Kunming, 1989. I have a memory of which I've grown unexpectedly fond. There was a kind of tea garden where good citizens danced the evening away under fairy lights. Western steps by Chinese couples, their moves a touch stiff and awkward. The music was by Richard Clayderman, inexplicably popular and here piped thin and tinny for in those days everything in China - except perhaps food - seemed low-fi and dowdy. Even in a regional capital such as Kunming, these demure soirees were the height of cool.

Fourteen years later, I stand in Jinbi Square rubbing my eyes. Skyscrapers dribble garish neon, cars elbow cyclists from their beloved lanes and, along with everyone else, most couples are clearly sophisticated, sexy consumers, some of whom dine in revolving restaurants. There is choice and chutzpah, brand names and boutiques. Most recently in the spotlight as the place where David Beckham trained with his new team Real Madrid before their Far East tour, it is like another city in a different country. So absorbed was I by this heroic change that, stepping off the kerb against a red light into the path of clear air, I forgot that scowling wardens still scold one for being so bold.

Visited by Marco Polo, 13th-century Duck Pond Town became Yunnanfu, or Yunnan Town. Today it's the "City of Eternal Spring", a romantic tribute to its mild climate. But whereas some countries might be concerned with climate change, in the People's Republic it is all social and economic. The cities and towns moult with astonishing speed and swagger. In Kunming, a maturing hub on the edge of Indo-China, I wanted to catch a whiff of old, if not entirely venerable, China.

The former French legation stands in a compound just north of Green Park. Its mustard facade screens a square, sandy courtyard whose size is indicative of how, at the end of the 19th century and in building the railway to Hanoi, the French really did mean business. Now a school, one wing is used for exhibitions. On display was an astonishing collection of photographs, mostly of Kunming, taken by Auguste FranVois, who was consul general in the city from 1896. Street scenes, markets, opium dens, beggars and decapitated criminals showed an exotic but impoverished and unstable country. Officials and local worthies gazed squarely at the camera, and there were few "pretty" pictures, except perhaps those of some of Yunnan's ethnic minorities dressed in their finest.