China, circa 2000

I took this picture from a hotel room in Beijing. It reminds me of my early days in China, before the development when the hutongs were still relatively intact. I spent a lot of time in courtyard houses like this in the early 1980s.

They were not insulated at all and were heated with little iron stoves that burned coal powder bricks and poured thick, yellowish smoke out of stovepipes all over the city. That smoke always made me think of the T.S. Eliot line about "yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes."

More from the same window.

Anna and I stayed in a little hotel years ago in a courtyard much like the one painted red and green here. I remember it had a very cheap plastic telephone with a cartoon character on it and a crude toiletry kit from one of the old state-owned enterprises. I saved the kit as an artifact of those disappearing days. I don't know if we still have it.

My photographer, Ritsu, took this picture soon after I switched newspapers. I always liked it, even though I wasn't there when she took it. It was a scene with which I was very familiar.