[Wexford is tired of his Chinese guide giving him lectures on Chinese political structure.]
In order to get his visa, he had to put down on his application form his religion and politics. He had selected, not without humour, the most stolid options: Conservative, Church of England. Sometimes he wondered if these reactionary entries had been made known by a form of red grapevine to his guide. (chapter 2)

AUTHOR'S NOTE

For the transcribing of Chinese words and Chinese proper names into English I have used both the Wade-Giles and the Pinyin systems. While Pinyin is the officially endorsed system in the People's Republic, Wade-Giles, which was evolved in the nineteenth century, remains more familiar to Western readers. So I have used each where I have felt it to be more appropriate and acceptable, e.g., the modern Pinyin for Lu Xing She, the Chinese International Travel Service, but Ching rather than Xing for the name of the last imperial dynasty, and I have used Mao Tse Tung in preference to the Pinyin Mao Zedong. (p. 9)