Hackworth thought for a moment that Dr. X was referring to the 
beverage. But the Doctor began to trace characters on the tabletop, his hand 
moving deftly and gracefully, the brocade sleeve rasping across the plastic 
surface. " Yong is the outer manifestation of something. Ti is the underlying essence. Technology is a yong associated with a particular ti that is"—the 
Doctor stumbled here and, through a noticeable effort, refrained from using 
pejorative terms like barbarian or gwailo— "that is Western, and completely alien to us. For centuries, since the time of 
the Opium Wars, we have struggled to absorb the yong of technology 
without importing the Western ti. But it has been impossible. Just as 
our ancestors could not open our ports to the West without accepting the poison 
of opium, we could not open our lives to Western technology without taking in 
the Western ideas, which have been as a plague on our society. The result has 
been centuries of chaos. We ask you to end that by giving us the Seed."