I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

When one spends as much time around foreigners living in China as I do, it is easy to grow weary of the (at this point) rather banal and played-out observation that there is no longer anything communist at all about Communist China. However, I felt myself moved to the point of cliche when, upon arriving at the center of the city of Chongqing (Administrative Region #16), what should stand before me but the towering People's Liberation Monument, emblazoned on all four sides with large clocks quite evidently brought to you by Rolex. After some brief photo-snapping - which the puzzled locals seemed to find unwarranted - I ruminated on this troubling collapse of the superstructure and concluded that the government of Chongqing either has a highly developed sense of irony, or, rather, has absolutely none at all. Perhaps a thinking cadre is trapped in an office somewhere, waiting for his big break.