My father flew out of Guilin, then known as Kweilin, as a B-24 bomber navigator during World War II. The Japanese of course tried to put the airfield out of action by bombing it, and during such raids, the Americans would take refuge in one of the area's caves.
One time, a Chinese infantry officer came in as well. The men began one of their favorite games: delivering vicious and filthy insults in English while bowing and smiling as if they were offering compliments. The Chinese man kept smiling and bowing back. Lieutenant Barna sat to the side, reading.
When the air raid ended, the officer went to the entrance of the cave, turned around, and said in perfect British English, “Gentlemen: the next time we meet, I hope we can have a philosophical discussion of the relative merits of the philosophies of Karl Marx and Thomas Jefferson.”
Then he spun on his heel and left, to lead his men to almost certain death on the coastal front. Barna sat to the side, clutching the book he had been reading: a biography of Jefferson.
