Catherine Lim replies:

 

Dear Sir,

What a wonderful story that was. It was a serious omission on my part, but now I have made up for my negligence by incorporating the anecdote fully into my story. I have described in detail the swarm of mosquitoes, and the vicious bites and welts they left on the filial young man’s body. I have also taken the liberty to add a detail that was not found in the original Confucian tale, namely, that the young man slept with a cherubic smile on his face, that reflected the deep satisfaction and peace experienced as a result of filial piety.

 

DITMOV writes back:

 

Dear Catherine Lim,

A cherub belongs to Western culture. Please delete the reference from your story.

 

Catherine Lim replies:

 

Dear Sir,

I have replaced “cherubic’ with ‘fairy-like’. Fairies belong to both Western and Asian cultures.

 

Catherine Lim then gets a letter from the Ministry of Environment:

 

Dear Catherine Lim,

We are not happy with the reference to swarms of mosquitoes in your story. This is a gross inaccuracy. There are hardly any mosquitoes in Singapore today, owing to the assiduous cleaning up operations of our Ministry. We would therefore urge you to remove that anecdote from your story; otherwise Singapore will have a very poor image as a dumping ground.