Last Chance to See

encomiums. It was very hard to imagine anywhere in the Western world that would be capable of responding with such prodigious speed, imagination, and communal determination to such a problem. Although the committee told us that they hoped that, since Tongling had recently been declared an open city to visitors for the first time, the dolphins and the semi-nature reserve might bring tourists and tourist money to the area, it was very clear that this was not the primary impulse.
    At the end of our meeting they said, “The residents in the area gain some profit—that’s natural—but we have more profound plans, that is to protect the dolphin as a species, not to let it become extinct in our generation. Its protection is our duty. As we know that only two hundred pieces of this animal survive, it may go extinct if we don’t take measures to prevent it, and if that happens we will feel guilty for our descendants and later generations.”
    We left the room feeling, for the first time in China, uplifted. It seemed that, for all the stilted and awkward formality of the meeting, we had had our first and only real glimpse of the Chinese mind. They took it as their naturalduty to protect this animal, both for its own sake and for that of the future world. It was the first time we had been able to see beyond our own assumptions and have some insight into theirs.
    I ordered the Thousand-Year-Old eggs again that night, determined to try to enjoy them.

R ARE, OR
M EDIUM
R ARE?
    RICHARD LEWIS IS A MAN who has worked out a foolproof way of getting snappy answers to his questions.
    He drives his Land Rover (well, not actually
his
Land Rover, but the Land Rover of anyone foolhardy enough to lend him one) with what can only be described as pizzazz along Mauritian roads that were built with something less than pizzazz in mind. The roads are often narrow and windy, and where they are tarmacked, the tarmac tends to finish with an abrupt six-inch drop at the edge. Richard drives along these with a pizzazz that borders dangerously on élan, and when he asks you a question, he turns and looks at you and doesn’t look back at the road again until you’ve answered. Mortal terror is not the best state of mind in which to try and frame intelligent answers, but you have to try.
    We had managed okay with “How was the flight?” (“Fine!”) and “How was the meal?” (“Fine!”) and “Feeling jet-lagged?” (“We’re
fine
!”), but then we got to what he clearly regarded as being the crunch, so to speak.
    “Why are you coming all the way to Mauritius to look for some crappy old
fruit bat?
” The Land Rover veered frighteningly.
    One of the first things you need to know about Richard Lewis, indeed
the
thing you need to know about him, is that he’s an ornithologist. Once you know that, everything else more or less falls into place.
    “I just couldn’t figure it out,” he protested, twisted halfway around in his seat to harangue us. “You’re going to
Rodrigues?
To look for a
fruit bat?
It’s not even particularly rare.”
    “Well, it’s all relative,” protested Mark. “It may not be particularly rare by Mauritian standards, but it is the rarest fruit bat in the—”
    “Why don’t you stay here on Mauritius, for heaven’s sake?”
    “Well …”
    “What do you know about Mauritius? Anything?”
    “Well,” I said, “I know that … er, there’s a lorry coming …”
    “Never mind about that. I’ll take care of the lorries. What do you know about Mauritius?”
    “I know that it was originally colonised by the Dutch,” I said. “And when they left, it was taken over by the French, who lost it to Britain after the Napoleonic Wars. So it’s an ex-British colony, part of the Commonwealth. The inhabitants speak French or Creole. The law is basically English and you’re, er, supposed to drive on the left—”
    “All right, you’ve read the guide book. But do you know about the
birds
here? Don’t you know about the pink pigeon? The echo parakeet? Don’t you know about the Mauritius
kestrel?
”
    “Yes, but …”
    “Then why are you going off to the stupid island of Rodrigues to look for some ridiculous fruit bat? We’ve got a bunch of them here at the captive breeding centre if you really want to see one. Common as muck, stupid things. You’d be much better off staying here and seeing some
real
stuff.
Jesus!
”
    He had suddenly caught an inadvertent glimpse of the road ahead of us and had to