I live in Guangxi where the mountains look like giants’ fingertips sticking up out of their graves, where there is always a fine watery mist feeding our crops and rotting the walls of our houses, where I am lucky not to be working the fields. I am a modern girl and have learnt to type and use the internet which I use to chat to people who will never see the material me. It’s quite a comfort at times. I work in one of the Western bars in the town and cycle seven kilometres to work in the morning and back again in the blanket of the night. My parents think I am being corrupted by mixing with the tourists and they have started to worry about my future. I tell the foreign men I am a Catholic. They understand my message and they always back off.