Wireless Internet service was available [to journalists reporting on the Wukan protests], and in a kitchen on the first floor two women diced vegetables, fried noodles and boiled rice. Meals were served on a communal table in the front courtyard. On Wednesday, after the protest ended, the women served a relatively lavish dinner of steamed fish, tomato-and-egg soup and stir-fried fatty pork. (Supplies became more scarce during the police cordon, and the food was not always so abundant — sometimes it was congee, a kind of rice porridge, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.)

Residents with motorbikes shuttled reporters through Wukan’s labyrinthine alleyways and temple squares. No one asked for payment. That was the case, too, when an American reporter tried to buy toothpaste from a shop.