YEAR OF THE DRAGON

It started as an idea for doing a book about dragons in general. Then, as the Chinese Year of the Dragon was due Colin Webb, Pavilion's boss at the time, suggested calling it that and focussing on Chinese dragons. Because of the title I did a chapter on Chinese astrology which duly suggested doing a series of books upon each of the astrological signs in turn. We missed out on the Year of the Snake, which was a shame because the Serpent is a fascinating subject, but have done a couple of the other signs since. The wonderful thing about these books was that they gave Wayne and me a chance to explore Chinese culture. We never got to actually visit the country while doing them but on a spiritual level it was the next best thing. The wonderful thing about China, from a European viewpoint, is that for most of history the country developed in almost complete independence from the rest of the world and, faced with the same puzzles, the Chinese came up with often similar and often quite different solutions. From a historical perspective it's interesting that when they heard about the Roman Empire they were curious and happy to trade with it, but also unimpressed. And quite rightly too because the Roman Empire came and went in the blink of an eye by Chinese reckoning. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought an end to over three thousand years of continuous civilization but now China stands very interestingly on the edge of rediscovering its identity and it was a privelege to be able, in a very small way through these books, to have a chance to view the past and future through Chinese eyes.