This has all been percolating in my head for some time now. It began when we went with our friend Bill to see the Shanghai Acrobatics Troupe perform in that city several weeks ago.

Andrew and I had been to see this particular acrobatics extravaganza before, but Bill very generously shouted us a return visit.

I'm glad we went. Just like the way you seem to laugh more when watching a sitcom with friends rather than on your own, the whole experience seemed a lot more enjoyable this time.

Last time we went - and were seriously underwhelmed - we were both feeling a bit cooler-than-thou, perhaps. I mean, this is acrobatics performed in a massive, somewhat sterile theatre to the delight of crowds of tourists night after night. Whole battalians of Japanese businessmen are lead into the auditorium by flag-waving tour guides, followed closely by gaggles of American teens on 'cross-cultural exchanges' who seem to have bought out an entire GAP store somewhere en route. There are horrible mechanised panda bears with glowing green eyes and jerky limbs being vociferously hawked to you just before you go inside.

Once the house lights dim, the curtains part, and the show begins. As you'd expect, teeny-tiny Chinese girls and square-shouldered Chinese men come rolling on-stage wearing all manner of teeny-tiny squares of lurid lycra.

Chairs and humans are balanced one upon the other in precarious towers, bodies are contorted to look like frogs and lotuses. Golden hoops are leapt through, the way circus lions dive through rings of flame. Porcelain bowls are thrown from hand to head by a man who balances on a ball that's supporting myriad planks in turn held up by drinking glasses.

It's crazy, kitschy, whack-you-in-the-head-with-a-stick 'This is CHINA!' kind of stuff.

This time, I just went with it. I got completely, COMPLETELY obsessed with the man who came on stage to do the 'plate twirling' trick. Here - reach into your stash of childhood memories, or your cache of bad Saturday evening Red Faces/Pot of Gold TV 'moments', and maybe you'll know what I'm talking about.

The guy comes on stage, hamming it up furiously, with his smaller, dorkier, cheekier side-kick to egg him on and undermine him. A table is wheeled in, with three plates a-top it - and those three plates are set in motion by the main man. He gets them spinning like whirling devishes just by tapping the edge of the plate with a single chopstick. More and more tables are wheeled in by the devious side-kick, until the stage is awash with tables and spinning plates which must all be kept on motion. The threat of them ceasing to spin is all too real as the oldest plates start to slow and weave in a wobbly drunkard's dance.

Several of the tricks we saw performed that night got muffed up - a ring was knocked over, a bowl failed to land, a delicate arrangement of taut-stretched legs came unstuck. Somehow, that made it all the more impressive - these show-stopping crowd-pleasers weren't sleight-of-hand; they were hard-won displays of skill and muscular force.

But it was something more than than just this that suckered me in this time. It was a show that touched on some very particular memories of growing up in Australia in the late 1970s, early 1980s, and of becoming dimly aware that there was a place called 'China'.

Thinking back on the performance, I realised that the Shanghai Acrobatics Troupe had somehow appealed to my slightly misty but very dear memories of 1980s China-in-the-West.

Watching the performance was like the first time I was taken to Chinatown in Sydney, only to learn that such wonderous things as 'short', 'long', and 'combination' soups existed.

It reminded me of ordering pink lemonade with every meal, and of sitting up to eat at formica tables set with white tablecloths. Clacky, putty-coloured chopsticks, and clinky porcelain soupspoons with flat bottoms were mandatory, as were the blue and white bowls with that distinctive 'see through' rice grain edging.

I recalled my utter amazement upon learning that you could eat rice paper, and my wide-eyed astonishment as it 'melted' on my tongue. The acrobats were in the same school of China-ness as pincushions in brightest fuschia, edged with fat little figures wearing Chinese hats and coats. Like tiny, child-sized Chinese pajamas and happi coats swarming with blossoms and so much padding they made your arms stick straight out from your body. A box of paints with pandas and bamboo on its cover. My Chinese Checkers set, its satisfying marbles and their delicate carboard holes punched in a bright-coloured six-point star. The way you could tell a Chinese t-shirt from any other: thinner in weave, almost enough to let the light through its fabric like a paper lantern. And always, always, with delightful embroidered tags bearing monikers like 'Double Crane Brand'.

I don't want to swap those half-formed thoughts and memories of 1980s Chinese exotica for the things about China that I enjoy now, but it gives me a hell of a good time just revelling in the remembrance.