A kite being flown in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

“let’s go fly a kite,

up to the highest height”

One of the many wonderful experiences I had in China was causing a bit of a fuss by flying a kite in Tiananmen Square.

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Picture the scene if you will. The year is 1991. Operation Desert Storm was in full swing in the gulf and Boris Yeltsin was elected president of Russia. However, Hong Kong hasn’t been handed back to the Chinese yet and I, along with a work colleague, have been taken through dark, foreboding, alley-ways in that former UK territory and have been left in a dingy room with paint peeling from the walls, an empty mold-ridden fish tank in the corner, and a battered old sofa, that looks like a relic left over from the Opium War, stuck in the centre. The room is illuminated by a single 100W light-bulb hanging, shadeless, from the ceiling. The bulb sways gently in the breeze that’s coming in through the glassless window, and casts sharp, ominous, shadows that sway to and fro in syncopation.

And the only thing that’s going through my head at this point is the thought, “oh s*** we’re going to die!”