Year of the Horseshoe Bat

Chia Pao-yu is alive and well! The Beijing University pro-democracy activist is living in exile under an assumed name, Jean Valjaur (JV). As was rumored in the prequel, Year of the Earth Serpent Changing Colors, Chia was not executed for helping to organize the April-June 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Now in Paris, he witnessed the Bataclan terrorist attacks, the Yellow Vest protests, and survived the COVID-19 (or Horseshoe Bat) pandemic—after having survived the AIDS pandemic in China in the 1980s. He pursues his self-study of Asian influence on western culture with a focus on Pop artists and Beat poets. He likewise critiques the views of western “Maoists,” like Mylex H. Galvin—whom Chia depicts as a “Wokeist” before his time. During the pandemic lockdown, Chia reflects on the reasons why he became a pro-democracy, pro-environment and anti-nuclear dissident. In Paris, Chia finds work with the Foundation for Human Values Forever (HVF), directed by the charismatic feminist Bereft LaPlante. He meets dissidents like himself who have suffered for their political views and gender. Now as a French citizen, Chia participates in Hong Kong protests, and takes part in a conference on the "Future of China" in Washington, DC. There, he witnesses President Trump’s threat to call in US G.I. Joes to repress protests in June 2020—that recalls the June 1989 Tiananmen Square repression by the Chinese Army (PLA). Back in Paris, he accidentally learns that the HVF Foundation finances questionable activities not related to humanitarian causes—and quits after a drunken LaPlante attempts to assault him sexually. The secretive Society for the Exploration of Cosmic Consciousness (SECC) publishes his “Planetary Manifesto”: If the U.S. Balding Eagle, the Chinese Red Dragon, the Russian Double-Headed Eagle cannot soon resolve their differences, then the popular hopes of “Barbies” and “Kens” for global peace will be crushed by the boots of “G.I. Joe.” Just after starting work for the SECC, Chia mysteriously disappears in a suspected trade-off for a Western spy held by Beijing—at least that is the “official” news story.