2nd September, 1985, Beijing

China is so endlessly tatty. The campus [where I live and work] is a continual building site but the new buildings look no fresher than the old. Driving from the airport, after a 19 hour sleepless flight, the road reminded me of France, with its tree lining and the road itself slightly raised above fields of trees.

Mr Shen [school representative in charge of foreign teachers] attentive and kind after a sticky beginning. Not very good English. All the figures on the road started off [in my initial impression] as Western people and turned into Chinese when we approached. Warm but not too hot. The campus is about ten kilometres from Tiananmen Square - a good solid trip by bike. Is the bike which is being 'loaned' to me a temporary or a permanent loan? There are new quarters being built for the foreign teachers, but I get the feeling that me [sic] and the other girl who is coming are meant to stay put [in this building]. This block itself is quite new but so drab; the feel of it is not their fault, as no room can feel lived in that has a new occupant each year, but the loo is filthy and I have not yet worked out how to have a shower without boiling myself alive. And to get to the shower you have to climb over the loo. The kitchen, similarly, is just dirty and tatty and difficult to keep orderly......

Not feeling too miserable; just tired, clean and a little lost. Wanting something to happen and doubting my courage, in advance, to do all that I have to do....

They eat so early here: I dined in state with Mr Shen on beautiful food, but at 5:30, and it is now only 8:30.

31st August 1985

Such a perfect evening in Horley, just by Gatwick [airport], staying in a guest house before my flight [to Beijing] tomorrow morning. The journey straining, because of my suitcase, bag, and typewriter, but at Reading, an hour's wait, resting my arms on the open window. The end of one of the few real summer days this year. Blue sky with fluffy white clouds against occasional dark grey. The country so green and soft and full from the last few months of flood.

Then this evening, through the churchyard to an old pub, where I ate outside, there being no room inside; midges in the air, and the air itself just chilling but kind and very still. The clouds turning orange as I read Graham Swift's Waterland. Dreaming. Neck tingling.

After eating, walking further through the garden to the river. Cows on the far side, steep banks, a willow, thick grass, the water quite swift. Never silent because of the 'planes and the road, but entrancing. The sky shading from pale blue through white to silver, and the pink, the silver reflecting in the water.

Back to the churchyard and into the church; nice young woman explains its history, mostly medieval. There is an old man who remembers being confirmed in the church during the war. Beautiful brass of the calmest of wimpled ladies.

Back through the graveyard. Earlier, when I had been eating, there was a fair American girl who came to talk to me, and now there are Americans who overtake me wandering. The most English of days.

25th August 1985

A week 'til I go to China; I have stopped thinking about it really, stopped imagining what it might be like to live there. The only thing which keeps running in my head is arriving, being met. I am not even thinking that I will soon be teaching......

20th June, 1985

Whilst moving house, I came across a very partial diary for the year that I went to China for the first time: 1985-6. I'll be posting a few excerpts here. Forgive the tone: I was 22, and very young. The first is from before I went -

Learned yesterday that I have a place teaching English in Peking for next year. I have not yet been told if I have a place in Sichuan. But I am going, most definitely going. Spending an hour each day trying to learn Mandarin. Scared, excited. It was a mindless decision, to go to China; I still don't know why, but I shall go. It is a determination with no basis. Will I find myself over the abyss with only a crumbling will to hold onto? A feeling of floating, of baselessness, but of calm. Calm in the long summer evenings. About to go to Edinburgh so stay with [friend] Peter....

We have come full circle: 23 years later it is I who live in Scotland, and Peter who came to visit me just after Christmas.