Weighed myself at the gym and have hit 10st 8lb, a sure sign of things getting out of control—so I can’t even console myself with a chocolate biscuit.

Nine months of intensive Fuzhounese lessons got me only so far in listening comprehension of the local chitchat in Longyan. Once I opened my mouth and needed to communicate predominantly in the national dialect of Mandarin (with a smattering of simple Fuzhounese), phenotype be damned—my foreignness was marked.

a typical steam drive

Madame Legarde, the glass of fashion and the nurse of form, (alias the most fashionable of milliners,) has comfortably assured me, that my figure has great merit, and only requires cultivation: this is to be done by tissues, brocades, and laces, which are now scattered round me in charming confusion.