So I've gotten to the parts of the book that have always made me nervous. Made me nervous writing it, made me nervous rewriting it, makes me nervous adding what I hope will be the final polish now.

You see, this book is set in southern China (Fuzhou and environs, in Fujian Province, to be exact) in 1900, while everything was going to hell up north and the Boxers were about to trap all the evil, big-nose barbarian white devil furriners in the legation in Beijing. I could have set the book in Hong Kong or Guangzhou (Canton) instead, but I picked Fuzhou because it's little-known and I figured if I really screwed up there'd be less chance I'd get called on it.

It's little known for a *reason*. It's not a tremendously popular vacation spot, though I think that's changing. There's not a lot of touristy-type info out there; not a lot of pictures, only two wussy little guidebooks from the late '80s. And when I finally got my hands on both wussy little guidebooks, I discovered that the Passport Books guide was the exact same book as the Collins Illustrated Guide To guide. Gah!

So I spent most of yesterday surfing the web and going through my old books, trying to find more photos, more information, stuff I'd forgotten, stuff I'd missed last time. There is more out there now on the web; Flickr and other photo-upload places have seen to that. I have a bit more sense of the city, though I haven't tackled that chapter yet. I went on to the "tracking the demon" part, which means tramping through the countryside and having various adventures, like getting kidnapped by a secret society and forced to go through their initiation ceremony--

Ahem. Getting a bit ahead of myself. Anyway, not even Google Earth helped much in looking over the landscape. It didn't tell me anything I didn't know, and in some cases even less, since there were clouds over the city proper and I couldn't make out some of the landmarks I'd hoped to see. Dang it.

Both Gary and I have talked to our sifu about wanting to write about China, and usually added disclaimers to the effect that maybe it's not a good idea, since we know so little and it's so hard to find information. His response? "Just make it up."

Sifu is a very pragmatic man. And in some respects he has a point. So much of Chinese history has been passed down orally. For one thing, the majority of the populace was illiterate until just within the last century or so. For another thing, a common response of a new dynasty was to burn the books of the old one. Even in my case, the Cultural Revolution gave the city of Fuzhou a major face lift. Instead of Central Moorage Street and Central Weights and Measures Street and East Drum Road and West Drum Road, there's 81st Street and 23rd Street and no mention even of where the old walls were that I ever found in current texts. Gah again.

I actually found an old map of the city with the major streets still given by their old names (in pinyin and characters, which I've audaciously tried to translate, resulting in some of the old names listed above) and it's hanging up on my wall right now. Frank Wu's dad, bless his heart, is from Fuzhou. He copied a smaller old map that doesn't have streetnames, but he marked where the city walls were and where all the gates were and their names, and where the Yamen was located and where the Bannermen were garrisoned.

So I have tiny bits and pieces of reality. But for the most part, I am forced to Just Make Shit Up.

True, that's my job. But I do want it to be realistic shit. Have any of you folks had to deal with anything remotely like this? What did you do? I have the feeling my research skills are lacking....