Once I became interested in China, I flew to Beijing in 1996 to spend half a year studying Mandarin. The city stunned me. Cameras had failed to convey how much closer it was, in spirit and geography, to the windswept plains of Mongolia than to the neon lights of Hong Kong. Beijing smelled of coal and garlic and work-stained wool and cheap tobacco. In a claptrap taxi, with the windows sealed and the heat cranked up, the smell stuck to the roof of your mouth. Beijing was cradled by mountains, high on the North China plain, and in the winter the wind that rose in the land of Genghis Khan whistled
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