Reflections

The children were looking at the plump golden carp in the pond; their grandfather seemed to be looking into the past..

Sunday at the Slender Lake, and all of Yangzhou, young and old were out to see the first signs of spring - the crans nesting in lakeside trees, the paeonies thrusting long red hands from the soil, black branches bursting suddenly with the pinks and whites of blossom: peach, plum, cherry, almond, pomegranate..

And all around us young girls were swathing their shining black hair with wreaths made from newly leaved willow wands and winter jasmine