I was strolling around the temple area and saw a crowd gathered around something on the street. 
I was on one of the quieter streets which lead out of Fuzi Miao and I assumed that there was a street performer.
As I got closer I realised that there was no noise coming from the crowd or the street performer and wondered whether it was a conjurer or a mime artist. My curiosity was aroused. As I got closer still I could see over the tops of the short Chinese, that there were some policemen in the cleared space.
I wondered whether they were clearing someone away. I had seen them clearing away fortune tellers on several occasions and it always draws a crowd. But I still couldn’t work out why everyone was so quiet.
Pushing myself through the small crowd I saw the main attraction, a dead body lying on its back in the shape of a star, arms and legs sticking out from under a thin plastic sheet. The body was that of an old man and it appeared from the number of people looking up at the open window 3 floors above him that that is where he had come from.
Two men with camcorders pushed through to the front and past the police, getting close to the corpse, zooming in on it and then to the faces of the police and then to the crowd and back to the body – closer this time. I was amazed that the police only stood by the body with hands in pockets doing nothing about clearing the people away, letting people film it and take pictures with their mobile phones.
But still the scene was deathly quiet, not a sound from the crowd and then the police, for no reason I can think of but to provide entertainment for the assembled crowd, drew back the sheet from the man’s face. The crowd immediately pushed forward to get a better view. I didn’t want to see it so left.