's guide to China.

It isn't the name of a book, simply because the book is yet to be published, also because the thing called hitchhiker is yet to come into place in China, as most of the 1.3 billion population over here prefer to drive by themselves, or ride their own bicycles, or take the buses, or quarrel with the bus drivers.

Everything started with a sheet of A4 copy paper, which was to fall onto the ground but missed. "This is so unfair", it thinks. True, a normal A4 copy paper in a normal condition will just fly in the air, a little here and a little there, finally reach the ground, and get picked up by a nice office lady, probably with a pair of nice long legs, then get printed with some very important words, and five minutes later it will stay quietly within the trash bin.

But in case of this flying A4 copy paper, to its misfortune, there is no air, neither ground. There is only universe, a starwars-like universe which you have to look upward expecting a star battleship coming from the upside. There is no star battleship, yet, only this falling A4 copy paper, which does not even know if it is truely falling. However, it does have some very important words printed in elegant 10pt Arial. It reads like:

Dear Comrade Wen

The war is over, but we are thinking of another.

The plan is printed on the back, and see to it will be only seen by 9 Politburo Standing Committee members, and not picked by anybody else.

ps:
Not even those with nice long legs.

Jingtao Hu

President of People's Republic of China

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE

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A star battleship comes from upside, flying to some point beneath the A4 copy paper, a window on top sliding open to let the paper fall into, reach the floor, and get picked by some one.

She seems to be an office lady, with a pair of pretty nice long legs.