The House of the Venerable and Inscrutable Colonel was what they called 
it when they were speaking Chinese. Venerable because of his goatee, white as 
the dogwood blossom, a badge of unimpeachable credibility in Confucian eyes. 
Inscrutable because he had gone to his grave without divulging the Secret of 
the Eleven Herbs and Spices. It had been the first fast-food franchise 
established on the Bund,
many decades earlier. Judge Fang had what amounted to a private table in the 
corner. He had once reduced Chang to a state of catalepsis by describing an 
avenue in Brooklyn that was lined with fried chicken establishments for miles, 
all of them ripoffs of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Miss Pao, who had grown up in 
Austin, Texas, was less easily impressed by these legends.