ABSTRACT

It began on what was to be my first free Monday, post mid-term exams. Having just finished two books I was casting about for something to do with all my new spare time. This was one of those situations when I most sorely missed the cultural opportunities of Western (and perhaps other Asian, non-Chinese) cities, i.e., museums, galleries, libraries, concerts, ballets, a café culture, and so on. All of those things pertaining to China’s past, so-called bourgeois pursuits or the outside world Mao Tse-tung had destroyed, and thus far only capitalism and consumerism had emerged in their place.