I BELIEVE THEY TAKE U. S. DOLLARS THERE

Percentage-wise, Chinese Americans are the single largest ethno-cultural group in San Francisco. Far larger than Dutch Americans, my own group. We're probably down near the bottom, along with African Americans, drug dealers, and Republicans. Oakland, with a smaller proportion of Chinese Americans, is damned well a hellhole, and Berkeley right next door could be better -- if it had fewer radicals, spoiled brat white kids, and riotous anarchists of whatever ethno-cultural strömung -- but it does have a sound tax base because of its make-up.

As you've probably guessed, I reside in the North East sector of SF. A few blocks away from the demilitarized zone, and far enough from the Tenderloin and the barbaric hinterland that stretches all the way south. Which has headhunters, cannibals, armed drug dealers, and hippie dissidents who would cut your throat as lief as looking at you.
That's rebel-held territory where I seldom go.

I haven't been to the Mission District in years. Nor Valencia Street. Too many artists and people who think of themselves as free-thinkers. It's the wrong part of town.
They are wrong about so many things.

Basically, it's a suburb of Mad Max's Australia, with bacon dogs instead of spaghetti sandwiches or meat pies avec le sauce tomate et la vegemite.
No crocodiles, but perhaps a few biker gangs.


I should mount an expedition to the place sometime. Recruit bearers, get all my shots.
If I'm not back in a month, firebomb the damned place.

Gemstones. Gemstones are mined there.
King Solomon's mines.



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