ebar.com – by Richard Dodds
The exotic fantasies that turned “The Mysterious East” into a familiar catchphrase have rapidly evaporated in the relatively brief time since M. Butterfly played to its first Broadway audiences in 1988. Of course, they were already of considerably less mystery by this point, and props go to Richard Nixon for being a master un-magician, but when current debates hinge on which is the most popular search engine among the Chinese and the amount of U.S. debt they own, lotus blossoms have left the hothouse.