Su Ming could not remember how long it had been since he had stepped into such a cramped, dimly lit bar. In this place that resembled an urban village, "Love and Peace" slogans were plastered all over the streets. Under the dim streetlights, the blood-red lettering stood out clearly, much like the music spilling from every bar doorway.
In the Vietnam War, the United States had deployed 550,000 troops. In this world where anything could happen, the casualties were far greater than what Su Ming knew from his previous life.
Ever since the war began, a strange group of young people had emerged across the country.
They criticized the government's restrictions on citizens' rights, hated the greed of major corporations, lamented the narrowness of traditional morality, and opposed the inhumanity of war.
But they could do nothing.
They could only cry out through peace movements and marches; only wear flowers in their hair or hand them to passersby, "putting flowers in gun barrels"; only use wandering rock music and sorrowful songs to express their discontent.
More rigorous sociologists generally called them "bohemians," people like Gypsies, with no fixed home and a yearning for free, unrestrained lives.
But ordinary people, Su Ming included, used the more common term: Hippies.
Overall, if they were not constantly drinking too much or getting too high on weed, they could be considered quite an interesting bunch, because they had helped bring about the birth of rock music.
Su Ming was currently dressed in fashionable bell-bottoms and a turtleneck T-shirt. He had Strangle give him the popular beetle haircut, then leaned against a corner of the bar with a glass of whiskey, watching the band perform on the small stage.
The bar was not large. The stage lights were blinding, and the terrible sound system made