We finally visited China. We have been to Hong Kong before, but that is not China. As Sheilen says, Hong Kong feels provincial now, compared to Shanghai.

Indeed, once in China, you cannot ignore the size - of anything. Everything is large: the crowds, the roads, the number of buildings in a complex, even the size and thickness of dumplings. Even the size of the people seem bigger. For some reason, Chinese in Singapore or Thailand or Indonesia seem  s m a l l e r  in height and width. But maybe I am just imagining things. One tends to do a lot of imagining in China. As I said, one becomes very sensitised to size - and hence the universe also seems to enlarge in dimension and imagination. 

I will post over coming weeks several observations about China. Armchair observations gathered over a week of glimpses. I do not propose that I know much about China at all other than as a tourist and an admirer of Zhang Yimou films! I did not see one red lantern. But red I did see, on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai. Red coats, red shirts, red shoes, red trousers! Lots of red trousers. The Chinese wear red proudly. And you know? Red - bold and brazen, fresh and fearless - looks great, almost all the time. Red rules.