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If you travel north east from the centre of Zhuhai, away from the sky scrapers and underground markets, you will come to the rundown neighbourhood of Tangjia district. Amongst the tea shops and junk garages the street vendors gather in groups, sitting on empty crates or old cable reels, and play loud games of cards and complicated rounds of chess. Leaving this curious town you can cross a wide bridge, over fishing boats and old fashioned junk ships, and come to Qi’ao Island. On one side of the road there stands a school, once a gleaming white, now a little grey around the edges. On the other side of the street is a thicket of scrub behind which lies the beach. I’d like to tell you it’s a white sandy beach with crystal clear water, but unfortunately it is the opposite. The sand is a murky brown leading to a murky brown sea and littered along the beach is a whole load of rubbish. For some reason the rubbish is mostly foam-based; pieces of playroom mats, flip flops and giant alphabet letters cover the ground, hiding more sinister objects beneath. I would recommend keeping your shoes on round here. Towards the end of the beach is a large rock, grey, wide and flat on top, jutting out over the sea. This is where you will find me sitting, with a Snow in my hand at around 4 o’clock in the afternoon, recovering from another day spent “teaching” in the boarding school you have just passed. It is a hot day but the humidity isn’t as high as it was last week and the slight breeze coming from the water is as refreshing as the beer I am drinking. I am sitting on this comforting rock, watching as five or six people (and a dog) jump from an old wooden boat that has just pulled up on the beach and begin to rummage through the piles on the sand, holding their finds up and shouting in a dialect I do not recognise, when I notice I am being watched from the road. There is a man straddling a moped at the side of the road, about eight yards away. He is looking straight at me so, deciding not to feel uncomfortable, I raise my hand in a light wave. He waves back. I turn back to the sea and the beach, where the scavengers have started a fire and the dog is chasing gulls. There is a rustle behind me and I turn to find the stranger seeking his own position on my rock. “Hello” he says, breaking into a wide smile. “Hello” I reply, smiling back. He is anywhere between 14 and 25 and his smile though sincere, is a little preoccupied. He looks at the blue sky for a little while then in slow and deliberate English says, “The sun is shining”. I agree that it is shining and ask him his name. He does not reply. On the beach a gull squawks as it tries to evade the dog, and as it flies over our heads we both look up, watching it pass. “The bird is flying” says the stranger, giving me a searching look. I agree once more, and point out to him that “the dog is running.” With this he seems satisfied, and stands to return to his moped. I give him a nod, assuming our interaction is over. On the beach the scavengers are preparing to leave, one has the dog in his arms, another scatters sand over the fire to put it out, while the rest begin to drag the junk back onto the water. Within a moment the stranger is back at my side, holding something in his hand. “The fish is swimming” he says, producing a goldfish in a small plastic bag of water. “Yes it is” I agree, wondering where he has produced it from, the amusement park on the island being long since abandoned. In one swift move the bag containing the fish is thrust into my hand, and the stranger has mounted his moped and left, leaving only words behind him, “the fish is for you.”