China Blues

I think you can rate the success of any trip abroad by how relieved and happy you feel to be home as your plane makes its final approach to land you back in Britain.

Flying into Heathrow last month I was pretty much off my head with joy. Gazing down as we circled over a rich tapestry of scruffy fields and housing estates stitched together with arterial roads and gravel pits, I felt a rush of affection for the landscape, coupled with a surge of relief to be home. It takes a lot to make a person’s soul sing out at the sight of Hounslow. In my case, it takes spending the best part of three weeks in China.

This is not to say that China isn’t a fascinating place. I spent most of my time on an island off Xiamen, an industrial hotspot at the mouth of the Jiulong (Nine Dragon) River roughly equidistant from Hong Kong and Shanghai.