In 1981 we went to Jiangxi and Fujian. The high point was walking in the Wu Yi Mountains, on the border of the two provinces. These mountains are not high by Chinese standards though they are higher than any in Britain. But they are icleal for hiking, even when it snows , as it did when we climbed them. The lower slopes are planted to tea bushes; above them tower spectacular crags, sheer precipices and massive rocks cleft by narrow paths You can scarcely squeeze thraugh them -especially after the continuous banqueting which is hard to avoid during
the Spring Festival.

    But the biggest banquets are not always the best. Years ago, I remember, as the festival approached, there would be a dance in the students' dining hall, to which we teachers were invited. Then there was the finest feast of all; great buckets and cauldrons of steaming laba zhou<腊八粥), a thick, sweet porridge of glutinous rice full of green beans, candied fruit, peanuts and lotus kernels.It wasn't these ingredients alone which made the laba zhou delicious. It was the jolly atmosphere, with students, teachers, cooks and cadres all enjoying themselves together.

    In 1980 we spent the Spring Festival in Chengdu and there I got another shock. On the first day of the lunar new year - we visited a famous temple. The street outside the main gate was lined with sellers of incense. People were queuing up by the hundred to buy it and burn the incense and chant and bow, even to kowtow, as they made the rounds of the temple statues. At first I felt sad. Here we were, over 30 years after Liberation, in a socialist country, and people were still doing this!

We discussed it and concluded that it had its good side. It takes time to create a scientific world outlook and these ancient practices and beli fs had evidently never been rooted out. They had simply gone underground, especially during the days of the Gang of Four. Nlow, four years after the gang's overthrow, the people felt free and unafraid, to do in the open what had been hidden in their he rts and homes. In any case, these incense burners were not a cross-section of the people.

They were mostly old ladies with little bound feet, who'd been deprived of education. But then with them were their grandchildren, some wearing red scarves. That seemed terrible. Young Pioneers worshipping idols!In the end I realized that the children didn't beIieve the idols controlled their fate. They were looking after their grannies, helping them over the temple thresholds and showing them the way. So I thought, that's what they'll do as they grow up. They'll show their grannies the way into a modernized, socialist China.

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