A few weeks after my return from China, after having painstakingly sorted and named all my pictures, I show them to my sister, her family and her friends. My sister lives in Verderio Inferiore, a nice small town which, thanks to its location near the Adda river, with no bridges crossing it, resisted to the advance of the "progress", to some extent at least.

I show this picture:

and I say that retail dealers in China work and live at the same time in their shop, and my sister answers "Well, it happens here as well: the stationer around the corner helps her son to do the homework in her shop".

I show another picture:

and I speak about the Chinese "lively" countryside, and she says "Well, here too Giuan goes along by bicycle, the spade on his shoulder, to go and farm his kitchen garden".
I show yet another picture and she says again "Well, here too..." and, as she speaks, I am increasingly taken by a doubt: WHAT IF MY TRAVEL TO CHINA WERE USELESS???