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"How is it you speak Putonghua? Most Guangdong people speak only Guangdonghua." He was born in Guangdong but now he is a worker in Zhengzhou. He explains how he moved to Zhengzhou but breaks off when he realises that my Chinese is too basic to follow him. He fishes out a pack of cigarettes and offers me one. I smoothly push his hand away. No, no, you are too polite. He moves my hand away, offers the pack again. The amenities over, I accept one. He lights my cigarette with a match held inside a closely cupped hand. I offer him peanut candy. He pushes my hand away. I shake several out onto his lap. He smiles, "thank you, thank you."

We try to stay in a Zhaodaisuo, a dormitory for Chinese travellers. We are asked for ID. Alee produces a Chinese ID which says he is Chinese. They look at him doubtfully. "You were born in Fujian?" "Yes, in Fujian." They study the ID card again. Maybe you are Chinese but your friend is definitely a foreigner,therefore you must stay at the foreigners' hotel or The Friendship Hotel. We try three others but it is the same. Finally we check into the Jiefang Hotel close to the railway station, 15 times more expensive than a zhaodaisuo.

The original Forbidden Palace was built before Columbus sailed from Spain. Damaged, rebuilt and restored countless times, the current version is huge, sprawling. Everything in China seems larger than life, bigger than anything I am accustomed to. By comparison, our Red House is tiny. Walking around the Palace I grow tired. I cannot help thinking that watching the movie The Last Emperor was more comfortable, and instead of seeing thousands of tourists, I try to imagine Pu Yi striding around attending to his amazing collection of clocks.

We walk out of Tiananmen, The Gate of Heavenly Peace, onto Tiananmen Square which is - need I say it? - vast, sprawling. At the Monument to the People's Heroes Alee becomes very quiet as he remembers the Tiananmen Incident of June 4, 1989.

When he wipes his eyes I walk away for it is a private moment. Several families are flying kites, young couples laze in the afternoon sun. Beijing youth are trendy, marginally less than Hong Kong youth, light years ahead of Fujian youth.

I want to try Beijing Roast Duck at the cheap restaurant Paul Theroux wrote about in Riding The Iron Rooster, but after an hour of searching we give up and eat at a traditional restaurant bustling with families. Alee orders cow's tendons and frog's legs which I timidly try. The beer is light but very cold and good.

The tables around us are crowded and noisy, everyone eating, laughing and talking at the same time. In the north I noticed an absence of the finger game so popular in the south - two drinkers would rhythmically stick out several fingers and try to guess the combined number of fingers; the loser has to take a drink.

The Great wall begun 2,000 years ago. It is 10,000 li or 5,000 km long. It is said to be the only man-made structure that can be seen with the unaided eye from the moon. The Chinese, Alee tells me, say, Until one walks on the Great Wall one is not a man.


We take a maxi-taxi in the morning which takes us to the Ming Tombs and we arrive at the Badaling section of the Wall at 4 pm, 70 km from Beijing. Badaling is full of street vendors and shops selling souvenirs, the same as Xian.

We walk uphill along the Wall among hundreds of sight-seers. Workmen are repairing the Wall with mortar. Vendors are selling Wall T-shirts, Mao buttons, swords, jade dragons.

The afternoon is hot, the Wall is long and I am tired and thirsty. Alee is pensive, perhaps it is a significant moment for him. I look for a soft drink vendor and have to haggle the price down to 1 yuan each.

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