SadDoctor

In March of 1919 Violet Keppel's engagement to Denys Trefusis, an officer in the army, was announced by her mother at a family ball. Late that night, after the ball, Violet wrote a heartbroken letter to her former classmate and lover, Vita Sackville, who Violet called by her pet name "Mitya". "short for “my Dmitri,” a character from Borodin’s opera Prince Igor, the voluptuous music of which Violet identified with her beloved — it was a choice particularly poignant in its gender-reversal, as Violet wrote in a number of her letters that she would’ve married Vita if she were a man so the two could live happily ever after."

I was congratulated by everyone I knew there. I could have scream

This Anecdote is from the mid-90s, during which North Korea was in the middle of a catastrophic famine. Out of a total population of 22 million, perhaps as many as 3.5 million North Koreans died from hunger or starvation-related illness. The entire economy collapsed. Dr. Kim (an alias) was a dedicated party member and patriot, but had begun to worry that she was suspected of disloyalty by her hospital bosses, who kept denying her chances at promotion:

Her suspicions were confirmed about two years later when she received a surprise visit at the hospital from a national security agent. The man worked for the bowibu, the police

Jun-Sang was convinced his country was heading for a confrontation with the United States. A few months before, all the students at his university had been asked to nick their fingers in order to sign - in blood - a petition swearing they each would volunteer for the Korean People's Army in case of war. Of course everybody obliged, although some of the girls balked at cutting their own fingers. Now Jun-sang was bracing himself for the end of his university career, if not his life.

"This is it. We're definitely going to war," Jun-sang told himself as he marched out into the courtyard.

In the courtyard, nearly three thousand students and faculty were lined up in formation, ranked

Shortly after the negotiated opening of Japan by Commodore Perry, the Tokugawa government sent a diplomatic mission made up of samurai to tour the US and learn about the country. Although they were impressed by America's size and industrial capacity, they were rather less impressed by America's government.

Ambassador Muragaki visits congress in 1860:

We were shown to a large hall where affairs of state were being discussed. The hall itself was some twenty ken by ten, and had a board flooring and panels all around, with a gallery built above it. . . On an elevated platform in front sat the Vice-President, with two clerks on the slightly lower platform before him. The members' sea

"These plants are as much trouble to me as children. Morning and evening I must see to them." Lao Tai-tai laughed in delight. "My children tell me I work too hard over them, but what do they know?"

"Come up the hill", she said when we got to the south end of the garden, and she led us up the artificial mountain of rocks and earth piled up against the street wall. "The women who lived here in the old days could not get out as we do, and this was the only way they could see anything of what was going on outside. The men liked to sit here too in the cool of a summer evening and catch the breezes." We followed her up the brick and stone path that wound around the rocks, as the Pilgrim Paths win