Then it is a string of sandy islets, each bigger than the last, forming a chain we must pass through. There are thirty degrees of heat on deck and the sun has a yellow-grey bruise around its throbbing eye. More islands rise in small pointed mountains as we come upon a line of junks. It is like seeing New York’s skyscrapers and yellow cabs for the first time, the same dizzy exultation at watching the legends resolve to truths in front of you. The junks have formed a line abreast and are carrying out a sweeping trawl, their stern castles arranged in a neat curve. On the nearest deck ten men are bringing in miles of net, hauling by hand, a rhythmic tug-of-war with a tolerant sea. They wear blue boiler suits and conical straw hats. It is something about the overlap between what you have heard, what you have seen, the assumption you make that things are not quite like that and the discovery that the world really is like that which makes the sight of fishermen in conical hats so pleasing. Chinese junks and Chinese hats – what cliché next?
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