The Words of the Morton Family
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The Words of the Morton Family |
The World Media Association played its "China Card" this year after Moscow failed to grant a group visa for the third annual Opinion Leaders' Tour of the Soviet Union.
As far as we knew, Kremlin leaders shed no tears when our group of conservative powerbrokers, neo-conservative intellectuals and "foreign devil" journalists chose the "Great Wall" over the "Red Square." And, just as likely, the old men in Moscow failed to see the significance of the fact that on the very day (Friday, Dec. 7) that we completed our tour, leaving communist Canton for Hong Kong and the Free World, the Peking Daily published a front page editorial proclaiming that "we can no longer depend on the works of Marx and Lenin to solve our modern-day questions."
WMA Executive Director Larry Moffitt led the tour, invoking at times the name of the most famous participant -- former U.S. Secretary of the Interior James Watt -- to get the ancient China Airlines' Ilyushin prop jets to fly on schedule. His outstanding sense of humor helped tour participants endure two weeks in China, the "People's Paradox," as Ted Agres of The Washington Times nicknamed it.
Also on the tour were some prominent conservatives from Washington, including Terry Dolan of the National Conservative Political Action Committee, contributors to Commentary magazine, several Japanese journalists, a Costa Rican television news director and editors from The Washington Times and New York City Tribune.
Following are excerpts from my log of the tour which began in Peking shortly after the conclusion of the 7th World Media Conference in Tokyo on Nov. 22.
Nov. 25, PEKING -- On the bus from the airport, the 25-year-old tour guide explained that since we weren't tired, he would take us to the Temple of Heaven before checking into the hotel.
Driving into the city on the two-lane road lined by locust and willow trees, we saw the first of the hordes of bicycles used throughout China by stolid citizens of all ages and both sexes. We also observed horse-pulled carts, taxis from Japan and made-in-Shanghai sedans.
Apartments in the old buildings along the way cost 40 yuan ($16) per month, our guide said. City dwellers earn from 60-70 yuan per month.
At the Temple of Heaven, which was built in the 1400s as a place where the emperor could worship the god of heaven once a year, we encountered the first of thousands of freelance fundraisers. Such activity aimed at foreign tourists would never have been allowed in the Soviet Union. Why it is officially encouraged, or at least not discouraged, by the Communist Party, is a good question.
Other first impressions which contrasted with those on the previous tours of the Soviet Union:
Our suitcases were not even opened at immigration.
We need not have worried about files and publications critical of China's system being confiscated at the airport. The KGB is obviously more insecure about internal security than are the Chinese.
The food, which, as in the Soviet Union, did not vary noticeably from meal to meal, was nevertheless better. (There is no such thing as a menu in either China or the Soviet Union. You eat what you are given.)
Nov. 26 -- Breakfast was the only meal of the day at which Western tastes were indulged. Every single morning in communist China eggs, toast and coffee were served. In Peking, breakfast was accompanied by John Denver music which, sunny though it was, seemed to have little effect on the waitresses.
The journalists on the tour spurned the bus on their very first day of sightseeing, opting for the American Embassy where they arguably were bamboozled by more misleading propaganda than any tour guide could ever have come up with.
Over lunch with some resident foreign correspondents, we were assured that life in Deng Xiaoping's new liberal China is not as rosy as many news reports or local embassies have led Westerners to believe. Although the Cultural Revolution is history, people are still afraid and do as they are told.
Nov. 27 -- On the drive to the Great Wall, Stefan Halper of the Palmer National Bank in Washington, D.C., mesmerized our guides with his explanation of American banking and tax practices. The ideas struck them as foreign and exotic. Along the way we saw large numbers of primitive tractors, horse- drawn carts and a steam-puffing locomotive that looked as if it came right out of a museum.
Driving back to Peking, the bus driver ran a blinking green light and was waved over by the policeman at the intersection. Led by James Watt, several tour participants piled out to photograph and witness the judgment. The driver would have to pay a fine of two to three dollars, he said. While that was not much by our standards, it represented a full day's work in China. Furthermore, the driver would have to pay it out of his own pocket; his company would not be allowed to pay.
Teatime
in Shanghai's "Old Town."
Nov. 28 -- After viewing the remains of Mao Tse-tung in the morning, the group explored Peking's "Friendship Stores" (which take only foreign exchange currency) and discovered wild variations in prices for the same items at different stores. They also witnessed the apparent emergence of an actual consumer market in China -- a tangible contrast to the Soviet Union.
In the afternoon, some of the journalists returned to the American Embassy for a session with the ambassador, while others visited the Institute of Soviet and East European Studies for an interesting briefing (see related articles in the New
Over the one notable meal (Peking duck) of the tour, one of our tour guides and I had a fascinating discussion which began when he asked me, "If journalists in the United States criticize President Reagan, what happens to them?" He found it difficult to believe, first, that the majority of American journalists did criticize Reagan and, second, that they were not punished.
I apologized for the troubles our group had caused him, explaining that American journalists are hard to satisfy and don't readily believe anything. Chang said, "Sometimes that is good, but sometimes it is not." He said that China's government did not respect American journalists because they took no responsibility for and did not in any way represent their own government.
When the subject of North Korea came up, he asked what Americans thought of Kim Il Sung. I told him Kim II Sung was considered to be a joke due to his own outlandish propaganda and related a tale told by an Australian colleague who had visited there -- about the children who ran screaming from him because they thought he was an American, about how they had been educated to believe Americans had fangs, etc.
Our guide sighed deeply and said my description of North Korea reminded him of China during the Cultural Revolution. "I hate to say it, but many doctors and professors were killed," he said. "It was horrible, horrible, horrible."
He seemed depressed when reminded that the current economic reforms could be easily reversed if a power struggle resulted in a new set of slogans and propaganda, but he suggested that the rising collective consciousness of the people might prevent such a reversal.
Nov. 29 -- Some participants visited the exclusive "Forbidden City" section of Peking. A couple of journalists talked with a "Western diplomat" who
observed that by visiting China earlier this year, President Reagan had really changed his thinking about the world's most populous communist nation. The diplomat stressed that "China is for
China:' and that ideas about a Sino-American strategic alliance were absurd.
"China is not a great power, but they [the Chinese] think they are," he continued. "Power shouldn't be measured by only military means but by how a nation can influence opinion. China has a lot of influence throughout the world."
Despite the obvious and long overdue modernizing trend now taking place in China, the totalitarian system is still in place, the diplomat stressed. He pointed out that every Chinese still belongs to a "dan-wei" -- a group or block structure which insures that everything out of the ordinary is reported. Chinese working at foreign embassy compounds belong to the same "dan-wei" which means essentially that all foreign embassies in Peking are thoroughly penetrated -- a most convenient form of communist "home church."
XIAN, Dec. 1 -- In this ancient imperial capital of China, pervasive smoke and dust made the first impression as was also the case in Peking. During a visit to the "Wild Goose Pagoda," we noticed several Buddhas on display, but the atmosphere was decidedly less religious than at similar shrines in Japan and Korea. Strains of Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender could be heard in a souvenir shop nearby where five girls attended zero customers.
An afternoon visit to the environs of Emperor Qin's tomb was one of the highlights of the tour. Thousands of terra-cotta soldiers had been unearthed there, and the place has become a tourist trap. The soldiers and a few hundred thousand live servants had been buried near the emperor's tomb in order to protect and serve him in the afterlife. It occurred to me that because all the tourists stopped there, the soldiers had fulfilled their purpose, for the emperor's tomb is still untouched.
One of the guides who majored in hotel management expressed interest in a joint venture hotel at the site to one of the businessmen in our group. And, speaking of free enterprise, the most indelible memory of the "terra-cotta" visit was that of the men, women and children selling small replicas of the soldiers at cut-rate prices (compared to the Friendship Store only ten feet away) through the gate separating them from the tourists.
Dec. 2 -- At breakfast, I suggested we try to find a church, and several, most notably James Watt, were enthusiastic. Arriving in the middle of Rev. Chang's sermon, we found two front-row pews emptied for our arrival. Our slightly nonplussed guides asked if we really believed in religion, and seemed surprised and amused to find that some of us did.
While the sermon seemed less than impassioned, there was no questioning the devotion of the congregation. The service stopped for ten minutes when crowds of older women tried to enter through the rear door and protested loudly when they couldn't. Unison prayers during the communion service were more than ten minutes each time. Everyone was praying deeply, and many were crying.
Over tea with the minister afterwards, we learned that there are two official churches in Xian. His was Protestant, and no allowances were made for distinct denominations: it was all or nothing. He declined to answer the good questions, such as what was he doing during the Cultural Revolution when all manifestations of religion were banned.
To Jim Watt's offer to provide assistance from American churches, the minister replied that Chinese Christians provided for themselves ("the party line," said Jim, not for translation). "Just pray for us," the minister suggested.
SHANGHAI, Dec. 4 -- Suffering somewhat from culture shock, the group looked forward to one of China's most westernized cities. But the tour guide here fed us far more ideology than the previous guides had dared serve our irreverent conservative group.
On the drive from the airport, we saw many old European estates that housed eight to ten families each "since the liberation." The colorful dress and other obvious signs of consumerism were "temporary," our guide said apologetically. Because of the unemployment problem, the government had allowed some young people to buy their own businesses, but that practice would not continue for long, she assured us. Most stores were government owned, she said.
A popular movie at a large downtown theater related an emotional story about war (with the Vietnamese), with plenty of flashbacks to the rural hometowns of the heroes, whose repartee made the audience laugh, and who both died bravely in battle. Confucian relationships were championed. There were devoted and loving wives and mothers, heartistic and heroically selfless leaders, and no sex.
More ideology on the way to the airport. Had we been potential investors, we would surely have been scared away.
CANTON, Dec. 5 -- A nice, well- dressed and articulate young guide came with the warm weather here. On the bus, he informed us that Canton was now known as Guangzhou ("goat city"), because that was the name used before the foreigners came. Asked if most Chinese referred to the Cantonese dialect as "Cantonese" or "Guangzhouese," he replied "Cantonese?' What about Cantonese cuisine? "Cantonese."
"You ask good questions," he said with a rueful smile.
Dec. 7 -- Crossing the border into Hong Kong, The Washington Times' William Cheshire quoted Martin Luther King loudly enough for the entire railroad car to hear: "Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty we are free at last!"
There was much laughter and genuine agreement with the sentiment. Spotting the hundreds of towering white buildings of the New Territories in Hong Kong, our banker realized the impact of the transfer of Hong Kong from Great Britain to China: "There are billions and billions of dollars of investment here," he exclaimed. "They are going to get it all!"
At a farewell dinner that night, the participants were unanimous in their excitement to be back to civilization and in their enthusiasm about an unforgettable experience. But several said they were also thinking of those who had been left behind.