It was a marvelous place, their village. Hidden in the high mountains, only cautious glances could steal a peek through the dancing fog, the mists that teased and taunted travelers to come forth or turn round – depending on the day. The surrounding mountain range was a tricky world to navigate, drop offs and crevices abundant in the rough mountain grass.
But the village itself was marvelous – full of ringtailed xweetoks. As if they were some clan hidden away from the world centuries ago. Each clan had to them their own color of rings – and shades were generally unique to each individual child. As such there was never any mockery, never many differences. They were all one, all alike. They all celebrated the general Chinese traditions, dressed the part of common villagers, and ate from the earth, bathed in the hot springs. Their homes were made of fresh mountain trees, hard and warmed by glowing fires and coals beneath the floors – kept well and safe in stone boxes to keep the sparks from dancing up and licking against the hard, dry wood and turning a home into smoldering ashes by the morning. Humbled by a life of working for everything they had, the world around them was calm, very intoned with nature. Each child learned to care for flower gardens – gardens of only the rarest flowers, as very few species could grow so high up in the chill. Life for them was well played out, pleasant. As if the gods above had smiled down upon them and given them good fortune.
Though outsiders were rare, they were welcomed. These people were in no manner hostile – all graced by the gods above with dignity, eloquence, kindness, and most of all a sense of humor and fun. They danced and played and sung the days away, laughing at the antics of the children who tumbled and tossed each other playfully about in the dirt paths that wound about their small village – of which the only exits were two rickety bridges through the fog on the east and west sides of the village; east leading towards the world below and west further into the chill and danger of the mountains.

Shing-Shing and Fou-Ru left this village long ago. As of yet they have not made a return trip, almost as if sensing that something terrible will happen if they do. Though they've had a taste of the world, of the wild, of the beat, the pulse, the nightlife that dwelt beyond the bridges of their humble home, their manners reflect upon what they were taught as children.

It is known to the world that most children who come in pairs - regardless of how they look, how they act – upon birth are known as twins. And, often, they are treated as a unit. A single thriving being and not two separate souls, and upon aging these two separate souls which to part from one another – to be their own person. They disregard the fact that their souls are eternally conjoined by a thread thicker than water, and blood for that matter as well.

It is known that most twins do not enjoy being referred to as a unit. But the story you are about to hear is much different. These twins, this set of conjoined souls, wishes nothing more than to be together for an eternity. One can not function properly without the other by their side. Their bodies move in unison, their mind each as sharp as the other – willing and witting their way out of any sort of situation.

It had always been as such – since their birth in the high, foggy mountains of China. Always together, inseparable, being as one in each word they spoke, in each breath they took. At a young age the two began street performing as a sort of pass time and extra income. It was not that they were poor, or alone for that matter, but they found it a proper test of their wit, of their ability to function as one unit. The physical trials, as well as the wit needed to allocate the proper positions and landing zone without the worry of snapping bones; this is what they began to strive for.

Times came and went, and soon they followed the river of time – abandoning their homeland. Though it was not as if they slunk off into the shadows, never to be seen again, no that part of their life comes later. The enveloping of shadows that surrounds them now…no, it was later that this occurred. The twins - never wishing to be called anything else, for they always wished to be treated as a single person – parted after being graced with gifts from admirers, family members, and elders. It was time for the bird to leave the nest, so to speak. And not by the shadows of night but by the sparkling sunlight of autumn noon their forms faded into the mist while crossing the rickety bridge strung miles above a canyon bottom, curious of whether or not the question of their return would ever appear again beyond this single moment.

And so it was that they never did return, never returned to the village hidden in the thick veils of fog, never once did they even think to. The world outside them buzzed in a different manner than the village had – there it had only been animals, only plants, hot springs. There was only nature, only the earth itself to surround them, encase them, only the gentle winds to carry them off to sleep at night. No, the world the dwelt beyond the confines of their village bustled and thrived with an erratic pulse, spasmodic, like the pounding bass of the music that flared brilliantly out of the speakers in the clubs along the boardwalk – shuddering the bones and muscles and sending shockwaves of brilliant sensations through their bodies. This was where their career began – Barcelona, Spain.

Barcelona, Spain 1983

A year of parting, studying, and observing had left them with nothing but what they wished for - the learning of the world around them, the immersion in things unknown to them in the life that seemed to no longer belong to them. The technology that controlled and contorted the idle minds of teenagers was becoming less and less foreign to them. Shing-Shing and Fou-Ru simply wished to draw it all up, to learn whatever it may have been the world offered for them to know. It was all there before them, in faces, in books, in music, in everything they had never known.
But there was one thing they had learned that was necessary to thrive in this world outside their quiet village, money. Money controlled as much as the technology controlled, and was required for pleasure, and for life itself. It came to them that they needed a job now, now that they felt they were ready to settle, settle into this world and become one with the rich Spanish culture. Their tongues had been touched by the flourish and romance of the language in comparison to the harshness and jumpiness of their own language. Not only did they learn Spanish, but French as well. They were well seasoned now, the languages they knew were languages of romance, and soon they were studying the universal language – English.

He's a stranger to some
And a vision to none
He can never get enough,
Get enough of the world

For a fortune queen
But it's hard to amend
How it ends and
On his face is a map of the world
(A map of the world)
On his face is a map of the world
(A map of the world)
From yesterday, it's coming!
From yesterday, the fear!
From yesterday, it calls him
Fighting off the world all around he can pay attention

On a mountain, a city, not a gold, nor blood
He can learn, see the life that it turn
From the count to the one
He's decided when he's done with the air

On his face is a map of the world
(A map of the world)
On his face is a map of the world
(A map of the world)

From yesterday, it's coming!
From yesterday, the fear!
From yesterday, it calls him
Fighting off the world all around he can pay attention
Fighting off the world all around he can pay attention
Fighting off the world all around he can pay attention
Fighting off the world all around he can pay attention

On his face is a map of the world

From yesterday, it's coming!
From yesterday, the fear!
From yesterday, it calls him
Fighting off the world all around, he can pay attention
From yesterday,
From yesterday,
From yesterday, the fear
From yesterday,
From yesterday
Fighting off the world all around he can pay attention