By Jack Souther
"So sorry — only teachers on this trip. Maybe you go later."
And so it was that my intrepid traveling companion waved goodbye at YVR and took off for China on her own.
As part of a teachers-only tour Betty was among the first tourists to squeeze through the bamboo curtain. In August 1977, less than a year after Mao's death, the new leaders were in no hurry to throw open the doors to China. The excesses of the Cultural Revolution still resonated through Chinese society. Foreigners were still regarded with a mix of curiosity and suspicion, and only a few closely monitored groups from the west were allowed into the country. I didn't make the cut. But Betty and her cadre of 21 schoolteachers were given the grand tour. Here are a few entries from her journal, plus some snippets of background history.
"Our itinerary was carefully planned by Chinese bureaucrats. Beginning in Peking (now Bejing) we were shepherded by bus, boat, and plane through Tsingtao, Jinan, Shanghai, Guangzhou and finally to Hong Kong. Along the way we were escorted to the usual tourist spots — Great Wall, Ming Tombs, Forbidden City, and Tiananmen Square. But the focus of the trip was to showcase the communist regime's social and economic progress — a tour de force of communes, schools, and factories. At each facility we were greeted by the `responsible person’, served tea, and given a lecture laced with statistics, production figures — and of course a tribute to Chairman Mao, a condemnation of the ‘gang of four’, and an affirmation of how much better things are under the present communist leadership."
Although never formally occupied, Imperial China, during the latter half of the 19th century, was virtually controlled by foreign interests. Using gunboat diplomacy the European powers moved into China and proceeded to exploit its resources. The opium wars of the mid 1800s inflicted humiliating military defeats and draconian reparations on the Chinese people and Christian missionaries blatantly undermined traditional society. Against this background it's not surprising that China was slow to adopt western values. While its Asian neighbours, especially Japan, modernized China's economy remained mired in the past.
"Peking Airport is austere and quiet — no crowds or lineups and no incoming or outgoing flights. We are met by our guides, two girls and two boys, who accompany us on the long bus ride into the city. The tree-lined road is crowded with a mix of horse-drawn wagons, bicycles, carts, oxen, and goats who pay little attention to our driver's incessant honking. We see no cars until we reach the outskirts of the city. There, a few cars and other buses weave slowly through the maze of bicycles and pedestrians. The vehicles honk, the bicycles ring their bells, and the pedestrians shout to be heard above the din. A cyclist with a bundle of 20-foot bamboo poles over his shoulder yells a warning and people duck. Another weaves through the maze of pedestrians with a squealing pig lashed to his carry rack."
By 1916 China was a divided nation engulfed in civil war, military incursions from Japan, and the ongoing conflict between Mao Zedong's communists and Chiang Kaishek's extreme nationalists. In 1949 the beleaguered Chaing packed up the country's gold reserves and retreated to Formosa, leaving Mao with a bankrupt nation whose infrastructure, industries, and agriculture had been wrecked by over a century of war and economic mismanagement.
"On the outskirts of the city the trees are replaced by hovels of bamboo and mud with tarpaper roofs held down with rocks. We're told they are earthquake shelters but many are obviously being lived in. Our hotel, a huge cavernous building, smells of disinfectant and mothballs. It was obviously once a place of luxury but years of neglect have left it worn and frayed — a faded remnant of the European or Russian era.
"After dinner in the hotel dining room Carol and I walked for miles through tiny residential alleys. It seems that all Peking is also out walking or sitting on the street. Groups gather outside their tiny houses — laughing, socializing, and staring. We smile back but our attempts to talk are met by gales of laughter. The houses are very poor, crowded and cramped but the people seem healthy and happy. Although we are clearly curiosities we never felt in the least threatened or unsafe."
Soon after taking power Mao turned to the Soviet Union for help in lifting China out of poverty. With Soviet loans and technical assistance China's heavy industry was brought back into production. Former landlords were either executed or "re-educated" and the land handed over to peasants. By 1956 the economy was recovering but Mao, in response to growing criticism of his draconian policies, initiated his "great leap forward." Outspoken intellectuals were jailed, industrial workers were assigned impossible quotas, and agricultural land was pooled into thousands of self-governing communes. The "great leap" turned into a disastrous flop. It led to a breakdown in relations with the USSR, the withdrawal of Russian aid, and in 1960, after two successive crop failures, millions of Chinese people starved.
"The ‘responsible person’ of the huge agricultural commune ushered us into a bleak room where we were served tea and treated to an hour of statistics on the number of men devoted to each crop, the success of the commune in meeting its quotas, and the happiness and well-being of the workers who, under the new system brought in by Deng Xiaoping, now had their own houses and plots of land."
With his policies discredited Mao held little political sway over his critics and under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping the country began moving toward a limited free-market economy. But Chinese industry and technology lagged far behind that of its Asian neighbors.
"We were escorted through scores of factories making everything from pencils to heavy machinery. Production is obviously dependent on mobilizing large numbers of workers, each performing the same task over and over. A slogan hung in a crowded cotton mill reads ‘Take back the loss caused by the gang of four’. I am surprised at the number of women, even in the heavy-duty machine shops most of the lathe and milling-machine operators are female. The work environment is universally dismal — intricate work under inadequate light and the noise level in some shops is deafening. No one wears eye or hearing protection. Yet the factories are a source of great national pride."
In an effort to regain his authority and sustain the "revolutionary struggle" Mao called for a cultural revolution. The country's youth responded and the "gang of four" lead by Mao's third wife, Jiang Qing encouraged them. In a three-year reign of terror the Red Guards rampaged through the streets, homes, and factories of China, destroying anything "old" and denouncing everything and everyone associated with capitalism, the west, or the USSR. Even Deng was dismissed and imprisoned.
"A large poster at the front door of the school depicts a group of smiling children holding red banners with Chinese characters and underneath a translation — ‘warmly welcome the friends from Doctor Bethune's motherland Canada!’ Inside the school, kindergarten kids dressed as ‘workers’ perform a dance, middle-school children play traditional Chinese music, and a little grade-one boy, tears of gratitude streaming down his face, recites the story of Norman Bethune, the Canadian surgeon who joined the Chinese in their revolutionary struggle. During recess the kindergarten kids take turns throwing rocks at wooden plaques portraying the evil countenances of the ‘gang of four’ who are officially blamed for the excesses of the cultural revolution and most of China's ills. Older kids practice their marksmanship on targets in the shape of Taiwan."
After the breakdown of relations with the USSR in 1960 Mao publicly denounced Khrushchev as a “revisionist” and challenged the USSR's role for leadership of the international communist movement. Fearing a Russian invasion or nuclear attack the country started building air-raid shelters on a massive scale.
"We descended into a city beneath the city which our guide explained had been dug on Mao's orders as a refuge for the people in case of natural disaster or attack from ‘social imperialism’ — a vast bomb shelter equipped with its own water supply, electrical generation, and air filter system. We were shown underground living spaces, a huge restaurant, and a hospital, which is also used in peacetime. A narrow stairwell leading into the back of a cookie factory returned us to street level."
By the time this column goes to press Betty will be back in China and this time I'm permitted to come along. The bamboo curtain no longer exists, nor does China as it was 30 years ago. We're anticipating a very different experience in the new China.
