This morning I had to get up at 6.30 to go and “act” in a mini-series for Chinese national TV. After less than four hours sleep and no caffeine I wasn’t in much of a state to be convincing but fortunately there was no sound recording taking place, so my badly-spoken line will be dubbed over in Chinese. The series is about Sun Yat-Sen’s second wife, one of those interminable historical dramas that fill the schedules of the national broadcaster. Not being a watcher of these I’m not sure how big a deal this all was, but a couple of the proper actors looked familiar. Us foreigners were supposed to be Russian journalists, dressed in dinner suits for some reason, asking the dignified stateswoman unreasonable questions.
We were back by 2pm, in time for the now regular mid-afternoon nap.