Many years ago, I stumbled out of a smoke filled room,  onto
the  streets  of  a west coast harbor city.  I  reached  out  and
gently  touched the building walls, then began to feel my way  up
the  street.   Twenty-three slow steps later, this  rasped  voice
broke my stride.  "Been chasing the dragon have you?  Follow  me,
I'll help you recover from that quest."  He lent the crook of  an
arm,  which I took, though what rational thoughts I could  muster
warned  not to accept help from street strangers while in such  a
sorrowful,  stupider  state.  He lead me off around  corners  and
down side streets and up stairs at such a fast pace, for one  who
had  just counted steps in terms of minutes, that I was  sure  it
was  satan himself leading a fresh catch back to hell.   Instead,
we  docked  into a dingy room of an old hotel he  called  a  safe
place.
     He  sat  me into a deep soft chair, the kind you  just  sink
into, and began immediately to talk at me.  Not so much to me but
at me as if it was the chair he talked to.  For the first several
minutes  I was vaguely aware of his voice, almost like hearing  a
conversation in a bar from across the room.  But that could  have
been  my  far away conscious playing games with my  mind.   Maybe
that's why he didn't wait for answers to his questions, I'm  sure
he  asked  thing  of me but he would just ask and  then  keep  on
talking.  I guess he knew I couldn't answer.
     My  eyes  started to focus about the same time  I  began  to
really hear.  Sitting on a high stool, looking down at me was the
oldest,  weather  worn, salt of a sailor I'd ever  imagined.   He
still  had  on his black, knit watch cap and over coat  from  the
walk outside.  And he just kept on talking.
     "It  was  1883  when I first chased the dragon.   A  lad  of
sixteen, sailing the Far East seas aboard the Yankee Clipper, the
swiftest ship to part water before the trade winds.  It was at  a
village north of Shanghai.  I did not like the harbor cities, too
many  foreigns,   always made for the small villages  around  the
city.   That's  where the real Chinamen were.  I had  found  this
place the year before, a place where you sat on the rocks next to
the waves and not see any of the big sailing ships.  It was  also
there I learned to smoke the opium  from the other Chinese youths
who  sat on the rocks.  'Hao san chia', chase the dragon with  us
they  called out to me.  We would pass the pipe among us till  we
could  not.    Then I would just sit, absorbed in my  own  little
world  of  thoughts while the others made  their  sing-song  talk
among themselves.  You have already discovered those worlds,  but
only  a  part of some of those worlds.  The way the  smoke  makes
your mind's imagination dream vivid, happy dreams. The excitement
of living life how you imagined it to be lived.  For me it was to
be  in far away places.  To be a lone voyageur exploring  strange
lands  and other   people's ways of living.  Every young mind  is
naturally  full  of  imaginations,  the  dragon  takes  them  and
magnifies  them  and reflects them back upon you.  Tis't  such  a
wonder  full dragon in the beginning. I spent many a day in  that
village  and  others like it wherever my ship  anchored;  in  the
beginning.  That is what it is like for you, is it not?
    "I  have chased him everywhere.  I have rode sanpans  up  the
Ping  and Nan rivers of Saim to the golden triangle, to  see  the
poppy  from which the dragon is born.  I have watched  the  poppy
bleed  it's resin and peasant women gather it into vats.  I  have
stood  in fields of blooming plants and laughed with  enchantment
by  this scene, by knowing that leagues away on some rocky  beach
in  China, a youth had sat and smoked those long years ago.   And
that  one sits there now.  Are you there now, in either of  those
places?  There are other places I must take you tonight.
    "When you tickle the dragon's tail, he will twitch it and you
think  it  fun.  You still think he does not know of you  but  he
does.   Yet  youth is bold and brash, more often and  longer  you
annoy the dragon. He flicks its tail and bumps you back a pace or
two.  That is when you shake and quake with excitement.  You have
touched the dragon and it has dared you to do it again.
    "It  makes you want to do just a little bit more, get  a  wee
bit  closer  so  that you can make him flick a  bit  harder.   No
longer do you go to the rocks by the sea.  You stalk the prey  in
dragon  dens, smoke houses, or the streets of the harbor city you
once  avoided.  You pay a yen or three and that buys you  a  pipe
and  a  rack to lose yourself within this chase.  To  match  wits
with  one  generations older than yourself.  When  your  time  is
finished in the den and you've no yen to buy you more, you wander
the  streets,  drifting about where ever the currents  take  you,
feeling,  sensing,  thinking  that your quest has  taken  you  to
places you would have never been.
    "Oh  bly-me.   But  all  that  was  my  chase  and  yours  is
different.  Your dragon is not the same as mine.  He does  change
to suit the dreams of the young today.  What will your son chase?
What  will  the  dragon be when your child takes  up  the  quest?
That's what you must think.
    "There's  another one, a green dragon, what comes from  South
America, Peru and Bolivia, the cocaine.  I chased him for a while
too, the white snuff of Inca natives.  I'm an old sailor,  sailed
the seven seas, but I've walked rain forest trails, climbed  high
plateaus and treeless mountains, all just to see the little green
leaf  grow.  I've chewed the leaf with peasants as they  gathered
the  harvest.   I've  shared the pipe with native  men  in  their
sacred places.  I've seen their natural world with their eyes and
with  their euphoric mind.  Such an existence, to be ignorant  of
the rest of the world and its past times, to know only a  day-to-
day,  moon  to moon life.  There is not even a change of seasons,
only  a barely noticed movement of the rising and setting sun  to
mark the passing of years.
    "These  are the places where the dragons are born, Nan  delta
poppy  fields and Pando rain forest bush.  You would  have  never
known  of them but for me.  The dragons you chase are  different.
Between there and here, then and now, they have grown old,  their
scales  hardened to hide the evil which brought them to the  city
streets  where you found them.  I chased them with  romance,  the
romance  of  being free in a free world.  But you,  you  chase  a
forbidden  fruit  in a hostile world.  It's blood you  smoke  and
sniff.   Greed has made the dragons a commodity to be traded  and
sold  for wealth.  It's no longer a Chinaman's way  of  communing
with  his country's history or an Inca native with  nature.   For
you it's just a product you consume to pass the time in a foreign
port  while you live your life in dreams instead of  living  your
life.
    "Have you been to Europe?  Have you sat on an Alpine mountain
side, with a stick of bread, block of cheese and bottle of  wine?
Have you walked the streets of Brindisi, Naples or Barcelona with
other  half  drunken friends?  These are dragons  worthy  of  the
chase.   What is your passion, and the passion of others of  your
kind?   This big band sound and swing, does it move  your spirit?
Do   you  smoke  and  sniff,  tickle  the  dragon's  tail   while
intoxicated with these moods?
    "That's something else I must warn you of.  During the  chase
you  mix  harmless, pleasant dragons  with ones who  have  become
dangerous.    They  become  intertwined  like  lovers   embraced.
Caressing  and  stroking each other to achieve  new  intensities,
together, which they could not do alone.  And together they  will
consume  you.   You  will forsake your  love  and  passion,  your
imagined youthful dreams of life, for their attention.  You  will
succumb  to  their seduction, together they are a  most  powerful
dragon.  The tales I could spin for you about such affairs.
    "Aboard the China Sea, another clipper I sailed with as crew,
there  was this relic of a man who had been part of the crew  for
as  long as any could remember.  And there had been many  with  a
score of years aboard.  Yet he was neither captain nor firstmate;
a  cabin boy of  sorts, least he directed the real  boy's  tasks.
Many  a story of his past was passed down through the years.   He
was once a Commodore for the Dutch East India.  Four clippers  he
commanded,  sailed the Asian coast from Calcutta to Sapporo.   He
knew  the Kings, Emperors, and Shoguns in every country where  he
shipped.   He  knew all the important people in every  city  into
which  he sailed.  His passion was just that too, trading in  the
Far East ports, being important among important people.  He mixed
well with them.  At the evening dinners and concerts in embassies
and  palaces he could talk with his hosts in their own  languages
about  their own arts and artists.  Especially the  dynasties  of
China.  "His  ships carried opium, just another part of the cargo
he moved from place to place; till he started to use it. He first
used it only on the ships as they sailed.  He would read books in
his cabin and smoke.  On some voyages he would have musicians  to
travel  with him; just to have them play the works of Mozart  and
Beethoven.   Later  it  was he begin to linger  in  one  city  or
another  rather  than sail with his ships.   Becoming  more  land
bound  by  the  stuff he smoked.  Tied to the  sound  of  concert
music, Saim drama, Kabuki plays and other native performances.
    "Then the opium wars began.  The Chinese Emperor had  noticed
that  some  of  the  peasants and low  class  city  dwellers were
becoming  less  productive,  more occupied by the  dealings  with
opium  and  its over use.  The corruption among  civil  officials
became more devious as their efforts to control a bigger share of
the  market became more important than the business  of  managing
700 million people.
    "So  the  emperor outlawed the opium trade.  The  Dutch  East
India  and  other European traders did not like the loss  of  the
wealth  the  opium  brought  to them.  So  there  was  war.   The
Commodore  had to choose sides too, between his company  and  his
important  Eastern friends and his opium.  He chose to chase  his
dragon.  He followed the dragon into the death and destruction of
war.   He forsaked his loyalty to the company refusing  to  carry
their  supplies  of  war.  His Eastern friends  forsaked  him,  a
foreigner,  the  same as those who made war with  their  country,
except for those with whom he dealt for the opium he needed.  The
Emperor having made it contraband made it black market, so it was
with  unscrupulous men he dealt.  Greedy, murdering thieves.   He
no longer needed his ships to sail the seas or his music to  make
him  smile.  He no longer needed his important friends  to  share
those  happy  times  with.  He did  need  the  greedy,  murdering
thieves with which to chase the dragon.  A ragged street dwelling
beggar he became,  doing deeds no man should do to trade for  his
precious  drug,  a slave not only to the dragon but to those  who
supplied  his needs and cravings.  Never could he  have  foreseen
that  his  British gentleman principles would fail  to  keep  him
from  such acts of humility.  But such is the power of  a  dragon
chase.   He  once smoked the opium to escape  into  his  pleasant
world  of  music and sailing.  Now he smoked just to  escape  the
harsh reality of his existence.
    "Let  me  ask you this my young friend, will you  chase  your
dragon   to   such  ends?   Will  your  thoughts  of   being   an
indestructible  youth  allow you to phantom such a  future  life?
Will your body be as strong as your mind after a few, short years
of abuse?
    "I  have talked much to long, your eyes are some  what  clear
now, but I guess your mind is spinning with my thoughts.  I  must
take you back to the streets and leave you as I found you."
     With  that he pulled me from the chair and out the  door  we
went.   The  cool  of the night air seem to make me  a  bit  more
alert.  Least I was feeling less of being in a dream like  world.
He still lead me by the crook of his arm, around corners and down
steps which still seem to move much too fast.  A  few  minutes of
this then  he leaned  me up against a familiar wall.  I raised my
head  just in time  to see  him stand  before me  with a  look of
sadness in his  eye.  He spoke Chinese, 'Yi lu ping an!' safe and
peaceful  jouney,  then  with a turn  and a stride  he was  gone.
After a minute or so, the sense of what had seem real  left  with
him leaving a void so much like the morning after a night of hard
drinking,  the 'what did happen last night' feeling.   Never  the
less,  I  stood there on a lonely city street, raised  myself  as
best I could to full height, then bowed my most humble and proper
Japanese  bow and bid the old sailor farewell, 'Sensi-san,   domo
arigato  gozaimash.'   Most honorable  teacher,  indebtedness  is
without end.