It's noon on a Saturday in early May, my second day in China. Six of us from the new China Corelab joint venture have just been dropped at one end of the Beijing Lu bazaar in Canton. We have exactly an hour and half to equip two laboratories: one for palynological preparation, the other for micropalaeontological processing. Then we rush back to the office to meet a microscope salesman from Hong Kong while our driver heads into the country to collect our chemicals. Monday we must start preparing samples; the final biostrat report on our first well is due in six weeks.

For our shopping expedition we are equipped with the equivalent of US $120 in local currency and a bilingual shopping list. This list was laboriously compiled yesterday using an English-Chinese dictionary, sketches, pantomime, and chemical formulae.While working on our list, my Chinese colleague, Mr Li, and I had taught each other three phrases: "Follow me!", "Wait a moment!", and "No problem!" These remain the mainstay of our verbal communication for the next several weeks.

Overhead the tropical sun, hidden for months, is burning up last puddles of rainwater, producing the atmosphere of a steambath. The entire pavement, and much of the road, is occupied by a slowly moving tide of humanity. On either side of Beijing Lu, small shops overflow their wares, casually displaying everything from vegetables to Brunton compasses. Here and there, red-white-and-blue plastic awnings provide welcome shade. The tantalizing smell of frying dumplings fills the air, and our ears are assailed with a medley of Chinese opera, hooting horns, and a cheery disco arrangement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

The six of us squeeze into the first shop, filling all the available floor space. Shelves along the walls carry dusty samples of glassware: elaborate hand-blown chemistry apparatus among the more mundane beakers, flasks and test tubes.The owner greets us casually from behind the tiny counter; in an alcove beside him, his wife continues stirring the contents of a wok fired by coal-dust briquettes. We place our order. After some negotiation, money changes hands. Five minutes later we are shooed onto the pavement; our order is being carefully lowered with rope from the loft above in a large, musty-smelling basket.

Next door, we find test tube racks, cleaning brushes, and pipette bulbs. Progressing down the road, we acquire a hot plate, then microscope slides, then brushes and glue for mounting forams, lab coats, lens paper, forceps, gloves, sieves, slide boxes, tweezers, face masks, covered enamel storage boxes, and a hydrometer. Soon all of us are laden with newspaper parcels tied with pink plastic strong and dozens of tiny receipts. Only the centrifuge remains unpurchased; we must get it from a shop at the far end of Beijing Lu where the driver will meet us.

The noonday crowd, which has somehow tripled in size since we entered the bazaar, appears almost stationary. But before I can despair of ever reaching our destination, Mr Li unhooks a finger from his parcels and grasps my sleeve. Suddenly we are in the middle of the street, being rapidly carried along by the crowd.

Even after the centrifuge is procured we have ten minutes before the van is due. We find seats on wooden crates outside the shop and drop our packages with relief. Mr Huang - another of our Chinese colleagues - disappears, but returns in a few minutes gleefully bearing bottles of bright orange soft drink. Sitting here in the semishade, sipping warm sweet soda pop, I try to remember whether I have ever enjoyed consulting palynology this much.

On the long drive back to the office, Mr Li presents me with a pair of snow-white cotton gloves. I try them on; they fit perfectly. I am touched but somewhat bemused; does Mr Li consider white gloves requisite of correct foreign-devil-woman attire? I am soon to find that, in the humidity of Canton, they are indispensable as liners for our rubber gloves.

Exactly a week later, our first 48 samples have gone through acid digestion, and I have already taught Mr Li (who has never used a typewriter) how to enter our South China Sea species into the database of our new IBM-XT computer. We have failed to obtain zinc bromide, so now, swathed in masks and rubber aprons, we are following directions in a Chinese chemistry book for the manufacture of zinc iodide to serve as our heavy liquid. Pellets of elemental zinc are bubbling violently in a flowered enamel basin. Hydrogen iodide is staining the pristine walls of our new fumehood nicotine-brown. Various sceptics have predicted we will not emerge alive; I am beginning to believe them.

The basin is about to overflow when I am hailed from outside; Mr Chiu Gin is here from Hong Kong with our microscopes! By the time we can leave the lab, our office has been buried in cartons and styrofoam peanuts. Amidst the clutter on the desks, three Leitz microscopes, straight from Germany, are in various stages of assembly. Mr Chiu, a Geotechnical Engineer who has never seen such 'scopes before, is puzzling out how they fit together.

He calls me over. "Here, Madame, please sign here. I show you. Everything is here. Special ice pieces. Extra bombs. Extra fumes." He points to the high-point eyepieces. The bulbs. The fuses.

Indeed, everything is here. Well, nearly everything .... we still could use a few minor items. Proper chairs, for example. And space. (Five of us are now working in an area of less than 12 square metres; within three weeks that number will have swelled to nine!)

By late Monday afternoon, propped on stacks of cartons, legal pads, and reprints, we are looking at our first mounted specimens. Just as they jump into focus, the power flickers and dies. "Mo mon ti!"" (No problem!) "Gung ngo lei!" (Follow me!) "Dung yut tchung!" (Wait a moment!) We move outside to the washing trough. Sitting in the sun, surrounded by red hibiscus blooms and sweet-smelling jasmine, we scrub test tubes.

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A version of this article first appeared in CAP Newsletter 9(1):3-4, 1986. A shorter version appeared in PALYNOS 9(2):4-5, 1986. The article appears here with permission of Mary Lynn Richardson.