[Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the characters and do not represent the author. The story and its characters are completely make-believe, but the issues enclosed are not.]

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On a regional to San Fran from Silicon Valley, I happened to notice two Chinese students, visa holders in the USA studying at our schools to prepare for work back in the Motherland, who were talking in loud volumes (possible due to the engines of the Fokker 50 being so noisy) discussing the inferiority of the American way to the Chinese. In particular what surprised me was the arrogance they displayed; Chinese are long thought to be some of the most modest people on the planet. Perhaps because me and my friend Liz introduced ourselves in Mandarin and Cantonese, respectively, that they thought we were one of their own, or maybe because the novellist and the paper baroness sitting in the aisle to their left were dressed in suits and dresses (we were arriving in San Fransisco for a business meeting with an advertiser who had offered to pay for the free wood campaign that would be needed this year due to the impending hurricane), they thought we were wealthy people who could be trusted. In any case, one of them promptly started making fun of Detroiters; he claimed that in five years all of Detroit’s industries would be sold to China and Detroit as a city would be either closed down or its labor would be sold to other countries as a labor commodity; in effect, he saw no future for Detroit. What a moron. He obviously hadn’t realized that the two of us were from Detroit, and our two businesses, the printing business I grew from a hobby and the newspaper business Liz grew from hers, would keep Detroit running even into five years the future. It is only 2012. What do they expect? The end of the world is only half a year away. So long, suckers!

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story by Nathan Guannan Zhang. Sure, it’s longer than five sentences, but read it for the point. The businesses listed herein are mostly haven’t been started or not going to die soon, so don’t get excited. The story takes place on July 21st, 2012. Doomsday is on December 21st, 2012, according to some. I wrote this to make fun of a common assumption among non-Detroiter Chinese… remember, when you assume, you make an A-S-S out of U & ME!