It is fair to say China has not generally had good press in the Western media. Blamed for everything from pollution to global warming; ivory trading to violating human rights, China is viewed with increasing interest, and increasing suspicion.

Hospices are not places one identifies with China, and most people, if asked, would probably have a negative image by reflex of large soulless state institutions. Certainly, that they may be run at a very high standard by independent charities would be a surprise.

The Hall of the Pine Trees (Song Tang) was set up by Li Wei, a doctor who, during the Cultural Revolution had done his time as a rural “Barefoot Doctor”. Forced to live a spartan peasant life, this experience opened up his thinking about care of the elderly which led him later in life to set up the hospice.

Hospice might not be the right word - it is a curious mixture, of care home, orphanage, buddhist shrine, and museum storage space for his collection of Chinese Antiques, some of which, like ancient roof tiles, have been built into the building. But, foremost it is a place that look after the elderly and terminally ill. There are over 400 residents, including some who have lived there for years, like Wang Huai Ying, 90, who has been there three years - she is a dwarf, very smart, who went to Fu Ren university, and has a close sister who is physically normal. They have been together all Wang Huai Ying’s life until her sister could no longer manage to look after her. She stays at Song Tang with the support of people from the local district and wants to donate her body to science for dwarfism study.

There are a small number of children in a small clean, room in a quiet wing; orphans who have been abandoned because of physical and mental abnormalities. This is no communist nightmare home, like those whose residents became know as Ceausescu’s Children after the despotic Romanian leader’s disgraceful orphanages. The sheets are clean, the children well fed, and even their souls were cared for. I spent two days at Song Tang and overnight one of the children died, and in the Buddhist chapel of rest which is on the grounds and run by the Lotus Society, the small body was covered in a gold cloth and candles were lit with prayers offered for the tragic child.

The Lotus Society had first come to Song Tang as Buddhist volunteers, just as many school children, university student and local company workers still do. Dr Li Wei felt that the Lotus Society’s presence and religious observation brought comfort to the residents, so he offered them a permanent centre there.

The mornings is when most of the volunteers come to visit. They provide company and personal attention and entertainment for the residents well enough to gather in the common room. School children sing out of tune and forget their words, other do hip-hop routines. Some residents look baffled, others join in. Local companies send employees with sweets and fruits. All this under the eye of the energetic and big-hearted Chief Nurse, Dong Wei. Dong Wei runs Song Tang, and has been there since it was founded 16 years ago.

I am always suspicious when being shown any organization that I am being given a performance; shown the clean and tidy bits, the cooperative residents - a sanitized PR tour. But in the case of Song Tang the place was too eccentric, the emotions too genuine, my access too relaxed for that to be a concern. The second day I was there was Mothers’ Day in China and the residents and staff were all presented with a red rose. This simple gesture said a lot about the place and the atmosphere there. The Hall of the Pine Trees would put many a British hospice in the shadows.