Sweet and sour; joy and sorrow; yin and yang; good and evil; nothing comes unmixed with its opposite. The door to Oriental House seems open and Richard Barr enters, "pretending garlic" (playing dumb) to get along in a culture where it's not cool to say "no" and getting angry is unacceptable. He has a mission, should he choose to accept it, and his best weapon may be a patient smile in a power struggle punctuated by schemers scheming, liars lying, and lovers loving. And he can bob along innocently and gracelessly on the surface of a civilization 3000 years old, or try to figure out who is doing what and why.