From Chicken Feet to Crystal Baths: An Englishman’S Travels Throughout China

By Ian Mote

I have been to every province in China, and the book is made up of travel stories about the places I have been and the experiences I have had. For instance, I have been hosted in first-class establishments in Shanghai, been drunk with miners in Inner Mongolia, wandered out in the Gobi desert, and nearly been sick on the embalmed body of Chairman Mao.
This book is about being a Western expat adjusting to life in Asia, first in Hong Kong and then in Shanghai. It is about negotiating with local people on whether prostitutes are required after dinner, singing Chinese songs in the middle of meetings, and finding the only spot in the country without an army of tourists spoiling the photos.
I wish to share travel and living stories from Hong Kong and every province in China, through the eyes of one fascinated, curious, worried, reckless, adventurous, queasy, stunned, and quite tired English expat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504903967

Ian Mote

I have always loved to travel. Right from the time I went around the world as a baby in my parents’ arms, travelling has been in my blood. As I grew older, I started looking at longer-term trips away from home. Aged 18, I took the obligatory gap year, experiencing a life in America which I had only before seen on television or in films. It made me realise that maybe there was more out there in the world to understand, see, and be a part of. I went to Hong Kong for the first time in 1990 and then again in 1995. The 1995 trip also featured my first tentative steps onto mainland Chinese soil. Despite a bad case of food poisoning spoiling my view somewhat, even then I found China fascinating. What a different world from suburban London. In 2002 I moved permanently to Hong Kong and lived there for four frenetic years. That time included regular trips into all different parts of China, and from those trips, these stories started. I had an intermission from China when I moved to Dubai in 2006, but in late 2008 I took the opportunity to return to Asia to live in Shanghai, where I live to this day. This book is about what I have found there. I continue to be on a journey of exploration through one of the most historic, dynamic, and fascinating countries in the world. I hope that my journey will continue for some time, and I thank you for joining me for the story so far.

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© 2015 Ian Mote. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/09/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-0394-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-0395-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-0396-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015905148

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Contents

Introduction

Map of China

Chapter 1 The Middle Kingdom Welcomes You

Chapter 2 Hong Kong, Here I Come

Chapter 3 The Mongol Hordes

Chapter 4 I Have One Word to Say to You: Aluminium

Pictures: The Early Years

Chapter 5 Location, Location, Location

Chapter 6 Out on the Town

Chapter 7 The One Thing that Unites the World: Beer

Chapter 8 Working Hard

Chapter 9 Saying Goodbye

Pictures: Chinglish Signs

Chapter 10 Shanghai Welcomes You

Chapter 11 Ice, Ice, Baby

Chapter 12 Wedding Toasts

Chapter 13 Up in the Clouds

Chapter 14 Taking Flight

Chapter 15 Day Tripper

Pictures: Places in China

Chapter 16 Round and About

Chapter 17 Meet the Parents

Chapter 18 Under Pressure

Chapter 19 Up, Up, and Away

Chapter 20 Let’s Talk – Slowly Please.

Pictures: People of China

Chapter 21 Searching for Paradise

Chapter 22 Rising Up

Chapter 23 Reaching the Peak

Chapter 24 Never Go Back

Chapter 25 New Frontiers

Chapter 26 The Silk Road

Chapter 27 Nearing the Finish Line

Further Reading

Further Viewing

Acknowledgements

To my parents

For having the patience to let me wander the world without ever asking me to come home

Introduction

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware

—Martin Buber

I have always loved to travel. This started at a young age; I was just six months old, in fact, when my parents carried me on an around-the-world trip. We started in the United Kingdom, then travelled to Asia, Australia, San Francisco, and then back to the UK. Presumably it took longer than eighty days, but even from an early age it would seem that I had travelling in my blood.

I grew up in London with my parents and my brother. My father worked in a bank, my mother in education, which meant that we were lucky enough to be able to take regular holidays. This gave me the chance to visit and experience many new and different places all over the world. Over the years, we had summer trips to Cyprus or Spain as well as winter ski trips on a couple of occasions. We also managed two separate trips to Florida, to go to Disney World – even then, travelling halfway round the world to go to theme parks seemed an entirely reasonable thing to do. It made me realise that you had to go where the action was.

As I grew older, my appetite for journeying was whetted, and I started looking at longer-term trips away from home. When I was 18, I spent six months on a school exchange programme in Kansas in America. After having lived all of my life in cosmopolitan London, I found myself in a small mid-Western town of around 1500 people. By my second day, given how much I stuck out from the crowd, everyone in the town knew me as the English guy. Rather than be overwhelmed by the culture shock, I was enthused by it. I now had the opportunity to spend time in a completely different location, experience the kind of American life that I had only before seen on television or in films, and live a new way of life. It started a train of thought in my head: as much as I liked living at home in London, maybe there was more out there in the big, wide world – more to understand, see, and be a part of.

I went to Hong Kong for the first time in 1990 with my parents; I was 16. I returned solo in 1995 and then again twice in 1997, once for work and once to celebrate the handover to China. The 1995 trip also featured my first tentative steps onto mainland Chinese soil – ones that left me very sick with chronic food poisoning. Apart from one fleeting touristy day trip, after that first time I did not go back to China again for another seven years.

I cannot put my hand on my heart and say that on that first trip I fell in love with the country enough to always want to go back. I guess food poisoning will do that to you. However, I would say that even then I found China fascinating; it was a completely different world from the conventions and stability of the UK. The trip certainly encouraged my desire for new experiences and ideas, and it reinforced the thrill I feel, now as much as then, when I stand somewhere that I have never been to or seen before.

In 2002 I moved permanently to Hong Kong, transferring with my job in an international bank. I lived in Hong Kong for four frenetic years. That time included regular trips into all different parts of China, and from those trips I started to understand a lot more about the country and her people. I started to get a feel for just how vast, diverse, entertaining, infuriating, dynamic, and historic China could be. I started to speak Chinese. It left me wanting more. I had an intermission from China when I moved to Dubai in the middle of 2006, but this ended with the financial crisis in November 2008, when I took the opportunity to go back to Asia and start life afresh in Shanghai. The circle was complete, and I found myself back living on Chinese soil, where I remain to this day.

This book is predominantly about China and the experiences that I have had, both whilst visiting there and living there day to day. The country of China is made up of twenty-two provinces, four municipalities, five autonomous regions, and two special administrative regions that were previously countries in their own right. Altogether, these total thirty-three disparate locations, which for simplicity’s sake I refer to here all as provinces. I have been to each one of them. I have tried here to include some background or colour on every one and to tell of my experiences as I passed through them all. I know full well, though, that my visits and encounters barely scratched the surface of what China has to offer, as there are hundreds of places, events, and stories that I have no understanding of so far – there are so many more places to go and so many more people to meet. I fervently hope that I can keep on wandering around, learning, and seeing things I have not seen before.

Other people have written whole books on aspects of China that I only explore briefly in this one – for example, Chinese food, the Great Wall, or the recent history of Shanghai. I cannot claim such expertise or venture into so much depth here. My intention is just to present an introduction to China, from a Western, European, and/or expat viewpoint, as some of the situations I found myself in may well be experienced by others coming to China for the first time. I want to share the places I have been, the things I have seen, and the number of times I just had that feeling: This is so different to what I am used to. This is new! For surely therein lies the heart of the travelling experience anywhere – the differences, the learning, the original experiences. Only China can provide this so many times in one country.

For instance, I have attended a Chinese wedding, spent Chinese New Year with a local family, survived singing karaoke, taken up martial arts, eaten all sorts of different regional food dishes (having to feed myself from food procured in local markets) – and I even ended up with a Chinese partner. I did all this whilst holding down a job and managing a team of local Chinese staff, which proved interesting in its own right. I have also mentioned here some lessons on culture and etiquette that I learned the hard way, and I have included a few Chinese words that you might one day find useful. I hope that they are helpful, but to be honest, more than anything else I just hope that I have got them correct!

I feel that I am continuing my journey of exploration through one of the most essential and evolving countries in the world. I hope that the journey will last for some time to come. Thank you for joining me for the story so far.

Ian Mote

Shanghai, China

2015

Map of China

Map.tif

Chapter 1

The Middle Kingdom Welcomes You

After a great deal of time spent travelling in China, reading about China, and thinking deep thoughts about China, I have come to the conclusion that the most profound thing that one can say about it is this: China is exceedingly big.

—David Piling, Asia Editor Financial Times

My lifelong connection with China and Hong Kong and all the mysteries and adventures contained within began when I was just 16. When I visited a place in every sense so far from home, my eyes were opened as I began to realise the variety and breadth of life out there in the world. This began with my first taste of Hong Kong.

The first trip to Hong Kong I remember was back in 1990. At that time I had travelled in Europe and had been to the United States, but I had no recollection of travels in Asia. (I had actually been to Hong Kong once before, as a toddler, but the only proof of this was a photo that my Mum liked to show on family occasions. It was taken of me, aged 18 months, running round Chater Square with no trousers on.) This time around, I was excited about the trip but did not really know what I was letting myself in for. I had seen Hong Kong on the television and in films, but it seemed slightly unreal – the noise, the people, the chaos. Did people really live like that?

My opportunity to go to Asia had come about from an unlikely source. My younger brother, James, had been selected to play cricket for a school team touring Australia, and they were breaking up the journey by stopping in Hong Kong on the way out. My parents had decided to go along on the tour all the way to Australia, and they had expected me to join them. I think they were slightly put out when I said that I would love to go to Hong Kong, but was it OK if I came home straight after, missing the main part of the tour to go on a school ski trip instead? My love of skiing is one aspect of my life that continues to baffle my parents, who never took to the sport in anything like the same way that I did. They certainly found it hard to understand that I would rate messing around on the freezing, snow-bound slopes of Europe above travelling in the heat of Australia. But once I had convinced them that going on the Hong Kong leg of the trip for five days and then turning round and coming straight back was what I really wanted to do – and, more important, I had convinced them to pay for this – they agreed. I was off to Hong Kong.

People often talk about their first experiences in a new country: the sights, the sounds, and the smells that hit you as soon as you walk out of the airport. But travelling to Hong Kong back in those days, you did not even get a chance to land before your senses were assaulted because the first thing you had to cope with was the airplane landing at Kai Tak airport.

If you never had the chance to experience the old Hong Kong airport, then you really missed a unique experience in terms of air travel. It was located bang in the middle of Kowloon, which is in the centre of the north side of Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour. This is in one of the most densely populated places on earth. Flying in, you literally flew straight towards a hill before, at the last minute, pulling a sharp bank to the right and then flying the last two miles through a corridor between tower blocks before landing on the runway jutting out into the harbour and coming to a sharp stop – otherwise, you would tip over the end and finish up in the water. The hill had a large chequerboard painted on it, to point out the way to the airport and to provide a sign as if to say, Don’t fly here. After the aircraft made the turn, the towers were so close that you felt you could put your hand out of the window and touch the washing that hung from every available window. The moment the wheels touched the tarmac, the brakes went full on, to prevent everyone having to swim back to the terminal. If you know any pilots, ask them the story, as it was one of the most notorious airports in the world, and certainly amongst the hardest landings for a major international city.

When we flew in that first time, we turned right at the hill, navigated through the tower block corridor, and came to a halt on the runway, without ending up in the harbour. We made it through and out of the airport without any issues, and then, yes, we were assaulted by the sights, the sounds, and the smells of Kowloon – which just seemed a teeming mass of humanity. There were tower blocks on every corner condemning street dwellers to a perpetual life of shadow, cars that seemed incapable of travelling more than a few metres without doing their horns, crowds of people on every corner pushing and shoving to get to the front of the queue to cross the road, and wafts of smoke from dai pai dong fast-food stalls for the customers with no time to sit down to eat. Hong Kong had energy, drive, impatience, and adrenaline, and being an impressionable teenager who had lived my life to that point in relative suburban calm, I could only come to one conclusion: I like this place!

Over the length of that five-day trip, we covered the typical tourist sights any newcomers to Hong Kong would cover. We went and stood on Victoria Peak, which rises above the city and the sea that cuts through it, giving one of the best and most famous views in the world. We went to Stanley Market, which was not like any market I had ever seen before, selling clothes and designs a million miles away from the UK High Street amidst a barrage of noise, as shopkeepers on every side urged us into their shops to see their wares. And we took a boat to a nearby island to eat seafood, picking our catch from the live fish swimming in tanks by the side of the tables. I have repeated all of these many times since, and they have never lost their appeal or their ability to generate new experiences or ideas.

I have to say, though, I do not think though that at Stanley Market – with the one possible exception many years later when I bought a gratuitously expensive painting – I have ever spent as much money as I did that first time. Overwhelmed by the variety and choices of the goods on offer, I came out with two new jackets (one of which I wore for ten years, until I had worn too many holes in it to respectably wear it any longer), a silk shirt (something I do not think I even knew existed before then), and enough other jumpers, shirts, and assorted items to clothe me for a year. The variety of goods and opportunity for buying were enough to cure even my apathy for shopping.

I also had my first lesson in some of the more shady aspects of Asian life. As I walked around the market, a local guy grabbed my arm and hissed at me, Want to buy fake Rolex?

At 16 years old, with dreams of the good life, I certainly did. The man ushered me down a little alleyway, whilst his companion stood at the entrance, blocking the sight of us should any police happen to wander past. I looked around and realised I was, to any reasonable extent, trapped.

Two hundred [Hong Kong] dollars for the watch.

OK, how does this work? I wondered. Where do I start bidding? My experience of haggling with Asian counterfeiters for illicit goods whilst standing down dark alleys was, not surprisingly, worryingly weak.

One hundred. I held my breath in case he punched me.

One hundred and fifty.

Phew. Right, so he had not stolen my money or threatened any physical violence. I must have been in the right ballpark.

One fifty, but you give me the one with the diamonds on.

Deal.

I switched the basic gold Rolex that the guy was showing me for another that was equally gold but had added diamonds on that I was sure were absolutely real. I cautiously gave him the money, waiting to have my wallet snatched at any time, but he just took the notes, counted them, nodded, and turned and walked off. Two things occurred to me suddenly.

I’m alive – and I’m wearing a Rolex!

My parents had friends named Ed and Eileen who lived in Hong Kong, and during the trip they provided invaluable local knowledge as they showed us around. They introduced us to some of their friends, and through them we were taken out on the junk boat trip to Lamma, one of the neighbouring islands. Lamma is around an hour on the boat from Central Hong Kong, and has a whole row of seafood restaurants on the quay, each of them with the day’s catches still thrashing around in their tanks. This was a novel experience that I later came to consider commonplace. To make sure the seafood was fresh, all the fish, lobsters, shrimps, and various other unidentifiable creatures were still swimming about in tanks by the front of the restaurant. You would go up to the tanks, look around, discuss with the waiter your requirement, and choose your catch of the day. The fish would be weighed, and you would pay depending on how much you were keen to eat. The fish would then be taken out the back in bags or baskets, still flapping about, until they were thrown in the pot, appearing at your table just a few minutes later. You do not get that in London.

This boat trip was the first of many I took around Hong Kong waters, but I remember it as clearly as any; coming back after dinner, we sailed into Hong Kong harbour, the wind blowing on a balmy evening, whilst we looked around at a blazing sea of neon on the harbour side, the office blocks towering above us as they fought for our attention with endless signs and billboards. It seemed like another planet compared to my suburban upbringing, and it added fuel to my fire to see what more was out there. I now wanted to travel. See the world. Imagine what else I might see. Although the thought that I might one day live there… well, let’s not get carried away.

Having waited so long to get to Hong Kong, I made it back reasonably quickly. In the summer of 1995, just after I had graduated from university, I had a job lined up with Standard Chartered Bank the following October. With this in mind, I thought it only right to grant myself the summer off, to fully charge my batteries before the upcoming challenges of starting a working career.

One of my old school friends, Calvin, was originally from Hong Kong, although he had lived in the UK with his parents and brother since he was very young. We were in the local pub one night, when he casually threw out an invite: I’m going back to Hong Kong for two weeks in the summer, and I am probably going to go on a tour of China for a week while I am there. Does anyone want to come with me?

I had enjoyed my first trip to Hong Kong and was keen to visit again, but the real pull here was going to China. At this time, China was still largely unknown to many people around the world. It was before the Hong Kong handover, before the Beijing Olympics, even before every piece of clothing you owned was made in China. The closest I had come to China up until then had been on that first Hong Kong trip, going up to the fence at the border town of Shenzhen and looking across into China. Even then, as I had looked at an unreachable town on the other side of the divide, China had seemed mysterious and alluring. As I had a summer to fill and an as-yet-untouched graduate loan burning a hole in my bank account, I did not hesitate. I signed myself up.

It was not long until August, and I found myself back at the Hong Kong airport. For a few days before we went to China, Calvin showed me around Hong Kong, including his family’s old village, San Tin, way up in the New Territories. His ancestors had lived there, and his grandparents still knew some of the elderly inhabitants who were sitting outside playing chess and majiang. Calvin’s family had moved further into the city in the years before his mother and father had moved to London in the early 1980s. He also took me through the narrow streets of Mongkok and Kowloon – as ever, alive with energy on every side of the road.

After a few days, I was approaching the mainland for the first time as Calvin and I boarded the Dragonair flight to China. I have flown Dragonair hundreds of times since then and have found them very reliable, but back then, on my first trip with the local airline into China, I thought even the name sounded exotic. I had had visions of some decrepit crate spluttering its way through the air, just about making it to China whilst the pilot smoked a cigarette out of the window, but in fact, there were no problems, and we arrived in Xi’an in Shaanxi province with the minimum of fuss.

We stepped out of the terminal onto Chinese soil, and my first impression of China was imprinted on my mind: God, this place is miserable. From the very beginning I saw the Xi’an airport as pathetic and shabby, with its dull-grey colour making it look like an empty shell. At first my mind started remembering the anxiousness and expectations I had had about China. When we went outside, the weather was miserable; it was raining cats and dogs. Everything looked dejected; there was monochromatic cement wherever you looked – the town seemed to need a colour transplant.

Calvin and I were not travelling alone but were on an organised group tour, a method of travel which I later discovered to be a very popular practice amongst the Chinese. We were around fifteen in the group, mainly all families from Hong Kong, plus the two of us. I was the only westerner amongst the party. We met our tour guide, Han, who was local Chinese but spoke English well. He wore a garishly patterned sweater from a brand I had never seen before and jeans that, whilst in good condition and well ironed, were clearly not 501s. As seems the case with tour guides everywhere, Han was keen and enthusiastic to talk to us and tell us what we were seeing. He seemed interested to chat to Calvin and me, because we were the only ones there close to his age and we lived outside of Asia.

Han took the time to try and teach us both some Mandarin Chinese. Calvin was a native Cantonese speaker and took to this quite easily, whilst I struggled to wrap my tongue around what sounded like a language not just from another country but from another world.

"Thank you is xie xie."

Shay shay?

"No, xie xie. Think of the singer, Cher? Two of her."

Cher cher?

Yes, that’s close enough.

Han also told me a fact that I have to confess meant little at the time, but it grew in relevance over the years. The very name China is an Anglicised word which allegedly came from the name of the Qin Dynasty through Central Asia and the Middle East. Chinese people actually call their own country Zhong guo, which means Middle Kingdom. Think about that. Talking about their country on any occasion, on every day, Chinese people describe their country as the centre of the world.

Calvin and I spent our first day in China dodging the unceasing rain whilst touring the antique sites of Xi’an. As we were being driven around, we could see many of the local population making their way around on bicycles, seemingly immune to the wet, all with somewhere to go and something to do. Most of the sites that we visited were temples, and in regard to temples, there are generally two schools of thought. The first, to quote my father, is Once you’ve seen one temple, you’ve seen them all. To be honest, even a few of our tour group that day would have agreed with this sentiment. I have always gone more towards the second option, though, that they are places of tranquillity and tradition, to be savoured and enjoyed. When I recall my first experience of Buddhist temples on that day, I have to say that, yes, they do all tend to have the same brass bowl in front, the same tray of incense burning at the entrance to the temple building itself, and the same architectural design of a wooden roof above one open side to show the holy sites within. However, each also has its own vagaries, characteristics, and charms. I spent the whole of my first day wandering from temple to temple, trying to spot the monks walking around, their bright saffron-coloured robes a sharp contrast to the grey everywhere else.

No tour in China would ever be complete without stopping for proper meals. This tour was no exception, and on that first day, as for every meal, we ate as a group, sitting around large tables covered with plastic tablecloths and large, round glass plates holding a multitude of dishes. At that time, given that it was my first day in China, I had to admit that I harboured a guilty secret: I was not able to use chopsticks. I mentioned this to Han, and he replied with an honest, but not entirely reassuring, answer: You need to learn to use chopsticks; otherwise, this week you will not eat.

This caused Calvin and Han to give me an impromptu chopsticks lesson, and I soon learned to wedge the lower chopstick in the groove of my thumb and forefinger, and then only move the top one to pick up the food, as is apparently the proper way. That first lunch was a bit wobbly, but I did improve as the week went on, and I did manage to get enough to eat.

They also taught me a few other local customs for eating. All the dishes were put out on the round table top, which was spun round slowly to allow everyone to take a portion of any particular dish that caught their eye. In England, these are called Lazy Susans, although no one has ever been able to explain to me why. In China, they are ubiquitous; I am not sure that they even have a name. I soon realised that it was considered polite to avoid spinning the table whilst someone else was picking food from a dish on the table.

The meals were also my introduction to native Chinese food, unlike the Anglicised versions that I had had at home in the past. Lots of different dishes were served up as we sat around a couple of large tables, always with different varieties of meats, vegetable dishes, some fish, and then white rice alongside. I tried most of the dishes and found them exciting – and, as I have said, wildly different to any Chinese food I had eaten before. Unlike the typical sweet and sour you might find at home, here were pork dishes served on the bone, which you had to eat with your hands and gnaw the meat from. No chicken and sweet corn soup as was ubiquitous in the West; rather, there were more spicy soups with unidentified foods floating suspiciously on the top. And there was always a whole fish, complete with head, and the eye surely staring at me.

On the second day a dish was served up that confused me slightly; it looked like a pile of webbed feet. I did not really understand what I was supposed to do. I looked at Han, and he explained to me that these were chicken feet. You were supposed to put on a disposable plastic glove, which the restaurant had helpfully provided, grasp a foot in your covered hand, and then chew away. I tried this. It tasted gristly, and I could not taste much meat on it. I looked at Han quizzically, and he nodded back in confirmation that I was going about it the right way. I chewed some more. It still did not taste like much. But everyone else was doing the same.

Chicken’s feet, I have come to learn, are a common dish, and many people like them. I do not particularly like them myself, although that is neither here nor there. What continued to baffle me is that people would go to the effort of eating them at all – because it is an effort. In the UK we would eat just the meat of the chicken, but in China you would eat every part. I came to realise that this was a throwback to the recent past (in some cases very recent) when many people could not afford to throw away anything that might be edible, and so they cooked every part of the chicken. The feet were not as good as the breast or the leg, but there was some nutritional value there, and so they were consumed, and now the habit lived on from generation to generation in China. In the same way, I would later try pigs’ ears and ducks’ necks. Again, I would not have considered either of these as obvious food sources, but someone told me that they were local delicacies.

Something that I was never sure about on those first few lunches was exactly how much food was going to be coming. Calvin gave me a tip that the clue for the end of the food was the rice or noodles turning up. Once I saw the rice coming out, at least then I knew that this would the last dish. If I had been saving myself, I could pig out on whatever was left, or, as happened more often, if I felt that I was about to explode, then I could finally relax.

Attractive though the temples on our tour were, the main reason for going to Xi’an, now as much as then, was to view the Terracotta Warriors. The Terracotta Warriors are an army of statues depicting soldiers, horses, and chariots, which were originally buried underground to guard the tomb of the man regarded as the first emperor of all China, Qin Shi Huang, who died in around 210 BC. The army’s purpose was to protect and serve Qin Shi Huang in the afterlife, so that he could rule another empire, and they now stand exhumed as a tourist attraction for travellers from the world over to marvel at.

No one is quite sure how many statues exist, but the expectation is that there are over 8,000 soldiers, 150 stand-alone horses, and 130 chariots with a further 520 horses. No two soldiers are facially the same, and everything is life size. The army was apparently discovered by chance in 1974 by a farmer digging a well near Mount Li in Shaanxi. Apparently, in 195 BC, Emperor Qin’s successor, Emperor Liu Bang, had ordered that twenty households should move to watch over the mausoleum of Qin, in order to guard the tomb. Even now there are twenty villages nearby; the local village inhabitant who discovered the Terracotta Army may well even be a direct descendent of the original tomb guards.

Qin’s actual tomb remains buried under an underground earthen pyramid over 70 metres tall; it remains untouched, as it is allegedly too fragile for archaeologists to excavate without potentially damaging the findings inside. Could this be the Tutankhamen for our generation, I wonder? There seem to be no plans to investigate the site. The soldiers were buried with authentic knives, swords, and crossbows. The swords were made of metal alloys that, even when they were excavated nearly 2,000 years later, were still sharp.

The army stands in what pretty much resembles an aircraft hangar. The soldiers are at ground level, with a raised platform all around for guests to walk around. As you first come into the site, there are steps in front of you, so you cannot see the soldiers. You ascend the steps, and then as you come to the top, you see the army in front of you for the first time, dug out of the ground which rises up around them on all sides. I can still remember that first moment from 1995 as I reached the top of the steps and the statues came into view in front of me. I was stunned. I have been so lucky in my life to travel to so many places and see so many things, but this remains one of the best moments ever. Row after row, reaching all the way to the back of the hangar, the soldiers stand in perfectly uniform formation, seeming ready for war at any moment. Each has different uniform, armament, and posture but is still clearly of one origin and one fighting unit. They are unbelievable.

Excavation of the area directly containing the army continues to this day, albeit slowly; when you are in the hangar, you are on a walkway around the edge, looking down at the soldiers in the pit below you. Queen Elizabeth remains one of very few foreigners, or indeed non-scientists, to have walked through the pit and stood face to face with the army.

After spending our allotted time, on the way out Calvin and I both stopped to buy our own copies of the Terracotta Warriors to take home. We opted for small six-inch models, but I was struck by the near-full size ones that they also sold in the shop; how much would one of those cost to ship back to England, I wondered. As I had not yet actually started full employment, and as holidaying was rapidly burning through my graduate loan, I opted against buying the larger versions, although the thought never left me that I would like to buy one someday. Sure enough, when I moved to Shanghai fourteen years later, I invested in some antique Chinese furniture and at the same time bought two imitation Terracotta Warriors. They are not quite full size, but they are pretty large, and they sit outside my front door to guard my home. I imagine that wherever else I travel and live in the world, they will always accompany me.

As surprised as I was to be in China and walking around the heart of a Chinese city, it was safe to say that the Xi’an locals were equally surprised to see me. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that back in 1995 many of the locals on the street had never seen a Western person before. I would be walking along the street, and the people walking in front of me would keep turning their heads to look at me and point me out to their companions. Yes, I really am here, walking behind you!

This also made me a target for some more unwanted interest. As we walked along, I was approached by a wizened old woman begging for change. I naively went for my wallet, hoping to get rid of some small Chinese banks notes that were frankly not worth the paper they were printed on – even now the smallest bank note is roughly equivalent to five pence in the UK – but I didn’t have any, so I returned my wallet to my jeans. Unfortunately, though, the sight of the wallet was enough to give off the scent of a potential donor, and she followed Calvin and me for a good five minutes, despite our efforts to speed up and throw her off. Eventually the only way we did get rid of her was to go into a department store; for once I was happy to see the ubiquitous security guard on the door, as he stopped the old lady from entering and promptly sent her on her way.

Having wandered during the day experiencing this type of attention, I was a bit surprised to walk into the hotel bar that night and find two English girls serving behind the bar. It turned out that they were in China on work experience as part of their university course. The girls were in town for a year, trying to soak up all China had to offer, which for two English university students, I guess, was probably quite a lot. Dotted around the bar there were also a few other, elder, expats. The reason they had ended up in Xi’an was something to do with the burgeoning aviation industry there; these guys were apparently lending their aeronautical experience to the Chinese industry.

We chatted with the girls for a while, and I asked them what they did for fun in Xi’an. They told me there was one nightclub in the town that they went to occasionally. We suggested they might take Calvin and me the next evening. OK, sure, they said.

The next evening, after another hard day’s sightseeing, Calvin and I, plus the two girls and Han, all piled into one somewhat rickety taxi to go across town to the Xi’an nightclub. Back in 1995, China was still a cheap place to go; at the time one pound bought you fifteen renminbi (RMB) – it is now around ten. I was quite happy to be the gentleman and pay the ten-renminbi (sixty-seven pence) taxi fare.

The club had the appearance of nightclubs the world over: low lighting, flashing lights round the stage, all the girls dancing in a group on the dance floor, all the guys hanging around the outside not doing much except sizing up if and when to make their moves. It was only missing the burly bouncers on the door. The music was a combination of Chinese and Western disco music, without being anything too exciting or new. Certainly none of the Western music was anything close to being up to date, with the exception of All That She Wants by Ace of Base. It is hardly the first record you would think of when trying to bridge cultural boundaries, but you have to remember that it actually was quite popular in 1995.

I fancied a drink, and I soon made the excellent discovery that the waiters and waitresses were on commission, which depended on how many drinks they served. Although the club predominantly served local beers, it also served Heineken, and at the bargain price of ten renminbi per can. The best part was that, because of the sales commission, the bar staff would fight each other to serve you. When I finished one can, I would just wave it in the air, and the staff would literally run over to me and one of them would take it out of my hand and bring the next, so that he or she could win the sale. That’s proper customer service for you!

Naturally, after a few Heinekens, I began to feel warmed up, and I decided it was time to move onto the dance floor. I have never claimed to be a great dancer, but I do have some enthusiasm, particularly when fuelled by numerous rapidly drunk cans of cheap lager, as I was then. Now, if you remember the attention that I received from the locals just by walking down the street, then you will not be surprised to know that seeing a six-foot-plus slightly drunk westerner pulling out all his best moves on the dance floor in their local club was also a bit of a surprise.

A nightclub, however, is one of few places in life where such attention is beneficial – well, at least it is if you are single. I thought I would use my sudden conspicuousness to my advantage, so I pulled over a nearby local Xi’an girl – one of the better-looking ones, of course – to dance with me. Maybe unsurprisingly, the Chinese girls’ dancing was generally quite conservative, mainly just shifting from one foot to the other and back again, very reminiscent of the cha-cha-cha; however, you may recall me mentioning that on occasion my dancing can be quite enthusiastic. My one trick when dancing with a woman is to twirl and spin her round – most similar, I guess, to jive, but without the energetic bits of picking her up or throwing her around. (Would that I could, but this generally tends to get me in trouble when I try. Funnily enough, I have actually taken lessons in this type of dancing since that time, although they just ended up confusing me immensely, because my technique is to do almost exactly the opposite of what you are supposed to. When I try to dance the steps by the book, I inevitably get them round the wrong way. Stick to what comes naturally, I reckon.)

Thankfully, in deepest Xi’an, the Chinese girl did not know which order she was supposed to be spun in. God only knows what she thought when she went from one minute minding her own business, cha-cha-ing with her friends, to the next being whirled, twisted, and spun round in circles by some lanky foreigner. She may have liked it, she may not have – I do not know. At that time I did not speak any Chinese, so I never stopped to ask her, and I did not give her the chance to tell me.

Han had also spotted an opportunity to meet some local talent, by acting as my wingman and following in behind me to talk to my girl’s friends. He then went one better in trying to impress them, by singing a song karaoke-style in front of the whole club. He sang pretty well and received a round of applause for his efforts. I do not know if he ever made any good contacts from that night, but if he did, I hope he thanked me later.

By this point of the evening, stoked by even more cheap Heinekens and the attention of the local girl, I was keen to forget our early morning start the next day and stay out as long as I could. Unfortunately, though, the English girls had to do something restrictive the next day, like actually turn up for work, and so I was dragged back to the hotel to call it a night. Despite my initial impression of drabness, China was starting to look brighter.

That was as far as my experiences of Xi’an were to reach on that first trip. Considering the temples, the warriors, and the nightclub, I really enjoyed it. However, by comparison, my first experience of Beijing, the next stop on the itinerary, was frankly godawful. I woke up on the first day in Beijing with a pounding headache and a cement mixer going round in my stomach. At first I thought it was the effect of having taken too many Heinekens in the Xi’an nightclub the night before, and I hoped it would just be a passing phenomenon. However, it soon became clear that this was not the case. Apparently, in eating all of the local food in Xi’an, I had picked up a case of food poisoning in the process, which turned out to be a bad case – a really, really bad case.

Considering that this might be my only chance to see some of the sights, I gritted my teeth, clenched my stomach, and boarded the tour bus anyway. Our itinerary for Beijing took us through all of what are now well-known tourist sites: Tiananmen Square, across the road to the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, out to the Great Wall, interspersed with visits to the antiques/fabrics/paintings/jewellery shops that seem to be obligatory on these tours wherever you may be. All this was well and good, but it is not so comfortable to be touring round all day when your insides are spinning like a top, and you dare not go out of eyesight of a toilet at any time.

On the first day we started in Tiananmen Square, a place well known across the world and a landmark location throughout Chinese history. With the Forbidden City at one end and the Great Hall of the People to the left, situated in the heart of the capital of China, and with Chairman Mao’s portrait looking down on you wherever you stood, it was and still is an iconic spot as much for Chinese people as for foreign visitors. You could say that the Square represents the centre of China. However, in that first visit, my initial action was not to take in the history and iconography around me but instead to scan round the edges of the Square to check the shops and be relieved to find that – yes! – there was a McDonalds nearby. It was not because I fancied a burger but just in case I had to make a run for it. McDonalds is a saviour of travellers around the world by providing clean toilets wherever you may be. Even Tiananmen Square had a McDonalds.

We were herded off the bus and told we could wander around the square for an hour. I trudged after Calvin, during which time I posed for some very grim-faced photos, before we then lined up to go into the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall. This is his mausoleum, and it sits slap bang in the centre of the Square. Every day many hundreds of people line up to pass by and pay their respects to Chairman Mao’s body, which remains on view, embalmed in a transparent coffin. It is the most revered spot in the whole country, and many Chinese over the years have travelled to Beijing especially to pass through that spot and see the final resting place of the founder of the People’s Republic of China. (The fact that Mao had allegedly said before he died that he did not want to be embalmed and put on show is quietly glossed over.)

In my case, unfortunately, reverence and respect was rapidly lost in a haze of nausea and dizziness. Standing in the sunshine queuing for half an hour to get in had done me absolutely no good at all, and by time Calvin and I reached the front of the queue, I feared the worst. If I started a protest, I might get thrown out of the country; punched a policeman, I might go to jail; ran around shouting free Tibet!, I could end up doing hard labour – but, dear God, I could be facing a diplomatic incident and global news coverage if… if I threw up over Chairman Mao!

We shuffled to the front of the queue, entered the building, and finally reached the line to actually view the body. I was behind a large number of reverent Chinese locals, who were standing with wide eyes looking upon the Great Helmsman, whereas I stood with my eyes tightly shut, repeating to myself a crucial mantra over and over again:

Don’t be sick on Chairman Mao.

Don’t be sick on Chairman Mao.

Don’t be sick on Chairman Mao.

Don’t be sick on Chairman Mao.

I risked opening one eye as we edged forward, training it directly on the exit in case I had to make a mad dash. I sucked in as much air as I could and breathed the deepest I have ever breathed in my life, trying to keep the contents of my stomach down and not do something that might end up with me being arrested, thrown out of the country, or shot.

I have to say that, thankfully, the story has a happy ending. In the end I was not sick on Chairman Mao. I somehow made it through the mausoleum (maosoleum? Anybody? OK, I will not mention it again) in one piece, and I was not instantly shot by some horrified security guard. I have to say, though, that I do not remember much about seeing the body, or paying any respects to Mao. My abiding memory of being in the room was heading straight for the exit as soon as it was even vaguely possible to do so, while trying to avoid any guards who might be willing to