Know your enemy" (or know thine enemy) is a saying derived from Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", and so, in preparing myself for a future which I may never see, I am always interested in reading as much as possible about China and its people.
I discovered this little gem of a book in my favourite op-shop in Ulladulla run by the Uniting Church. It probably taught me more about the Chinese people than anything I have read so far. The book was in pristine condition: a perfect dustcover, no marginal notations, no dog-earing; the only indication that this was not a brandnew book was a carefully placed ink stamp in the top upper corner of its front flyleaf which read, "Kevin McMullen, 42 Ilford Road, Frenchs Forest 2086".
I wanted so much to thank its previous owner Kevin McMullen for donating it and telling him that it was now in safe hands, but I couldn't find much about him on the internet, other than three airport arrival cards; one of him returning from New Zeland in 1964 after an absence of three-and-a-half months, twenty-eight years old and still single ...
... and two more, three years later, of his Japanese wife Katsuko and their months-old son Michio returning to Australia in November 1967.
So what happened to Kevin McMullen who must be in his late eighties by now? Some more searching revealed it all and put paid to my wanting to say "Doumo arigatou gozaimasu" to him for this wonderful book. It also explains how the book found its way to an op-shop in Ulladulla as he seems to have spent his last few years in nearby Mollymook.
Having been a musician, "Composing with Chopin in Heaven" seems such an apt epitaph, perhaps followed up with Chopin's "Marche Funèbre".
Maybe I ought to start thinking about placing an ink stamp impression in the top upper corner of the front flyleaf of all my many books ...
