Another of mine ~~ less wonderful, than memorable for being sort of odd ~ anomalous...

My wife and I were in China in April 1989 {not that long before Tienanmen, by when I had come home but she was caught right up in it}, on the faculty of Beijing Language University: she as English Language Senior Lecturer on a year's contract, I as British Council Lecturer in English Folksong for a term.

We had gone south for a week as guest lecturers in the Guangxi Normal University in Guilin, which at the time boasted {& I mean boasted!} what they claimed to be the most up-to-date computer centre in China; of which we were of course given a tour. It was back before microchip miniaturisation brought us the home computer & the laptop. What we had was one of those huge rooms full of winking linked screens.

It was in the corner of the block, & the University was right on the edge of town overlooking open country. I looked out of a window of this enormous ultimate-in-hi-tec room to an adjacent field.   Twenty yards away from me, a barefoot peasant was laboriously following a wooden ox-drawn plough...

True.

~Michael~