Middle Kingdom traps the senses

JAN CORBETT is not put off by China's eccentricities - just don't offer her a Mao Tai.

Tell people you're leaving to travel through Europe or America and they always wish you a wonderful time. But say you're heading to China and the response is invariably the same: have a safe trip.

Certainly there were shots for hepatitis, pills for diarrhoea, talk of malaria and typhoid, advice to never eat uncooked food or drink tap water or even brush your teeth with it.

All of it is good advice - and all of it somehow adding to the mystery of China rather than detracting from it.

Ironically, the Chinese don't want to catch anything nasty either. Their Frontier Health and Quarantine Authority warns "persons arriving in China" they may have been exposed to something truly fearful while outside the People's Republic.

The health declaration form not only asks you to declare whether you have suffered from Aids or HIV, venereal disease or pulmonary tuberculosis, but also asks whether you have a psychosis.

Curiously, though, there was no one at the airport to collect the form - or was that just a figment of my psychosis?

Yes, the streets are treacherous to cross, given the teeming hordes on bicycles, and they can be dusty or muddy, except in Shanghai, where they are cleaned twice daily and littering is an offence - as is that peculiarly Chinese custom of gurgling up phlegm from around the tonsils and propelling it onto the pavement, a nasty little habit which we call hoicking.

And, of course, the squat toilets throughout China - even in some of the restaurants and airports - are beyond description.

But the food - pork, chicken, fish, dumplings, green vegetables, tofu, garlic and melons - is marvellous, with plenty of familiar and delectable alternatives to snake, turtle, pig's ear or cow's stomach, if you're not feeling up to such delicacies.

And those who doubt the Chinese ability to do sweets have never been there for the mid-autumn Mooncake Festival - a celebration of the sweet pastry filled with smooth, rich caramel and sometimes nuts.

The Chinese-brewed lager-like beer, or pijau, is faultless; the local wine, sadly, has a way to go. But then there is Mao Tai, a pungent and potent rice wine that I still believe is a Chinese trick on Westerners.

Served in nip-sized glasses, this clear, 50-proof alcohol tastes like something that turned rancid a very long time ago. Strangely, it doesn't taste like that immediately, rather the flavour arrives several minutes after you've knocked a shot back, and lingers for several days.

Not to toast with Mao Tai is to cause considerable cultural offence, we were warned, until we noticed many Chinese do not necessarily toast with it either.