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.