Once I had gained the trust of a group of traders I was directed to a small workshop within the market. Here I met a man who stood at a machining lathe. We spoke with him for a couple of hours before he called two other friends who knew a little more about falconers.
After I had treated them to lunch they again called another friend who was Mr.Sun. He came by taxi and brought his kite in the shape of a hawk, and I was beginning to think the day was going to be fruitless.

Mr. Sun now sixty two years old had flown hawks from the age of nine but in 1992 he stopped flying goshawks when he moved to a smaller apartment. He had continued with small falcons until he felt that the pressure from the authorities had taken all the fun out of it.

These days he fly's a hawk kite in Tiananmen Square and probably gets a bit of satisfaction as he fly's it over the huge edifice of power.

He was really fascinated to share his interest and see from my photographs how falconry is practised in the west. Before he left he instructed one of our friends to phone a practising falconer within the city.

At last, but the journey became so involved that we thought we had moved into bandit country.