Silk Manufactories.

Like much of China, Hangzhou has a traffic problem. On a week day it seems to take an inordinate time to reach anywhere, and by the afternoon of the third day exhaustion was setting in. My eye-lids kept shutting without my meaning them to, and I had to keep willing them open again. I suppose I missed a lot. I probably missed houses with tiny balconies strewn with washing, small shops with canopies selling food, and people carrying impossibly large loads on bicycles, but eventually, when the coach stopped, I did see this:


one of China's biggest silk-mills run by a Hong-Kong-based company called 'High Fashion'.

High Fashion is proud of many things: its modernity, its output, but what interested me the most was its use of solar power. I asked the spokewoman if they'd had much help from the government for this, and she said yes, then laughed and said, 'Not much, though...'

We had a talk, one of those company pep-talks, and most of which I can't remember now, but I remember the room and the shuttered windows, and stuffy warmth as we walked in, and the large rectangular table and the dark blue carpet with a pile so deep it was like walking on snow, and on the table were little bottles of water and I kept looking at it wondering if it was safe to drink it, and in the end I did, then noticed no one else did.

The show room was a vast place


with displays of cocoons, partially stretched ready for making into quilts, hung up along the ceiling, reminding me of fish I once saw strung out of reach of the dogs.


There was this too - the life-cycle of the silkworm preserved in glass


and then upstairs more clothes:

a display of ties like colours in a paint palette


and a quilt already touched by Midas.


High Fashion is at the high quality end of the market - and it showed. But this is not what we'd come to see. As an Indian salesman pointed out we all knew what silk looked like - what we had come to see were the feted machines, and the advanced looms, and the process of silk being made but instead, after we had been allowed to dawdle around this vast display we were taken out. 'No time!' the representative said. 'There's too may of you. Next time you're passing Hangzhou please tell us and call by.'

Then, we were in another part of town, and once again there were talks and brochures - this time of a factory producing machines for the silk industry. Once again my eye-lids drooped. The nights without sleep were beginning to catch up with me and that odd sense of everything being unreal and distant was beginning to overwhelm me. 'But we won't be able to show you that today,' I dimly heard, and scribbled in the letters on the brochure in front of me in an effort to keep awake. 9000 miles, I thought. I had so much wanted to see the weaving machines and the workers, but all I'd seen so far were tea gardens, a temple and a fashion show.

But then I heard this: '...and he wants to apologise because he didn't know until two days ago that you were coming round, and hasn't had much time to prepare, so he's afraid that you might not think he factory is very good...' and we were all getting up, and being led in between low buildings, past stray dogs loitering in the streets, and the distant sound of machinery and into this


a hanger-like building looking like many a UK factory I've seen, and one loom weaving silk


and then another


and another;

and workers on lathes, but no safety glasses or yellow track-line along the floor, or safety screens


and smoking obviously permitted... and this girl which makes me pause even now and wonder what her life must be like...

how she goes home and eats noodles and feeds her dog, and maybe sends money back home to her parents...and as I stood there taking photographs it all seemed surreal, but also familiar. I remembered a factory unit in Stoke-on-Trent ot so long ago and the only safety concession when the valve was turned was advice to leave the building. When I closed eyes I felt as though I could have still been there.

Store Opening - Chinese Style

I shall start with dragons. The Chinese sort. Red, furry. The sort that dance to drums. The sort that snake through shopping malls and street and breathe out nothing but air, and seem to be sizing you up: how much are you worth? After all, the dragon's youngest son is the god of merchants. In particular his constipation was revered - everything went in but nothing came out.


It was a slightly bossy sort of entertainment; an ushering from the hotel to air-conditioned coach, from coach to a shopping mall, then through crowds to a partitioned area 'for VIPs' in front of the building. The drumming grew louder and the sun grew hotter. The dragons shook with excitement. We were shown to chairs, each one decorated with a flower.


Again, there were lots of flowers.


Flowers in the lapels of the donors and supporters (who had to step forward, on cue, to acknowledge their part)


and flowers festooning the stage, the walkways, the walls, the spaces besides the lifts. To the human flowers it was a tedious business.


Maybe she wanted to hear the music played on lyres and flutes


or hold the young children with awed, tired faces.


Or maybe she was longing for the moment when she could spend, spend, spend. There was enough to tempt anyone. Each small cube was filled with scarves



dresses, suits, jackets, cloths. While on chairs the shopkeepers unpacked, ironed or looked after their babies that this day had come along too.


Then, after that opening, another. This time in a bigger, more expensive-looking place.


Once again there were crowds kept back from our special area of privilege,


and then the same line of officials waiting to step forward


and the same barked-out speech from the local politician


but this time there was something waiting to be uncovered - something tall and and red, something maybe that symbolised the modern Hangzhou


to the accompaniment of pink smoke, fire-crackers


and giant party-poppers. A statue that looks to me to be inspired by the dollar.


Then inside a western-style mall with glass and more flowers


and a banquet with a clutch of models - who poised, preened and strutted like quiet, ill-humoured birds


although one smiled...

After all - capitalism, even communist-style, is allowed to be fun - sometimes.

The Fashion Show

The invitation came in a box:


for a long time I kept it - from Hangzhou to Chongqing, until, finally, at Guanzhou, my case was too full and I left it behind. Grand it was, and heavy. It unfolded into a concertina which showed the names of the sponsors.

'Cocoon' was the name of the Hangzhou fashion students' end of term show. The winner would receive a prize ('a very valuable one,' whispered Lisa) - a year of study in the west wherever they chose, all expenses paid.

It was crowded, hot, noisy, dark. Microphones and cameras swooped above us, held aloft on gantries. The invitation entitled us to privileged seats with a clear view. I lined up my camera. Music started, and ended, and then, as everyone became quiet, the two comperes appeared - as gleaming and as grey as automata.

Their voices, tinny and fast, became faster, louder, and higher.

Stop. Applause. Breath where there was just air. Sound in front of us and around us.

A pale hat washed out by light



a strutting group - high socked, low booted, hatted;


a red gleaming dress made sun-orange


and then stripes, ruched, gathered into pantaloons, perhaps.


A model listens to another world


or a different smoke-fuelled era.


Then an oyster coloured silk constricts, ripens, swells


while red legs ruffled in chocolate flex on heels.


More red, more gleaming luck,
more circles, sashes and promises of things to come


and then this - which has its own strange glamour.



But these I loved - three maids:

one sullen-faced


meaningful


another with her eyes shut.


This is all nothing.

From a distance they seem mass-produced

like dolls

or maybe puppets.


And then, at last, the final show.


The designers, announced, take it in turn to bow


then wait in time-honoured style, The runners-up, the also-ran, the soon to be has-been


and the winner. And a life changed. Or so they say.

Sunday Salon: An Interview with A C Tillyer: author of 'An A-Z of Possible Worlds'

Just before I went to China I had the pleasure of reading some of the short stories in A.C. Tillyer's 'An A-Z of Possible Worlds'. Although I've not yet had a chance to read all of them, I have much enjoyed those I've read, each one taking me to remarkably imaginative place. There are some great descriptions: for instance in the Kingdom 'bands of deserted towns mark the retreat of the sea like concentric rings in a tree trunk' and the suspense builds to the creepy and plausible ending. It reminded me of something out of the TV series the Avengers - a satisfyingly disturbing fantasy; one that draws the reader into a world that is as real a dream at the moment it is being dreamt.

The author has kindly agreed to answer a few questions about herself and how the collection came about.

Biography.
A C Tillyer lives in Peckham, South London. She works as a documentary film editor and has cut a wide variety of programmes, from ballet and architecture to crime, piracy and the holocaust.

Her first book, An A-Z Of Possible Worlds, is published by Roast Books. It is a box set of 26 interlinking short stories, one for each letter of the alphabet. Each story describes a possible destination on a journey around the mind and asks what would happen if parts of the brain were personified and allowed to populate entire countries. They can be read in any order.


Interview

Questions about A-Z

CD: An A-Z of possible Worlds is a fabulously original idea - the packaging and, of course, the words. How did it come about?
ACT: Well, thank you! The idea for the first one came from when I used to catch the train to work and every morning we would pass a golf course. Whenever I looked at out, the golfers seemed to be doing exactly the same thing, as if they were robots. I thought: what if they are? So that became 'The Golf Course'. Then there was this man that I saw every day who looked extremely ill, very thin and jaundiced, but he was always carrying an enormous sports' bag with a squash racquet poking out of it. He didn't look like he'd make it to the end of the platform let alone last beyond the first serve on a squash court. So I began to think that, if the racquet is just for show? What is he really carrying in that bag? What if it's the dismembered remains of his last victim? That became 'The Underground' and then I was off. At first, I did them for fun but, as I became more engrossed in 'my countries' as I called them, they began to seem like destinations on a journey around the brain. Once I'd written about ten, I realized it could be an A-Z. It was good to have a limit, otherwise I'd still be writing them!



CD: You say you wrote A-Z for anyone trapped in a packed carriage and wished they were somewhere else, and give some fantastical examples. Do you ever imagine your ideal reader? Who would they be?
ACT:Another bookworm, just like me!

CD: You wrote the stories on a train. Please tell me a little about how you did that. What processes were involved? Did you generally finish a story in one journey?
ACT: Ha! If only... I'd start with an idea or question, such as: What would happen if everyone started taking care of themselves and life expectancy soared? Would there be a riot, a cull, voluntary euthanasia - or a lottery? From that I'd jot down the outline for a story in a notebook and not let myself stop until it was done. If there was a bit I couldn't work out or needed to look up, I'd leave it as a question and carry on. That was the train bit. Then at home, I'd put the story into proper sentences and work on that until it was ready to be typed up, which could take ages. I can't write straight onto a computer as I need to see all my crossings out and scribbles in the margins. Once I start typing, my brain seems to relax and switch off.



CD: Do any of the stories have an interesting origin or story behind them?
ACT: Sometimes it's the smallest thing that sparks off a chain of thoughts. For instance, in one of the Sunday supplements I saw a picture of a computer-generated face that was meant to be an amalgamation of all the faces in the world. I can't remember the exact number, but there's a certain amount of random faces that, when you morph them together, you always get the same face and after that, however many you use, it always turns out looking exactly the same. I thought that was pretty amazing and that was the origin for 'The Tundra'. To give one more example, I heard that in London there are between 30 and 35 dog bites a day that need hospital treatment. Never one day when there are suddenly 10 or 100. I know you could probably explain the figures with the number of irresponsible dog owners, available parks, noisy kids, or whatever else goes on before canine teeth sink into human flesh, but I was surprised by how consistent those statistics were. It was almost as if it had been designed, which made me think: what if it has? So that was the idea behind 'X marks the Spot'.

CD: Are they inspired by any other writers?
ACT: That's hard to say. Not consciously. But I suppose everything you read feeds into your own writing somehow. Having said that, there's a few that have been directly inspired by other things, such as paintings. 'The Archipelago' was definitely inspired by Bruegel's painting of The Tower of Babel. And there's a film, which I think is brilliant, called 'Thirty-two Short Films about Glenn Gould', which really is precisely that: thirty-two short films about the pianist, Glenn Gould, including x-rays, clips from interviews, drama and animations. I really loved the fragmentary approach to a person's life. You're left, somehow, with a bigger idea of the man but also, a sense that you can never pin anyone down. I also love Kieslowski's Decalogue, the idea that each of the ten commandments are broken within a short space of time in a single housing estate. So I think that kind of approach fed into what I was trying to do in the A-Z. That's my film background coming through!


CD: Which is your favourite story, and why.
ACT: If you'd asked me that just after I'd finished it, I would have said 'The Labyrinth' because it was so easy to write. That one just flowed. But now I'm quite fond of the historian in The Excavation. He's a little guy, obedient and unheroic, who takes a stand against a rotten system, even though he knows he can't win. I like to think we'd all do that if we had to.

CD: Do you feel any of the stories are linked, and if so, how.
ACT: Some of them are specifically linked, such as L, M and X, which are the past, present and future of the same city, and the entrepreneur who buys up 'The Golf Course' is also the creepy punter in 'The Peep Show' and turns up again as a body in a tank in 'The Warehouse'. There are more links like that all the way through, but it really doesn't matter if you don't spot them. The biggest link is the overall idea that they are all destinations you could visit if you went on a a journey around your brain. Well, mine anyway! I'd like people to wonder what they would find in their own head - and if they'd want to go there if they could.


General Questions.

CD: Do you have any connection with snails?
ACT: Funny you should ask that... I once had a pink, plastic handbag that was like a box on a strap. I don't know what it held originally but I kept snails in it and carried it around with me for an entire summer. Occasionally, one would die and I'd line up my teddies to sing hymns while I buried it with a little cross and everything. I was six or seven years old and I wasn't allowed a pet.

Also...

Do you remember that film called Gothic by Ken Russell? It came out way back in the eighties. I went to see it and, because they didn't let you drink in the cinema, I hid my can of beer in the hedge outside cos a can of beer was a precious thing in those days. Well, it was an extremely freaky film for a teenager that had grown up with no telly and I came out wide-eyed and dry-mouthed. When I went to retrieve my can of beer, it was covered in snails and I had nightmares about one coming out of my mouth instead of a tongue for weeks afterwards. Just thought you'd like to know that for your records!

CD: What is your proudest moment?
ACT: I was lucky enough to have a Wonder Woman moment when I was living in Manchester. This kid on the street where I lived nearly rode his bike under a car and I threw myself into the road to stop him. I behaved with great modesty when his parents thanked me - and kept thanking me - but inside, I was thinking Yay! I'm a Super Hero! Everyone should have the chance to save a child's life at some point. Probably not very fair on children, though.

CD: Have you ever had a life-changing event - if so what was it?
ACT: I'd like to say something grand and classical, but it was probably hearing Joy Division on the John Peel show when I was twelve or thirteen. I was captivated. It was because of them that I chose to go to Manchester University and it was there that I got into film and all that followed that. I guess it's always the things that happen to you early in your life that have the most influence on you.

CD: What is the saddest thing you've ever heard of or seen?
ACT: I went to visit someone in a care home and we had to walk through an enormous room that looked like an airport departures lounge. It was empty apart from an old woman and, as we passed, she said: 'I'm all on my own in an old peoples' home'.

CD: If there was one thing you'd change about yourself what would it be?
ACT: My temper! It even scares me sometimes.

CD: What is happiness?
ACT: Anticipation....

CD: What is the first thing you do when you get up?
ACT: Scamper down to the kitchen, make a coffee and go back to bed with a book. Even when I have an early start, I still need book, bed and caffeine before I can function.

China International Silk Forum Part 2

YAO Mu is an academician of China Academy of Engineering and an honorary chancellor of Xi’an University of Science and Technology, and is quite elderly. In China age is revered so the audience listened quietly (instead of talking throughout as they did with younger speakers), and there was a polite applause and some not-too-arduous questions when he'd finished. Later, when I encountered him standing by a table at the banquet, he nodded and indicated that I should sit (but unfortunately I was in the process of doing so already - displaying an embarrassing lapse of etiquette).


Silk in China, in some ways, seems to be an old man's game. One of the recent major successes has been to determine the genetic sequence of both the silk worm and the mulberry - a project headed by Xiang Zhonghuai Chongqing who is an octogenarian. This and other discoveries, such as the production of yellow, green and red mulberry silk (colour that is actually incorporated in the silk fibre itself) and the development of silk from other sort of silkworms – the tussah, the ricinus and the chestnut - are the result of the work of vast teams of people. Other work has been on how to use all of the silkworm - the cocoon, the pupa, and even the silkworm excreta – as well as all of the mulberry – the fruit as well as the branches after the leaves are gone.

(Poster seen in Chongqing showing varieties of silkworms, silk cocoons, silk moths and eggs)

Yao then reported on various other technical innovations including something called ‘embedded composite spinning technology’. This takes any natural short fibre or any synthetic fibre and allows it to be woven together with silk to produce a material with new properties. There have been other 'quantum leaps' too: silk can now be woven on broader and more sophisticated looms, and the dyeing process is also being greatly improved.

Yao Mu's talk was brief – a series of bullet points – as if he had no time to waste. China’s total textile production has increased hugely in the past few years, he said, mainly due to the increased production of artificial fibre. However, this domination of artificial fibre is unlikely to last for long. It depends on oil and oil is running out. This is why natural fibres such as silk need to be developed: they are renewable, recyclable, and degradable. Silk is a fibre for the future world.

China International Silk Forum 2009 Part 1.

It was a short trip down in the lift to the second floor for the forum. Everywhere I looked there were flowers - in the entrance halls, swathing the rostrum, in little displays down the side of the room. These were not ordinary flowers, either, to my mind they were great exotic blooms: lilies and great drooping heads that I couldn't identify.


There was also cloth. Every surface was covered in pastel shades of pinks and creams and decorated in flounces and bows: chairs, tables, side-tables...it snuffed out echoes. Voices didn't ring but sank immediately each soft surface.

As in everything I came across in China there were lots of people: people waiting to show me to my place, people helping me with my earphones, translators, white-coated waiters unobtrusively topping up the cups of green teas in front of us with more hot water and some people merely as decoration - young girls (Lisa called them 'beauties') dressed in fine (silk) costumes like sentries guarding the hall. Nothing involved just one person when it could involve three; just as nothing was left bare when it could be draped. China, it seems, is flush with people, fabric, flowers - and pretty much everything else too.

The Forum was bilingual - in Chinese and English - the talks simultaneously translated into the appropriate language to all the delegates. It seemed to be an exhausting business - the translators seemed to work in relays, a new one taking over as a tired one became more hesitant and then stopped; a female voice and then a male one and the same speaker in front of me still talking.

The dress code was 'smart'. This was something I wasn't used to; previously the conferences I have been have been academic and the dress code for them is usually casual to freaky, but this was trade and the men were expected to wear suits and ties. How lucky to be a woman then, and my casual outfit of cargo pants and T shirts, once dressed up with a necklace seemed perfectly acceptable.

The first part of the forum - which was only a day long - seemed to consist of welcome addresses and much anticipation of what the Forum would achieve. First the president of the China Silk Association, Yi Hui, spoke about the two previous forums in 2006 and 2007, and then how the 'world financial tsunami triggered by the US sub-prime crisis' had affected the global silk industry.


There then followed a welcome address from one of the political leaders of Hangzhou City. I found his speech quite interesting since he was obviously more used to speaking without a microphone and spoke very loudly (and somewhat aggressively to my ears, but I expect that is because I am not used to hearing politicians, at least in the flesh). Hangzhou, apparently, is the main production centre and export base of Chinese silk. There is a long history. He then mentioned the impact of the 'global economic financial crisis'. In fact everyone did.

QIAN Youqing, General Secretary of China Silk Association produced a lot of figures very rapidly. At first I tried to write them all down - until a Hong Kong silk merchant next to me pointed out they were in the accompanying handbook. There were also graphs. Until half way through 2007 the silk industry in China was doing very nicely: but then it stuttered a little and then, in October 2008 the financial 'tsunami' hit: mulberry trees were torn down, cocoon production stopped, and silk-reeling industrialists became bankrupt as the price of silk dropped.

I remember seeing the collapse of the Lehman Brothers on the news: the stunned faces of those made redundant, the heads shaking with disbelief, the people walking dazedly around with boxes of belongings. At the time I didn't understand its importance, and I'm not sure I understand it now, but I see its effect in my home town and I heard about its effect here. It seems incredible that the demise of one company should affect the lives of so many, but it does.

Happily, Chinese silk production has recovered since then. Its growth is being deliberately encouraged away from the already-developed east coast by grants and rewards. Since 2006 106 silkworm cocoon bases have been established in the central western and northeastern areas of this vast country. Mulberry plantations have been 'industrialized, upscaled, standardized, clustered, and scientized..' There are now zero-emission factories and waste heat is scrupulously recovered again and again.

Despite this China silk has one big problem - and it is a problem it shares generally with all industry in China. It relies on exportation and so is highly dependent on the outside world. It is like a low land and it needs to build itself flood defences; another wall. The population of China needs to have the confidence to spend. It needs to build its own market. At the moment a large proportion of the population save for their old age or in case they become ill. A good social welfare system would make this unnecessary and they would be free to buy what they wished - a computer, a new driveway to the house or a new dress of silk. These are not my ideas, but things I've read. To me it seems like encouraging China down the same slippery road from which the West has just tumbled. Somehow it seems to me like something is coming from nothing.

Mr. Qian also spoke about how China needed to learn from the West: to improve their research and innovation; to create brands and standardization; and to do all the 'green' things that everyone else should be doing.

It was a long talk, but very interesting, and by the end of it I felt I had a good idea of many things about China and found it quite exciting to hear the same ideas I'd only read about being talked about again by a Chinese industrialist.

Remembering: my brother.

The 11th day of the 11th month. Four years ago today my younger brother died. So when the two minute silence comes each year now I remember him. He wasn't a soldier but he fought his own battles. I suppose we all do.

China's New 'One Child' Policy.

When I arrived in my hotel in Hangzhou I was greeted by several people: Shawn who was organising the Silk Forum; a couple of more administrators and Lisa who is a third year undergraduate at Hangzhou university studying English, and a volunteer helper at the forum.

After a little bit of consternation over my payment (apparently not many people pay for themselves - usually my 'firm' would have transferred monies) they accompanied me to my room and made me feel thoroughly welcome.

"If you would like, I shall accompany you through the Forum. Would you like that?"


Lisa was a gracious and helpful companion. Through her I learnt a lot about Chinese life today. Lisa is about the same age as my sons and so grew up in a China where all the pupils in the school were only children. I have heard that through the one-child policy some people have thought that China is raising a nation of 'little emperors' with that child the focus of six adults' (two parents and four grandparents) aspirations and hopes. The responsibilities of that child are onerous - and likely to become more so as the parents and grandparents age and become dependent.

When I asked Lisa what she thought about the policy she didn't have much of an opinion. As she said, everyone in her class at school had no siblings so no one thought very much about it. I suppose if everyone around you is an only child it becomes the norm.

"I once asked my mother if she would have liked more children," Lisa said. "But she told me I was quite enough! Bringing up a child is expensive..." And I suppose Lisa's mother would have been born about the same time as me - when China had suffered such drought and flooding that there had been a famine and many had died of starvation. Lisa's mother would have grown up in a period of deprivation, and I expect 'one child' would have seemed eminently sensible in a country with too many mouths to feed.

Overpopulation is a difficult problem, and China's one-child solution has led to problems of its own. Since sons and their wives are the ones that traditionally look after the parents, daughters are seen by some as less desirable and this has led to stories of baby girls being abandoned or killed and, recently, to clinics which allow parents to select male foetuses (and discard the female ones). This in turn has led to an imbalance of more males than females, and there are stories of the difficulties of rural males finding a wife. Eligible females are in danger of being kidnapped according to one guide I read (China A to Z), and it warned marriageable lone females of Asiatic origin to be on their guard when travelling alone.

But recently things have changed, Lisa told me. In fact I was told this fact whenever I asked anyone about the one child policy. Now, in China, if both marriage partners are only children they are now allowed to have two offspring. Two, I suppose, is a better answer. Not all of those offspring will have children of their own, and so the population might level out and even decrease - but without all the problems experienced by the harsher 'one child' of the past. I suppose this will also go some way to ease the burden on the future young - looking after aging parents is so much easier when there is a sibling to share the burden.

The Card Game

I am beginning to wonder if I shall ever revert to UK time. At the moment - almost a week after I returned - I am still stuck in a day eight hours earlier than the day that takes place around me. I wake at 3am, then by 8pm feel so exhausted I stagger to my bed and instantly fall asleep. Acclimatising myself to Chinese time, in contrast, was much easier.

The 2009 China International Silk Forum was held in a swanky hotel in Hangzhou. The first night I was kept awake by the traffic so I changed rooms to the back of the hotel. The rest of the time I couldn't sleep because of the activities of the insomniacs above me. Their conversation started at about midnight and was accompanied by thuds - like the sound of a shoe being thrown to the floor.

I tried to drown the sound with my ipod and then two different sorts of ear plugs but it was no good. The sound of their voices would fade and I would begin to doze - only to be woken by another loud thud of something hitting my ceiling. At 4am I phoned the manageress and we listened together in the darkness.

"I think it's two old men." She said as the voices mumbled above us.
They obligingly threw down 'a shoe'.
"Like that?"
'Sometimes louder. I keep wondering what they're doing."
Another thud.
We laughed and then, after apologising for the disturbance, she left.

A few minutes later I heard the phone above me ring. There was another thud - louder than the rest - and then, at last, quiet.

Later, in a park in Chongqing, I noticed little groups of people playing cards - cards that were periodically thrown down with an exclamation. Given that Hangzhou is a place where people from Shanghai come for a rest, I believe these two men (and often others in the nights that followed) played cards all night and spent at least part of the day sleeping - and it was my misfortune to have a room beneath them.

So I spent my first few days in China in that strange over-awake state that comes from exhaustion...but this meant that when I did sleep (in Shanghai) I found that I fell into the Chinese day very well, and despite this was ready for the first day of the China International Silk Forum which began at 9am on Monday.

The West Lake Fairy Tale

A single dancer in traditional dress is lit in the middle of the lake. Sometimes she travels in a slowly moving boat - at other times it is as though she walks through the water itself. Around her music seems to waft like mist. Then, all at once, the shores of the lake are lit


every tree, every house, seems to have its own light, and the music surges into a crescendo that barely dies away.

I've told the story before, and in a lot of ways it doesn't matter. It is the spectacle that is the thing: the hundred dancers each holding a large white feather


and then the crane flying overhead. The lovers die, but they proceed triumphantly to heaven. Then the lights fade away, and the music too, and the rain which has been threatening all day starts to fall, warm gentle drops.

Space at the Lingyin Temple Hangzhou

The scent of a place lodges in some primeval part of the brain. I remember reading about it once - for me then the memory of my first few days in China is laid down between the petals of the Sweet Osmanthus.


The Osmanthus lined the path to the Lingyin Temple. Its peachy scent wafted between the call of a bird flute (played by a girl in the doorway of the single shop)


and the touch of rocks


rubbed dark


by the hands of the many pilgrims who climb


and pose.


The Buddha laughs


as well he might.

It is a strange thing that all at once the great religions of the China (and the rest of the world) suddenly evolved around 500 years BCE. However Buddha, Confucius, Tao just gave advice for good living, and considered themselves philosophers rather than gods. But, just as every man sees a face in the moon so he also has a natural inclination to make gods of men who have gone before him, as an explanation of why life goes wrong... or right.

It may be a bronze man

or a bronze woman

who need to be pacified with incense


and fires


and temples

each curving roof (upturned to divert the raindrops) festooned with animals of specified number.


In 328AD Master Huili came by horse

and established this temple 'opposite the Peak Flying from Afar', 'west of the West Lake' of Hangzhou with 'North Peak' as background and surrounded by woods. Here there many pavillions halls and rooms, and once 3000 monks discussing Zen. Since 1949 the temple has been renovated and rebuilt, and was the first temple 'open to the outside' in 1978. Now, each day, there are visitors as well as monks. There is little time for meditation except in the brief few moments it takes to waft around incense and arrange three sticks - past, present and future - in the sand.

People mill around, chatter, pray but do not contemplate. The world is now too crowded and there is too much to do. But behind the temple I discovered a lane.

And as my guide sheltered under an Osmanthus, I took a few steps along it on my own. Soon the voices died away and I knew at last it was possible, even in a nation of 1.3 billion people, to find a place alone and think: what am I doing with my life? Why am I here? Where do I go now?