I slipped into China in 1980-81. The streets of Shanghai were sticky with mud, the Bund dilapidated, its mercantile buildings from heroic Gothic to flash Art Deco requisitioned as flats. Washing flapped from the filthy balconies and windows in the Huangpu River’s breeze. The art gallery had no labels in English, and the noise was a jangle of bicycle bells. Shanghai was a third world city.

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