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Monday Febr 14 - 944

It's Monday morning now and it's raining and again like yesterday I have to wait in an office to see somebody and I learned how to use [[crossed out]] small [[\crossed out]] short pieces of time for writing to you even in the middle of confusion.  Maybe because since you want to accept me I feel a new sense of duty to take care of you (mail concerned so far) and your morale.
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I'm passing now a few days of confusion and waiting for some decision.  Things like that happen always and often.  This war is a war of pants sometimes - Pants destroyed by sitting down on hard chairs and waiting.
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I remember now - because it's raining maybe - the capital execution I saw in Kunming.  It was a rainy day and they had to execute 9 Chinese, for theft.  The men to be shot were walking with armed soldiers behind and each one with a rope around the neck and a soldier holding the end of the rope, like dogs.  The robbers were allowed, though, to have open umbrellas because as I told you it was raining.  5 of them were the real robbers but the other 4 were "bought" and they were replacing the real delinquents.  This is a law in Yunan province a man condemned to jail or death can buy a poor man to die in his place.  The poor man has reasons, he has a farm to buy for his family or wants to improve life conditions for his father so he cashes the money and go to die happy - Life doesn't mean much anyway.