BACK IN THE OLD DIPLOMACY DAYS

DRINKSTER gives good suit: My people have just sent these images to remind me of a meeting we had with the mayor of the City of the Moon, Yangzhou, a lifetime ago. We were in China to discuss the establishment of wineries. I had long believed that to learn the best way of approaching the Chinese market was to study its 5000 year old tea trade. I came home convinced. On my right is our interpreter, Mr Zhou, who was the best and wittiest practitioner of that art. On my left are Morgan and Dennis Vice, of Highbank, the first organic vineyard in Coonawarra, who helped arrange the meeting through the Green Triangle association and the South Australian Trade Commission. Morgan was killed in a car smash soon after we came back to Australia. He was a real good friend, whom I miss to this day. But it was the harvest moon celebration that night in Yangzhou,  and they turned the lights off in a city of four million, lit the lanterns, set off the fireworks and boogied and drank all night. It had been a good harvest. The sky was full of the purple smoke of burning rice husks and straw as the full moon glooped up through it like the yolk of a big goose egg. Jeez we had fun! I love Yangzhou. It's the duck's guts. Go there soon!