The national symbol of China

Over the last few days, I've spent a lot of time staring out of train windows. Nothing unusual about that, you might think, except that for me it is a little unusual. Normally, I end up travelling during the night and I travel by train infrequently. Reverse those two things - put me on a train during the day - and staring out of the window becomes irresistible.

What I see out of those windows isn't particularly inspiring - towns and cities never present their best side to the railway tracks - but it is interesting. The route, from Kowloon to Guangzhou and back takes you through a lot of cities, including Shenzhen, where the device you're reading this on was probably made. People going about incomprehensible lives, millions of them. Skyscrapers and apartment blocks marching into the haze of pollution on the horizon. A dozen kites. Adverts the size of tennis courts for iPads. Red neon signs and the red flag.

And building works: green netting clad colossi rising from the countryside. See one, a cluster of half a dozen or so skyscrapers emerging from the ground and it's remarkable. And then, five miles lat, you see another bunch. Then another and another and another. And it's not remarkable anymore, until you realise how remarkable that is. Who is building all these things? Who will live in them? What will they do? Where will they come from? The scale; the incredible scale of it beggers the mind.

The national bird of Japan, I believe, is the crane. The national symbol of China is the same.