Bits from yesterday

So these are some bits I had forgotten yesterday. Walking across Tiananmen Sq. with someone distantly playing a Chinese flute - a very distinctive sound. The smell of the nanmu wood used in the buildings, - it repels bugs apparently whilst not bothering humans. A conversation with Nia our guide about the film Peking Opera Blues - which has an LGBT story in it if I remember correctly, she described it as a classic film which cheered me up and then pointed out wistfully two gay men in the crowd in front of us "so good looking but they are gay"...I hadnt clocked them. Good to see at some acceptance here. Also somewhere in the Summer palace amid the cacophony one of those chinese stringed instruments turning a view of the lake into something so perfectly matching my imagination.Read more