Nostalgia for ancient China

A lovely Chinese woman, Wei, from the city of Urumqi, in the north western corner of China, stayed here the other night in the room over looking the tower of the Duomo. Sometimes, although a guest is staying only one night, there is an interesting  and memorable exchange, and this was one of those meetings. 

Wei came out onto the balcony and looked at the view over the ancient buildings of Siena: she wanted to know when it was built  and I told her the height of Sienese power would be  around 1300- when some of these buildings were first constructed. She immediately countered that it would have been the Yuan dynasty in China. She was passionate about history and traditions; she was fascinated by the way  Siena has preserved its traditions, and she lamented the loss of all such things through the Cultural Revolution in China. She said : 'we must learn again from the Japanese and the Koreans.' (I am not sure Xi Jinping agrees...)
 We ended up watching Bertolucci's The last Emperor: which she had seen three times already, but she said she could never get enough of it...