Mandarins in Batches
To the last Chinese "forbidden city" in the world, to Hue on the River of Perfumes, a youth of 19 returned from Paris to ascend his Throne last week.
Silk-robed mandarins with ornate shoes turned up at the toes hailed the bland, plump youth as Emperor of Annam, the "Absolute Master and Father and Mother." In the mountain of royal baggage, unseen by Annamites, were 7,000 phonograph records, a French-English-Italian library, ten ping-pong sets and a hundred dozen ping-pong balls. Not for nothing has 19-year-old Emperor Bao Dai...
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