I love Jet Li, but he looks very Chinese, and his English is Chinese-accented. He wouldn't have been the right guy to play a Japanese-American.
I can understand the allure of a venerable Big Six imprint, of a shot at the New York Times list, of a publisher-sponsored book tour, of seeing your hardbacks in bookstores and your paperbacks in supermarkets.
I have a long-standing interest in what I like to think of as 'forbidden knowledge:' methods of unarmed killing, lock picking, breaking and entry, spy stuff, and other things that the government wants only a few select individuals to know.
The difference between being a victim and a survivor is often a low level of situational awareness. You can't be a super-spy, watchful and paranoid every day. But I am more watchful than the average American.
When I was in college, I became interested in various aspects of foreign policy and international relations. Even as a kid, I was interested in what I call, loosely speaking, forbidden knowledge.
Most people are like sheep. Nice, harmless creatures who want nothing more than to be left alone so they can graze. But then of course there are wolves. Who want nothing more than to eat the sheep. But thereβs a third kind of person. The sheepdog. Sheepdogs have fangs like wolves. But their instinct isnβt predation. Itβs protection. All they want, what they live for, is to protect the flock.
