Filling a Vacuum - Zigzagging in the Middle Kingdom (Excerpt 4)

September 27, Saturday

It was raw and cold when I landed in Xiamen. The Lujiang Hotel asked for 65 yuan per night for a single room which was too much for my budget. The girl at the reception desk was helpful and called the Overseas Chinese Hotel, but it was full, so I took the ferry to Gulangyu Island where there was supposed to be a cheap and decent hotel.

The sun rose and the morning haze lifted over the sea which lay quiet and still except for the rumble of a couple of small boats. On the ferry were three girls from an ethnic minority. They wore yellow straw hats, colorful scarves, blue dresses and held each other’s hands.

There are no cars or rickshaws on Gulangyu where the building style, like the one on the Shamian Island, reflects the colonial era. Xiamen, or Amoy as it was then known, was one of five treaty ports the British Empire seized after the First Opium War of 1839-1842.

The alleys are narrow and winding, but clean and paved. I walked past an almost completed concert hall and soon found the Gulangyu Guesthouse, which looks like a Mediterranean villa with its whitewashed walls, large decorative flowerpots, and yellow shutters. The first offer was 48 yuan, but I asked for a cheaper room and got one for 21. It's clean and tidy, has mosquito nets and color TV! The washing facilities consist of a tin basin and a water tap in the toilet. 

September 28, Sunday

My afternoon began on one of Gulangyu's two sandy beaches. It was a weekday and only a few people there. I became the attraction as usual, but it was subtle and on one occasion downright comical, as when a man posed in front of me so that his wife could take a picture of him with me in the background. The Chinese are serious about their photography. The background should contain a beautiful view, a historical monument, or something else interesting, in this case a tall foreigner with blond hair. 

* 

A group of young Chinese sat down a few meters away, and one of them began to speak to me in broken English. When I picked up my English-Chinese pocket dictionary, he moved closer and put his arm around my shoulder. He would maintain body contact throughout our conversation. The same thing happened when we went swimming. He stayed close and kept touching me in a tender and friendly way. It was very sweet, this softness and physical expression of friendliness. It made me think of early Chinese emigrants to the US, and Wild West movies where there was often an old Chinese cook. He had probably been forced to give up the body contact he was used to and must have been very lonely. 

September 29, Monday

"We only have soft sleeper. If you want hard sleeper, you must go to the railway station yourself," they said at the CITS office. The former was a soft and comfortable bed in a sleeping car, while the latter was a wooden bench that you can lie on.

"I was there for three hours, but they couldn't help me," I said.

"There are only hard seats," they said.

"Then I'll take that," I said.

Only when they understood that I wasn't going to buy an expensive soft sleeper was I allowed to buy a hard seat. China is a society where you must speak up. "Méi yǒu" (= does not exist) is only a preliminary answer. If you discuss, plead, appeal, and refuse to give up, someone may take an interest in your case, and if you are lucky, you might get help.

At half past five I went to CITS to get the tickets to Shanghai, and they had to my surprise arranged a hard sleeper for tonight. It will work, I thought, even though time was short. I had dinner at the hotel and hurried back to the inn, changed, checked out and left as soon as possible dragging my Samsonite. The ferry was in, I got a taxi right away and the driver managed to get me there on time despite streets full of nonchalant pedestrians and cyclists. So, there I was at the station, but there were no signs showing where the train would depart.

"Shanghai," I called out nervously to the people around me as it was only a few minutes until the train was scheduled to leave. A female railway employee looked at my ticket and said something I didn't understand. I pointed to the clock which read 19.22. The train should leave in two minutes, but then I realized that the train had already left. Completely exhausted, I collapsed on the stairs while a small crowd gathered around me.

"Míng tiān," someone said, meaning "tomorrow."

"Xiànzài wǒ yào qù Shanghai," I shouted, meaning I want to go to Shanghai now!

My blood boiled and I threw my ticket up in the air, crossed my arms and just stared in front of me. A girl who spoke English came up and explained that she could help me exchange the ticket for a new one. I followed her to a small room where she asked me to sit down while she got me some tea. I showed her my ticket which said that the departure time was 19.24.

Where would I stay? I had checked out of the inn and didn't want to drag my suitcase all the way back, but I managed to leave it at the station.

Back at the inn, I laid down on the bed and watched TV for a while. It was an international youth competition for violinists, and I couldn't have asked for more appropriate music. Then I took out The Chinese Empire and continued reading.

"If, then, by despot is meant an absolute master, disposing at will of the property and life of his subjects, using and abusing a boundless power, I can see none such in Asia; every where ancient manners and customs, and ideas received, even though erroneous, offer to the regal power restrictions more embarrassing than written regulations, and which a tyrant can only defy by exposing himself to destruction. I see only a few places where nothing is respected, where moderation is unknown, and might only is right; and this is where the weakness or imprudence of the natives has suffered the establishment of foreigners from distant lands men whose sole object is to make a fortune as rapidly as possible, and then to return and enjoy it in their native country. They have no pity for men of another race, no sympathy with the aborigines, whose language they can not understand, in whose tastes, habits, and prejudices they do not share. Harmony, founded on reason and justice, can not exist between interests so diametrically opposed. Force alone can maintain this state of things; absolute despotism is necessary to support a handful of rulers eager to seize on every thing, amidst a multitude who deny their right to any thing. This is the state of things in the European colonies of Asia.” (Huc quotes Abel Re'musat who was considered an authority on China.) 

And here I am on an island that was once an exclusive little paradise for Europeans. 

Huc feels contemporary when you read him, even though he was writing fifty years after the French Revolution. He had left France before 1848 when, according to Marx and Engels, the 'ghost of communism' was haunting Europe, but he must have read the news of the 1848 revolutions in Europe while studying the Chinese language and Chinese history in Macao. 

He goes on to quote Re'musat who appears to be something of an anti-imperialist. 

“Intoxicated by their own progress in modern times, especially by their superiority in the art of war, they look upon all other families of the human race with supreme disdain (…) every thing is to be measured by their scale; and who contests the justice of this arrangement?”

“The time may come when the Hindoos will use our muslins instead of weaving their own, when China, instead of exporting silk, shall import it, when the Esquimaux shall shiver in calico shirts, or the inhabitants of the Torrid Zone melt under our felt hats and woolen garments.” 

"Let these people give up their own manufactures in favor of European trade; let them renounce their ideas, their language, and literature, all in short that composes their national individuality, and learn to think, feel, and speak like us, purchasing these useful lessons at the price of their territory and independence; let them be complaisant to our academicians, devoted to the interests of our merchants, tractable and submissive in all things, and they may be allowed to have made some steps toward civilization, and permitted to take rank at a great distance behind the privileged people, the race par excellence to whom it is given to possess, to govern, to comprehend, and to instruct." (Re’musat wrote this in 1829, i.e. before the first Opium War according to a footnote.) 

Karl Marx could hardly have put it more bluntly! 

September 30, Tuesday

It's 6:30 in the morning and the train has stopped in Laizhou. Many passengers burst out and rush over to a wash basin to do their morning wash up. Others engage in their morning exercise.

Then the train moves on and follows the Futun Xi River, which is polluted by a white sludge. I see farmers watering a lettuce crop. They carry two large jugs held up by a yoke across their necks. Along the river, I see a few factories, and because the water level is low, rocks, reefs and sandbanks have been exposed. In one place, the sand is completely black, probably from coal dust. 

* 

China is big, but most Chinese people live along its major rivers or along the coast why there is congestion, and this congestion has brought the question of distribution to the forefront. The country has solved this problem with discipline and organization, centered around the family and the clan. The downside of this is nepotism, which corrupts and slows down development. If you belong to a group, you are protected, while you are disenfranchised if you don’t. The bonds between members are very strong and must be so since the risks of being left outside the protective and distributive organization are so high. The system rewards loyalty, as reflected in both Confucianism and Maoism, but it was at the same time Maoism that broke the very traditions that brought it to power. The alternative to bureaucracy and hierarchy is exchange, commerce and markets, i.e. Hong Kong.

China's social system is so strong and conservative that it takes very strong incentives for a person to dare to step out of the security net. That’s why Adam Smith is more important to China today than Marx. The Chinese already have planning and distribution systems based on central control. What they need to do is open the floodgates to the benefits of trade and allow people to take their own initiative and reap some of the benefits of their actions. 

* 

An American sings Raindrops keep falling on my head over the train's public address system. 

* 

I have now traveled through the provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang and have hardly seen a single trace of mechanized agriculture. I have seen old sooty factories, trucks and trains, plus a few old water pumps in rice fields in Zhejiang. It's all about human muscle power. In Xiamen, barefoot boys pulled heavy loads on carts through the city streets and women washed clothes on the sidewalk in front of their houses using simple wooden washboards. You sometimes see oxen pulling wooden plows in the fields and men and women dragging heavy loads along the roads. I also saw young boys working as stone cutters, tapping their blocks from dawn until well after dusk.

In 1977 — a year after Mao's death — the Communist Party promised that China would have mechanized its agriculture by 1980. 

* 

Done with Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It is a rich book whose intellectual ambition essayistic style overtakes the story. It’s a kind of monologue, a polyphonic inner monologue. It is stimulating to follow the thoughts, but the characters never come to life. Perhaps there is after all not enough kitsch? 

In the past few hours, I have become superficially acquainted with a prison warden from Shenyang and also relieved the toothache of a fellow passenger. I gave him two Treo Comp tablets which contains codeine. The poor guy was all sweaty from the pain, but half an hour later he smiled and said "xié xié ni. Hen hao!" 

* 

I lean towards reconsidering my view of the economic reforms as a result of a legitimacy crisis. I once thought that the Chinese were reading Mao's "Little Red Book" and waved red flags because they believed in Mao and his ideas, even if they did so in a quasi-religious way, but if Lucien Pye is right, the Chinese have never been particularly religious. They have lived lives controlled by harsh necessities and pragmatically adapted to changing circumstances. When it's time for the Little Red Book, we’ll wave it. That will make the leaders happy. And if Deng wants us to swap it for a bundle of bills, we’ll do that. When Deng is gone, we may have to put away the bills, put up posters and demonstrate in the streets again. You must be prepared for anything, except breaking ranks. China is not a culture where the individual independently relates to principles, but simply tries to survive with family and friends come what may!

This was something we never understood, and neither did Jan Myrdal or Olof Lagercrantz. I think Pye is right. Mao's book was like the teacup, the rice bowl, and the washcloth — everyone had it. In that case, the current crisis of legitimacy does not herald a revolution or social breakdown, but merely a new situation to adapt to. The newness lies in the fact that the leadership could not agree without Mao as the arbitrator, a weakness people sense and take advantage of. Who knows how long this political vacuum will last? The middle-aged and elderly do not dare to bet on any real change. The young take the system with a cynical shrug, but they know that if they don't succeed in leaving the country, sooner or later they will have to fall in line. The democratic potential then lies with those who in 1966 followed Mao out of conviction, burning of youthful idealism, but have since been forced to reconsider their thoughts. This "lost generation" could provide China with new thinkers and democratic leaders — if only they were let out of the political closet! 

* 

When the train stops in Xiujishui, a woman in shabby clothes walks along the tracks, picking up scraps of food thrown out of the windows by passengers. She looks like she belongs to an ethnic minority and has a few small bundles around her waist where she keeps whatever she can get her hands on. 

Shanghai. October 1, Wednesday

I was lucky enough to get a room in a dormitory at the Pujiang Hotel, which is down by Suzhou Creek and a popular haunt for backpackers but was once called the Astor House and hosted celebrities like Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, Bertrand Russell and Ulysses S. Grant.

All of Shanghai seemed to be on its feet today. People were dressed up because it was the holiday commemorating the 1949 revolution. As for myself, I settled into my room at the Pujiang Hotel after helping the receptionist with her English exercises. 

October 2

Yueyan Park is tucked into the cramped quarters of the old Chinese quarter (an absurdity that is due to the city's colonial heritage). The park consists of small, sculpted gardens arranged in a labyrinth, and has at its center a magnificent teahouse resting on a small island surrounded by a pond bubbling with hungry carp. You must follow a zigzagging wooden bridge to get there, because according to tradition, evil spirits can only go straight ahead! 

October 4, Saturday

The waiter at Shanghai Mansion's Western restaurant is a middle-aged man who walks around with a fly swatter in his hand. Even on my table he killed a fly. There are places here that make John Cleese's Faulty Towers look like a perfectly normal hotel. The Pujiang Hotel is one of them. When we finally got our toast with scrambled eggs one morning, all activity in the restaurant ceased. We asked several times for coffee or tea, but the waitresses just shook their heads and soon both they and the cooks took a long break. About twenty guests waited patiently, while the staff — 30 people — sat chatting at the other end of the conference room. 

October 6, Monday

I call a waitress to order breakfast.

"No. Closed!"

I point to my watch and tell her that they don't close until nine. It's five minutes to nine. She goes back to the counter and complains that this customer wants breakfast. Two waiters holding hands are chatting and laughing. After a while, one of the waitresses takes a menu and tries to get one of the waiters to deliver it, but they won't, so she reluctantly makes her way to my table, stops and shouts something across the room to a waitress who is playing with a baby belonging to a couple of guests. Then she takes a few more steps and nonchalantly holds out the menu as she turns around and walks back. A male waiter then comes up and asks me to move to another table so that they don't have to bother cleaning mine first. I refuse because I want to see the view. He makes a gesture to the others but accepts my request.

The breakfast is decent, but I barely get through half of it before the waiter comes to the table, extends his hand and says:

"Six yuan!"

He looks surprised when I respond by asking for the bill, but actually brings it over.  

* 

For a while it looked like I would get an interview with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, but they didn't have the guts to do it and referred me to the city government's Foreign Affairs Office. My press contact at the Academy asked questions like "Who are you? Who invited you? Which is your newspaper? Who arranged your trip?" I initially got the same kind of questions from the Foreign Affairs Office. They said I should have gone through the Ministry in Beijing, but after a while they softened and said that since I was here in Shanghai anyway, they would try to help me. A man named Huo Gouxiang met me in the bar at the Shanghai Mansions. I showed him sample articles and a letter of introduction. He was nice and told me that he had studied international law but had been assigned to deal with the foreign press. He said he would ask one of his colleagues to help me. That’s how I met a man called Zhao at the Jinjiang Hotel. He was wearing a dark jacket, blue jeans and black and white "mafia" shoes. He said he had been busy ahead of the British Queen's visit but had already researched some of the things I had asked about.

"I've asked about the stock exchange, but they don't seem to want to meet with journalists. They don't think they have anything to show," he said and suggested that I contact them myself. Then he asked if I was interested in going to the theater. He had an extra ticket for Peter Shaffer's play Equus (The Horse), which was playing tonight at the Shanghai Dramatic Art Theatre.

We went there, and I managed to follow the plot since Zhao whispering explained the various characters to me. The play was about a young boy with psychological problems. We meet him at the home of a psychiatrist who tries to understand him through a series of conversations. The mother is religious and overprotective, while the father is a book publisher who wants the boy to read more and watch less TV. We are introduced to the boy's world through a series of dreams. A beautiful girl — a sensual child of nature — helps the boy get a job at the stable. He has always loved horses, but never had the courage to ride them. Now he gets to ride them every day and to meet the beautiful girl. At night, he sneaks into the stable and rides a horse. It is a highly symbolic scene accompanied by expressive music where the rhythm increases until it reaches a climax and the boy collapses in exhaustion. He and the girl fall in love, and she lures him into a forest where they hug and kiss. They decide to make love. On stage, they go their separate ways and undress — symbolically. (Nudity on stage is impossible in China.) They then meet in an embrace, drop to their knees, and finally lie together, but the boy is then disturbed by the same music he heard while riding at night. He withdraws, makes another attempt to approach the girl, but the music comes back, more threatening this time. The boy draws his knife and threatens the girl, who gives up, gets dressed and leaves. In his misfortune, the boy goes to the stables and pokes out the eyes of the horses and then himself.

The psychiatrist delivers the final monologue, which seems to suggest that the boy is healthy while he and society are sick. The horse is nature and sexuality separated from love by the influence of society and tradition. The boy's misfortune is that he cannot or may not integrate sexuality with love.

Afterwards, we went to the Café des Rêves to talk about the play. Zhao interpreted the horse as representing the tradition and that it was the one that attacked the boy. I objected that the tradition was already represented in the psychiatrist, his female colleague, and the parents. 

October 7

It was like going up into an old windmill. The stairwell was dark and gloomy, built of wood blackened by age and soot. Tools were scattered here and there. On the fourth floor, a man in a white T-shirt was smoking next to a gray-haired old woman who was stirring a boiling pot of noodles. I showed her my notebook with the name of the girl I was looking for written in Chinese. The old lady gestured and explained in Chinese that Wei Liang lived here, but she was not home. I asked if she would be there tomorrow. The lady nodded and laughed. I gave her my business card and wrote down my address in Shanghai. 

* 

For the evening, I had planned to see a Chinese pop concert at a large concert hall that for some reason was called the Shanghai Gymnasium. I was just about to pack my camera bag when the phone rang. It was Wei Liang. I hurried down to the lobby where she was waiting. She looked like she was from Hong Kong with her semi-long hair, pink headband, black sports jacket, basketball shoes, and baggy pants.

We took bus No. 48 to the stop near the CAAC office (Civil Aviation Administration of China). I had missed both lunch and dinner, so I suggested that we have a quick meal. We went to a Chinese-Western restaurant where I had an excellent goulash. The chef was Italian, said Wei, who ordered a shrimp salad.

Her English was broken, but she had many stories to tell, including one about a 50-year-old painter and calligrapher she knew. He grew up in Hong Kong but had moved to Shanghai in the 1950’s to serve the motherland as the saying went. During the Cultural Revolution, he was attacked by Mao's Red Guards who broke his right arm, rendering it useless. In despair, he threw himself into the Huangpu River but was rescued against his will. His wife left him, and he has since lived alone for twenty years. The only bright spot was that he trained his left arm and is now painting again.

One of her best friends was the youngest of four children. In 1958, her father was sent to a labor camp in Qinghai. Her mother broke down under the pressure and abandoned her children. During the Cultural Revolution, Wei's friend was labeled a bad woman because she dressed colorfully, and she was punished with a job that paid only 20 yuan a month. The boss said she could get a better job if she slept with him, which she initially refused.

"She was so poor that she couldn't even afford a glass of milk. She was pale and her face was hollow. I tried to help her with food sometimes," Wei said.

The friend eventually became a prostitute and slept with an older man, but it was discovered, and she was sentenced to seven years in prison in Qinghai.

"She will never come back. She will not be allowed to return after her release."

Wei's former boyfriend wrote a novel influenced by Sartre and Kafka. It was published, but he was sentenced to two years in prison for its content. It was 1983 and he was 22 years old. His mother was a building designer and found out through contacts that the prison where her son was incarcerated was being expanded and was in urgent need of design work. She agreed with the warden that her son would be sent home to help her with the work in return for her helping them finish on time. Today, he has served his sentence but cannot find a job and dreams of leaving China. However, the authorities are putting obstacles in his way.

Wei is an engineer who works on designing electrical systems. It was Wei's mother who made her choose the technical path even though she felt that literature was her calling. She said she likes the dialog of Albert Camus and appreciates Margaret Duras, Robbes-Grillet, Sartre, and Sigmund Freud.

Her mother is from Sichuan and has bitter memories. Her grandfather was a landowner before the revolution and was stripped of all his land. During the famine after the "Great Leap Forward," his family had only 10 kg of rice a month to live on. It wasn't possible, which is why Wei's mother did everything she could to avoid seeing her daughter starve. Her father works with quality control at the steel plant in Baoshan.

I asked her about mail censorship, and she told me about books her friend in Taiwan had sent that have not arrived, and that you can see on the letters that they have been opened and then resealed. She takes for granted that the police reads all mail.

Once again, I hear these terrible stories of people being physically and mentally abused in China. Not only during the Cultural Revolution, but today too. 

* 

We get into a Volvo taxi outside the hotel, and it drives off. It's nine o'clock and the driver turns on the radio. It turns out that Shanghai broadcasts English-language news four times a day. It tells of an international conference on computers in education to be held in Shanghai. There are 5,000 microcomputers in Shanghai schools and 50,000 students has experience with computers. By 1988, all upper-level schools will have computers.

As we approached the Palace of Culture, Shanghai's largest or second largest concert hall, we were met by black market sharks trying to sell tickets. It was not easy to spot the place from the street. You only saw the usual old high wall and a gate as if it had been a factory or a school. It was only when you entered the hall that you realized that the room could hold thousands of people. The star of the evening was a Japanese singer in his fifties who reminded me of Yves Montand. He was introduced by a local communist leader dressed in a blue Mao suit. The Japanese star had a strong charisma and, together with his three students, won the hearts of the audience. Wei was blissful.

"This song I like very much," she said, looking happy.

After the concert, we went to the bar of the Jinjiang Hotel where we met Zhao, and it wasn't long before we discussed Shaffer's play again. Wei had a thoughtful analysis, but she too did not share my view of the horse as a symbol of the force of nature, of sexuality. For her, the horse was an all-seeing entity and that's why the boy poked out the eyes of the horses. I didn't quite understand her chain of thought, but I think she took the horse as a representative of conscience and guilty feelings. Her interpretation was also in line with the Oedipus story. When Oedipus learns that he has murdered his father and married his mother, he gouges out his own eyes.

From Jinjiang's bar, Wei and I went on to the Seamen's International Club where she bumped into half a dozen foreign friends. She laughed and embraced them one after another. The club was in high spirits as the Sudanese and Palestinian students held a farewell party for two Palestinian students who were going home.

Wei was sad as we walked home along the Bund late at night.

"There are so many goodbyes in my life," she said.

We shook hands at first, but then I gave her a hug, which she responded to enthusiastically. 

October 8th

I woke up early and had breakfast in the dining room with a Swede from Djursholm in Stockholm. I have met him twice and both times he bragged about how hungover he was. A couple of Norwegian girls came over and sat down. They were going to Suzhou and since I wasn't going to meet my friend from Guilin until the evening, I decided to join them. 

* 

I took an early train back from Suzhou as I was going to meet Huang Xie in the lobby at eight. I waited until nine, but he didn't show up, so I went to the International Seaman's Club, had a whiskey, and wrote postcards. At ten I broke up and went back to the hotel. There he was. It had been raining the past few days, so he was walking around in rubber boots like most other Shanghai residents. He had thought we were meeting at nine and must have arrived just after I left. I invited him to dinner at Shanghai Mansions, but the conversation didn't yield much. He was probably exhausted after a long day at school and the bus ride to my hotel. He said it was the last semester before university for his class, so they were working very hard. The same was of course true for their teacher. He told me about his ambition to study in the US and showed me a tightly written personal documentation he had prepared.

The guy from Djursholm had said that there is always something "they" want from you. I argued against it, but he wasn't entirely wrong. Huang Xie was looking for an American who could vouch for him financially if he was admitted to an American university. He insisted that he would never take advantage of this, and I did not doubt for a minute that he meant what he said. I promised to write to an American professor I had met, but I was disappointed that our friendship might not have had much to do with me. 

Wednesday night

I had a beer at the Seamen's International Club and recognized two girls from earlier and shot a glance at one of them. She saw me but was busy with eight guys flocking around her and her friend. Not much to do here I thought and left the bar, but she followed me into the foyer to go to the bathroom. Was that a signal? I lingered over a couple of video games to find out. When she came out, she stopped at a bulletin board filled with propaganda pictures. It was a clear sign, or was it? The night before she had worn one of those sweaters that always slips down and exposes the shoulder. Very sexy.

I went over and stood next to her.

"I guess it's to improve public health," I said ironically about the gruesome pictures from various traffic accidents.

"They're disgusting," she said.

"What are you doing in Shanghai?"

"My buddy and I are traveling. We've been out for two years now," she said.

"Cool!"

"Are you going to leave?"

"Yes, I'm going to the jazz club at the Peace Hotel."

"Why don't you join us instead," she said.

"Okay, I'd love to!"

I followed her back, and she introduced me to her friend Melanie. Her name was Liz. The seamen's club closed at 11:30, so I and two of the guys asked the girls if they wanted to join us to the Peace Hotel, but they said they wanted to sleep and it was just as well, because the jazz club was closed when we got there. 

October 9, Thursday

Today the air cleared up, allowing Shanghai's boats and docks to emerge from the haze. I walked to Huangpu Park where people were doing shadow boxing, tai ji quan and other forms of meditative gymnastics. It's fascinating to see all these old people completely focused on moving slowly and deliberatively. A 69-year-old man with wispy gray hair told me that he spent every morning doing gymnastics in the park. As if to demonstrate his agility, he then quickly delivered a series of high kicks straight into the air. 

* 

Just before ten, I took bus 27 to the final station where Nanjing Xilu meets Yanan Lu. After a short walk I arrived at number 1806 where the newly opened Shanghai Stock Exchange was located. It looked like any other shop, and I thought I was in the wrong place, but I stepped inside and found myself standing in a small office of maybe 8 by 4 meters. About ten people were hanging out at the counter. Behind it were a few desks and staff in blue Mao jackets. On the right wall was a black chalkboard on which two company names and their share prices were written. None of the staff tried to discourage me, so I sat down on a bench, took out the cameras and set up my tape recorder. Then I went back to the counter.

An old man in a blue Mao jacket soon came up to me. I gave him my business card and received his card. It was the "head of the stock exchange" and he spoke English. I clicked on the tape recorder and got my interview. He said that I was the second foreign journalist to visit the new stock exchange. The BBC was first. 

* 

After lunch I met a young couple who are getting married in a couple of weeks. The bride was one of Wei Ling's best friends. I thought this could be a story about youth culture.

Bao Hongyan is 23 years old, and her fiancé Chen Jing is 25. Both have studied at university, which is still a privilege.

A wedding is a big deal in China. It's not just a young couple deciding to start a family, but usually two families, two clans, coming together. And October is a popular time to get married, as you will soon see if you take a walk around town. The big and fancy restaurants are fully booked night after night. Grooms stand outside the entrance doors dressed in tuxedos, handing out cigarettes to arriving guests. You can hear the rustle of silk from the women's long dresses.

Ms. Bao had asked a friend to help her find a partner. The only instruction she gave her friend was that he must be an academic. I asked Bao how her friend first described Chen to her.

"She said that Chen and I had many common interests and that we could become a couple. She also told me about Chen's academic level."

Bao herself had just graduated in structural engineering and Chen was a business economist. That was all she knew about him.

What happened at your first meeting?

"We met at a Picasso exhibition one afternoon in Shanghai and talked about the paintings and about music. We both like music," said Bao.

Their first "argument" was about Picasso. Chen liked his art, but not Bao.

How did the argument end?

"We stuck to our opinions," Chen said, and Bao laughs.

That evening, they went to the Shanghai Concert Hall to listen to Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. This time there was no argument but great harmony. I asked Chen if he wasn't concerned when Bao stood up, because according to the old tradition in China, a woman should bow to the man. He laughed.

"Some young people want the husband to dominate his wife, but that is changing. We are educated. I think men and women should be equal and help each other," he said to which Bao added, that "quarrels can bring us closer."

Both Bao and Chen work at the same government agency, the Bureau of the Light Industry, with Chen working in business management and Bao designing water management systems for new houses.

What is love?

"Love requires independence and having common needs. You also need to be understanding and help each other," said Bao.

How do you see love, Chen?

"The same way."

Besides love, what other things are important?

"There are many other things to do. Work, study, etc. If you fall in love, you can get over it by working and studying and doing other things," Bao said.

Is love something you should try to get over?

"No, I don't think so," said Chen.

"You shouldn't try to get rid of love, but you should try to integrate it into the rest of your life," said Bao.

Who was the first to fall in love only after you met, looked at the Picasso exhibit and listened to Tchaikovsky?

My question led to a lively discussion. After a while they agree that love did not take them by storm. They got a positive impression of each other and then love gradually grew.

Who suggested that you meet again?

"Normally it's the man who should do it and that's how it was for us too," said Bao.

That was three years ago. How long did it take before you became a couple?

"Six months," said Chen.

It took another year before they were convinced that they should get married.

"There was a progression from loving each other to feeling the need to get married. It was a maturing process," Bao said.

Did you discuss the matter with your parents?

"I told my parents about Chen after about six months. They didn't give any advice because they knew I am very independent," Bao said.

Chen said it was the same for him.

"It's our business and not our parents."

So after a year and a half, you told your parents that you were getting married.

"Our parents are modern," said Chen and Bao in unison.

What kind of wedding are you having?

"We would prefer to avoid a big wedding, but our parents and grandparents want a wedding with many guests. They think the wedding is the most important event in your life. We had to give in on that point," said Bao.

How many guests will there be?

“About two hundred,” said Chen.

It will be very expensive?

"Yes."

Who will pay?

"I am paying more than my husband since my family has more money. There is nothing that says one should pay more. We don't care who pays more," Bao said.

Bao and Chen estimate that the wedding will cost about 3,000 yuan (equivalent to three annual salaries in China). The party will cost 1,000 and then another 2,000 to furnish the new apartment given to them by Chen's parents. Bao said it's not unusual for people to spend 5,000 yuan on a wedding.

What do you think of the one-child policy?

"It's excellent because I don't want a child at all. I am very young and don't feel that I want to be a mother yet. In the future, I might want to have a child," said Bao.

Do you want a son, Chen?

"Both a son and a daughter are fine. It doesn't matter!

What do your parents say?

'They say the same thing.

And yours, Bao?

'It doesn't matter if it's a son or a daughter.

Is that really true?

"Yes, it's true. I am a daughter!"

"In China's cities, people don't care whether they have a son or a daughter, but in the countryside, they prefer to have a son. They are more feudal in their thinking and think that a son can work more than a daughter," Chen said.

Today, young people's views on love and sex are changing. What does this mean for you as a young couple? Can you have sex before you get married?

"According to tradition, sex before marriage is not allowed. You must wait until after you get married," Bao said diplomatically.

What do young people in China today think about this?

"They think that if a boy and girl love each other, it's okay for them to sleep together, but from society's point of view, they should not. Both views should be integrated," Bao said.

What will you do on your honeymoon?

"We will travel to Changsha in Hunan Province."

Where Mao was born.

"Yes, ha-ha, but we are going to another place, a national park." 

* 

I returned to the hotel just after five to shower and change. At quarter to six I met Liz and Melanie in the lobby. My interest now shifted from the former to the latter who looked so much better after washing her hair and making herself look nice, but I didn't want to mess things up, so I continued to focus on Liz.

The evening sun shone over the river as we walked along the Bund towards Dong Feng Restaurant. I had the girls pose for a few pictures in the small park where the Soochow River meets the Huangpu River. They both looked good, but Melanie was the most beautiful. My tongue was quick, and I felt the lust of the conqueror (the same feeling that drives the colonialist?) We got a good table, and the staff was nice. The place was full, but we were the only Westerners. When we got out on the street again, the crescent moon had taken the place of the sun and our steps were guided by the streetlights. We stopped at the quay and watched the river boats in the faint moonlight.

"It doesn't get any more romantic than this. Here I am alone with two beautiful girls on the Huangpu River in Shanghai. And moonlight too," I said.

"Plus a bunch of Chinese people staring at us," Melanie said, referring to half a dozen onlookers.

We had planned to go to the Peace Hotel, but Liz wanted to go back to the hotel. I convinced Melanie to come with me to the jazz club at the Peace Hotel where we ordered coffee. She told me that she was studying math and computer science and was going to work in operations research when she got home. I listened and occasionally touched her arm without her pulling it away, which was a good sign. The conversation flowed more and more effortlessly, and I put my hand over hers, which was half closed, and let three fingers slide into her warm cavity. When I pressed lightly, she responded. The contact was established.

"You remind me of the beautiful Scottish woman in the Greystoke movie," I said, and she rewarded my flattery by squeezing my fingers.

On the way out, I put my arm around her and when I switched to holding her hand, she showed that she liked it, but we reached the hotel all too quickly. I protested that it was too early to go in. She laughed and agreed to take another lap around the block. We stopped on a side street where I leaned against the wall of a house and pulled her to me. She rested her butt against my right thigh, and we started hugging and kissing as if we were one of the countless couples you see at night in Shanghai's parks. She was supple and her kisses sweet and soft. I caressed her back down past her lower back and could feel her panties through her thin silk dress. She appreciated the touch, and we could have gone on for a long time if it wasn't for a group of people standing nearby. I don't know if it was for our benefit, but it bothered us enough to return to the hotel. I managed to steal a few more kisses in the hallway, but then we had to part ways. 

October 10, Friday

I don't understand her. Hot kisses on Thursday night, but the next day she pulls back. Maybe it was my own fault. I saw her in the hallway combing her hair, but I wasn't sure it was her because it was dark, and I saw her from behind. When she looked up, I didn't recognize her at first. Seeing a woman in the morning is always something else. Perhaps at that moment the cloud lost some of its silver edge.

We met again after breakfast. She was friendly but kept a certain distance.

"How are things today," I asked.

"Fine, fine," she replied in a voice that could have carried any message.

We went to the Friendship Store, but something wasn't right. Maybe she had been talking to Liz and had gotten mad when she realized that I had flirted with her first. We had talked about going to a Buddhist temple before we went to the Friendship Store, but now she said they were going shopping by themselves.

"Should we meet later?"

"No, but I'll see you tonight at the Seamen's Club," she said.

We separated. I was discouraged and no longer found any pleasure in wandering around watching people. I went to the Seamen's Club where I read an article by Huang Xiang about China's struggle to catch up technologically. Back in the hotel foyer, I met Melanie again.

"Were you mad at me this morning," I asked.

"No, not at all. It's just that I wanted to go shopping by myself," she said. 

* 

Professor Wang Chen and his assistant Linda Ma were waiting for me outside Nanjing Restaurant. He is about 40 years old, thin and wears thick glasses with black frames. She looks seventeen but is twenty-five. They asked me if I had any food restrictions, whether I was a vegetarian or something.

"I have a problem with snakes, cats, dogs and monkeys, otherwise I'm open to most things," I said.

They laughed.

We had duck, roast beef, crab, prawns, a local fish specialty, soup, mushrooms, vegetables and a dry but tasty dish of chicken parts first grilled and then dried. Everything was tasty and our conversation was open and trusting. It covered a wide range of topics, but mostly revolved around literature, which was his passion alongside computer science. He loved Somerset Maugham and had read Strindberg, as well as Selma Lagerlöf and Swedish poetry.

"But you are my first Swedish friend," he said.

He had read James Joyce's Ulysses during a night in Xian where he had gone to give a lecture. Like many other computer scientists I have met, he said that his specialty allowed him to combine his humanistic and technical interests. It was a strategic choice he had made early on because, as he said, he wanted to bridge the gap between the two cultures. Around ten o'clock, our discussion was interrupted because the restaurant was closing.

"It's always the same problem," he said.

We tried to find a café where we could continue, but eventually ended up at the Peace Hotel, where he told us that he had been sent to Nanjing after graduation to work on the assembly line at an electronics factory. This was in the middle of the Cultural Revolution.

Was it bitter? I asked.

"No, because I learned a lot about electronics. As a pure mathematician or computer scientist, you get limited experience, but I learned in depth how a computer works. Now I have experience working with both hardware and software."

He continued at the factory until 1974 when he was allowed to return to Shanghai to get married.

We also discussed the role of religion in China, or rather the lack thereof.

"The Chinese worship all kinds of things, but they have no religious feeling. This has contributed to the country so often being ruled by tyrants, because if there is no higher power than the emperor, he can do as he pleases," he said. 

* 

After dinner I went over to the club, hoping to see Melanie. She was there but was cool and after fifteen minutes said she was going to bed.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, everything is fine. It was nice last night."

I pulled her to me in the hallway and kissed her. She kissed me back, but not with the same fervor.

"Everything is fine," she assured me.

"You haven't convinced me yet," I said and kissed her again, only to receive tepid kiss in return. 

* 

Back in my room, I thought about what Professor Wang said about the lack of religious feeling and tyrannical emperors. But he wasn't including the Mandate of Heaven which, in theory, limits what the emperor can do. It's confusing like so much in China. If I say that something is written in the stars, it is more a matter of superstition than religion. For Huc, a Catholic, the problem is that China in the 19th century has three religions that coexist, but neither the people nor the emperor take any of the religions seriously. The result, according to Huc, is that citizens lack an internal moral compass. 

“The inhabitants of the Celestial Empire, being wanting in religious faith, and living from day to day, without troubling themselves either about the past or the future, profoundly skeptical, and totally indifferent to what touches only the moral nature of man, having no energy for anything but the amassing of sapecks (money), cannot, as may easily be supposed, be well induced to obey the laws from a sentiment of duty. The official worship of China does not in fact possess any of the characteristics of what can properly be called a religion, and is, consequently, unable to communicate to the people those moral ideas that do more for the observance of the laws, than the most terrible penal sanctions. It is, therefore, quite natural that the bamboo should be the necessary and indispensable accessory of every legal prescription, and the Chinese law will consequently always assume a penal character, even when it has in view objects purely civil. 

Whenever a legislature is compelled to be lavish of punishments, it may certainly be affirmed that the social system in which it is in force is vicious, and the Penal Code of China is an illustration of the truth. The punishments awarded by it are not graduated according to the moral gravity of the crime, considered in itself, but merely on the amount of damage that may be occasioned by it. Thus the punishment of theft is proportional to the value of the object stolen, according to a scale drawn up expressly to that effect, unless the theft be accompanied by circumstances that bring it under some other head. The penal legislation of China is based on the utilitarian principle, and this need not excite any surprise, for Chinese materialism does not consider the act so much in a moral point of view, as with respect to its consequences.” 

This is reminiscent of today's China where the people, the "emperor" and the mandarins (party cadre) have lost faith in Maoism and are now crass materialists, or as Deng Xiaoping put it. "It does not matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice." 

* 

Speaking of the legal system, I found this little gem on Shanghai's Friendship Store: A Great Trial in Chinese History: The Trial of the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing Counter-Revolutionary Cliques, Nov. 1980 - Jan. 1981. It was not unlike the protocols from the Moscow trials of 1936-38.

The book puts the number of victims of the Cultural Revolution at 34,800 dead and 729,511 subjected to attacks and persecution. If these are the official figures, it is safe to assume that the truth is many times worse. About halfway through the book on the latest "big case" there are several testimonies to prove how rotten Mao's wife Jiang Qing in particular was. First is Hao Miao, who was once Liu Shaoqi's personal chef.

“At midnight June 8, 1967, Hao Miao recalled to the court, he was taken from his hostel and thrown into jail. Throughout the dozens of interrogations during his imprisonment he was ordered to reveal the ‘crimes’ of Liu Shaoqgi and Wang Guangmei. ‘They pressed me constantly. They also said that if I did a good job in exposing them, I would be released immediately.’” 

The interrogators wanted to know everything about the "enemy agent" Wang Guangmei and a list of all the guests who had met Liu Shaoqi and his "personal habits." 

“They tried to persuade me to admit that Liu Shaoqi had ‘turned revisionist,’ corrupted by my good cooking! They said I was so completely influenced by Liu Shaoqi that I was a ‘loyalist.’ Later, they began to torment me by giving me less and less food until I was practically starving. I was given only two cups of water a day. Sometimes, I would plead for more, but in vain.” 

He was imprisoned for over six years. A couple of other people persecuted by Mao's widow were Professor Yang Chengzuo and his wife Yuan Shaoying. The court called a witness alleged to have worked for Jiang Qing and he said they hoped to get Hao Miao to say that Wang Guangmei was an American spy and thus undermine her husband Liu Shaoqi. The witness said that the professor was in poor health and should have seen a doctor, which Jiang Qing refused and instead ordered the investigation team to "squeeze as much as possible out of Yang before he dies." The professor died, of course. Before 1949, he had been a professor at Beijing Catholic University, where Wang Guangmei had studied. Jiang Qing had also put pressure on another professor, Zhang Zhongyi, who had worked at the same university. The only problem was that he never knew Liu Shaoqi or Wang Guangmei. However, he knew Professor Yang and his wife. The 67-year-old Professor Zhang was arrested in 1967 and subjected to "intensified interrogation" even though he had cancer. The investigation team wrote after his death (according to the book):

 “We organized a high-powered group for the interrogation and mounted successive political assaults. In the 27 days of his detention, we interrogated him 21 times, bringing increasing pressure to bear on him, and finally forced him to confess, bit by bit, material concerning Wang Guangmei as a special agent.” 

There were apparently 80 tape recordings of the interrogations, but only 20 remain. (Looks like they learned from Nixon!) 

“When some of the remaining tapes were heard in court, the public were shocked and angered. They heard the weak cries of the old man being interrogated. They heard him gasping and struggling. They heard him being forcibly held down for administering medicine. They heard the threats and shouts of his interrogators and the feeble, confused protests and answers of the dying man. The last interrogation of Zhang, on October 31, 1967, lasted 15 hours, the prosecution said. The old man died two hours later.” 

As with the Moscow trials, one wonders why they bothered to publish this. Who are they trying to convince? But it's like the witch trials. Those who really believed did not ask questions.

The book on the case against Lin Biao (one of many of Mao's designated successors accused of treason) and Jiang Qing tries to give the appearance of a neutral and objective process and the fact that Jiang Qing stood her ground suggests that she was not tortured into confession. 

“Jiang Qing chose to defend herself instead of entrusting lawyers with her defence and spoke for nearly two hours on her own behalf. (…) She argued that she had done everything during the ‘cultural revolution’ ‘on behalf of Chairman Mao Zedong’ or ‘according to his instructions.’” 

The trial ended on January 25, 1981, with Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao sentenced to death, a sentence that could be commuted to imprisonment after two years. The latter was probably an attempt to protect Mao's role in Chinese history, as they had been close allies during the Cultural Revolution. Had she been executed, they would in a sense have been united in death, casting a shadow over the legitimacy of the Communist Party.

Perhaps her refusal to bow down can be taken as progress, especially when compared to one of several trials Huc and Gabet witnessed during their trip. Huc recounts how one day they found themselves in the middle of a trial in a small town in Hubei province. 

“For ourselves, at the first glance we cast into the hall, we felt a cold perspiration come over us, and our limbs tottered under us; we were ready to faint. The first object that presented itself on entering this Chinese judgment hall was the accused person on his trial.

He was suspended in the middle of the hall, like one of those lanterns, of whimsical form and colossal dimensions often seen in the great pagodas. Ropes attached to a great beam in the roof held him tied by the wrists and feet, so as to throw the body into the form of a bow. Beneath him stood five or six executioners, armed with rattan rods and leather lashes, in ferocious attitudes, their clothes and faces spotted with the blood of the unfortunate creature, who was uttering stifled groans, while his flesh was torn almost in tatters. The audience present at this frightful spectacle appeared quite at their ease, and our yellow caps excited much more emotion than the spectacle of torture. Many laughed, indeed, at the horror visible in our faces.” 

When they got a chance to interview the prefect, he said that the defendant was a bloodthirsty mass murderer and that the aim of the torture was to get him to turn in his associates in a notorious gang, but he refused.

It's a cruel story, but it's worth remembering that the justice system in Europe at the time was not necessarily more humane. 

October 11, Saturday

I went down early for breakfast. Melanie was already there with an older couple from New Zealand. I avoided her and don't think she saw me. Two German girls sat down at my table and we talked quite a bit. Melanie sat with her back to me, but quite close, so she should have recognized my voice. When she stood up, I looked away, but then followed her with my eyes as she walked towards the exit. Just as she came out of the room, she turned and looked in my direction, but I pretended not to see her. She seems puzzled and that's just as well. I don't give a shit about her.

It's a full moon and I can't wait to get home. I have a cold. I want peace and quiet. Silence. Not to be watched wherever I go. 

October 14, Tuesday

I boarded the train to Beijing at seven and quickly discovered that there was no chance to upgrade. I had tried to book a hard sleeper at the CITS office, but they said it was impossible and that I had to buy a soft sleeper instead, but that was too much for my backpacker budget, so I bought a hard seat which in practice meant standing room.

However, the train was so packed with people that there was not even standing room in the corridors, so I and two other backpackers had to squeeze into a small space at the entrance to the restaurant car. The area was full of egg cartons, cabbage heads and potato sacks plus wide-eyed staring fellow passengers who flocked around us. The situation became unbearable when a couple of heavily intoxicated men tried to squeeze past us and one of them vomited not far from me. Fortunately, it was only a few minutes before we were let into the restaurant. The waiter had made us wait outside while the other passengers ate since he wanted to give us and the staff a chance to eat in peace. 

The peace didn't last long, however, because a fight broke out when two passengers forced their way into the restaurant car and refused to obey the train police. One of the passengers, a man in his thirties, behaved quite aggressively, earning him a series of lightning-fast slaps in the face and a severe scolding before he and his friend were firmly removed from the restaurant car.

A moment later, more people were let into the restaurant car, which now served as a makeshift dormitory where people tried to sleep in all sorts of positions. I couldn't sleep, so I picked up my Chinese language cards, which made the head waiter curious. He sat down at our table and after a while, he and the waitresses were busy practicing English while I was learning some more Chinese.

My friends eventually managed to fall asleep, while I immersed myself in Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang's speech to the National People's Congress. 

* 

We are heading north across endless rice fields, passing countless villages with white two-story houses. The train hostesses walk back and forth in their new burgundy uniforms, keeping an eye on things. One hostess carefully adjusts some of the passengers' washcloths so that they hang evenly and neatly by the window. After a while, the blaring music is interrupted by a velvety female voice welcoming us and urging us to as a precautionary measure hand over all firearms and explosives to the train staff.

"It's for public safety." 

Still on the train. October 15

It's cold and the air feels raw. I put on my headphones and listened to David Bowie as I couldn't stand the kitschy music coming from the train's speakers.

"I like the free world," he sings. 

* 

It's a gray morning and eleven hours to Beijing. We just passed the Yellow River, which here seems to be half a kilometer wide. The train rushes hour after hour through the same flat landscape where farmers work in their blue Mao jackets on giant fields lined with long rows of poplars. In southern China, the rice fields look like little pieces of a puzzle, but here the fields are combined into large rectangular units suitable for mechanical farming. However, you don't see many machines. Most of the work is still done by people and animals. 

* 

"Would you like to talk to me?" asked a young man peeking into my compartment.

The first thing that struck me was his childish face and the bangs on his forehead, but he was not a child. He was an economist and computer expert at the Ministry of Finance in Beijing. I asked him what he thought of the reforms and especially the experiments with shares and stock markets. He liked the reforms and saw nothing wrong with some people getting rich. Regarding the reform of the political system, he and a teacher at the Shanghai Railway College who joined the discussion, said that they are waiting for the initiative to come from the top.

"Why do you have to wait?"

"In China you always follow the boss," the teacher replied.

"So, you are Confucians even when you fight Confucianism?"

"Yes, yes," they said, laughing. 

* 

I also met a young couple from Berlin on the train, Klaus, and Marlena. They had studied Chinese and drama for a year in Shanghai. Marlene had seen Shaffer's play and shared my view of it. 

* 

From the train window I saw another heavily polluted canal near an old factory. The government has set up a new environmental commission, but the problem is not just about politics and economics. It's about attitudes that are deeply rooted in the Chinese culture and psyche. People smoke and pester the air on trains — ignoring all signs saying that it is prohibited — as matter-of-factly as they toss food scraps and garbage out the window. There is a contradictory mix of consideration and ruthlessness in China. To family, friends, and relatives there is great generosity, but for a stranger there is no mercy. (I'm not talking about foreigners, who are often treated favorably.) Buses, trains, and restaurants are usually overcrowded and the fight for a seat follows the law of the jungle. Which is why the young and strong sit, while women, children and the old folks stand, if they manage to get on board the train. I have no sense that the young and strong feel any guilt about pushing and shoving their way to a seat. They take it for granted that old men and women are crowding the aisle, while they sit comfortably reading their novella magazines. And the old people don’t seem to be upset about their lot. 

* 

Mr. Chiang is the head of information for China Progress Consultants and looks to be about 40. We shared a compartment for a few hours and since he spoke excellent English, we got to talk a lot. His favorite topic was sex, especially homosexuality, a phenomenon that has puzzled him since he first encountered it during a visit to San Francisco. He and a colleague had visited a porn shop and picked up a couple of gay magazines when a man came up and asked if they wanted to have sex. Chiang said he and his colleague put their hands together in a polite no and hurried out of the store. I was surprised that he spoke so openly about this topic, which is usually taboo in China.

"I can't say I don't like homosexuality because I haven't tried it, but I think it should be everyone's private business. However, I cannot understand how a man can want to take another man's organ into his mouth. It can hardly be hygienic," he said.

"Well, maybe they wash themselves first. Besides, it may be difficult to understand it unless you have been in a situation where you have been in love with another man," I said.

"Can a man and a woman in Sweden move in together without being married?"

"Yes, of course!"

"That's good," he said.

Chiang works in foreign trade, but his passion is literature, both Chinese and foreign. He counts Shakespeare and Theodore Dreiser among his favorites and is a member of the Chinese Shakespeare Society. 

In the afternoon, a girl stopped by my compartment.

"Where are you from," she asked, smiling charmingly.

I hadn't expected her to speak English, so I was surprised at first, but then we started talking. She was teaching computer science at an institute in Shanghai and was on her way to a microcomputer expo in Beijing. She was a quick thinker and also spoke German. She said she wanted to do research in computer science but didn't see a future in China. She is not allowed to change jobs and only earns 60 yuan per month, she said.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" I asked.

"No," she said, adding that "girls who want a conservative man marry a Chinese man. Those who want a livelier man prefer foreigners." 

* 

I had a few hours left so I took out Abbé Huc again. Now I meet him and Gabet on the way out of a small town in Sichuan. 

“In the last street, before we left the town, we saw a long line of women, who appeared also to be waiting the passing of the men with yellow caps and red girdles. When our palanquins (covered litters) came opposite them, after having tottered a few seconds on their little lame feet (bound feet), they ended by kneeling down, and making also the sign of the cross.” 

One of the men escorting Huc and Gabet exclaimed in surprise that he had heard of Christian men, but never of Christian women. Huc, for his part, writes that in Europe it would hardly be strange if women came to look at a couple of travelers from a foreign country, but in China it was an astonishing defiance of all customs and practices. And as the good Catholic he is, he sees the oppression of women as something that exists in countries that have not yet been reached by Christianity. He then gives us a discussion of the position of women in China in the early 19th century.

Master Ting, the Mandarin who led the escort on the first leg of the journey from Chengdu, found the gathering of women puzzling to say the least. "He said he had heard that they were Christian women, but that must be nonsense," he said. To which Huc and Gabet replied that the opposite was true, that the women were Christians.

"I don't understand that," said Ting. "I have heard that people become Christians to save their souls. Is that it?"

To which Huc and Gabet replied that it was exactly that.

"But why should women become Christians?" asked Ting.

"Why? To save their souls, just like men."

"But they have no souls," replied Ting, taking a step back and crossing his arms. "Women have no souls, so you can't Christianize them."

Whereupon Huc and Gabet tried to convince him that women did have souls, but it was hopeless and ended with Ting bursting out laughing.

"Anyway," he added. "I will remember what you have told me and when I get home to my family, I will tell my wife that she has a soul. I suspect she will be quite surprised."

Huc then devotes several pages to the situation of women in China.

“The condition of the Chinese woman is most pitiable; suffering, privation, contempt, all kinds of misery and degradation, seize on her in the cradle, and accompany her pitilessly to the tomb. Her very birth is commonly regarded as a humiliation and a disgrace to the family – an evident sign of the malediction of Heaven. If she be not immediately suffocated (according to an atrocious custom which we shall speak of by and by), she is regarded and treated as a creature radically despicable, and scarcely belonging to the human race.” 

Here, Father Huc is not far from Mao, who said that a man is dominated by three forms of power —  political, clan and religious — while women are also dominated by men. But for Huc it is not feudalism so much as tradition. He quotes the female poet Ban Jieyu who lived almost 2,000 years ago: 

“‘When a son is born,’ she says, ‘he sleeps upon a bed; he is clothed with robes, and plays with pearls; every one obeys his princely cries. But when a girl is born, she sleeps upon the ground, is merely wrapped up in a cloth, plays with a tile, and is incapable of acting either virtuously or viciously. She has nothing to think of but preparing food, making wine, and not vexing her parents.’” 

For Huc, the subordinate position of women — “a servitude that opinion, legislation, manners, have sealed with their triple seal” — was the cornerstone of Chinese society. A young woman's "whole education consists in knowing how to use her needle; she neither learns to read nor to write; there exists for her neither school nor house of education; she is condemned to vegetate in the most complete and absolute ignorance…”

Then comes the moment when she is to be married off, without her participation. 

“The young girl is simply an object of traffic, an article of merchandise to be sold to the highest bidder, without her having the right to ask a single question concerning the merit or quality of her purchaser.” 

Today, we would see this as slave trading. 

“She is now thrown, young, feeble, and inexperienced, among total strangers, to suffer privation and contempt, and be altogether at the mercy of her purchaser. In her new family, she is expected to obey every one without exception. According to the expression of an old Chinese writer, ‘the newly married wife should be but a shadow and an echo in the house.’”

“…a woman counts for nothing. The law ignores her existence, or notices her merely to load her with fetters, to complete her servitude, and confirm her legal incapacity. Her husband, or rather her lord and master, can strike her with impunity, starve her, sell her, or what is worse, lend her out for a longer or shorter period, as is a common practice in the province of Tche-kiang (Zhejiang).”  

It is not uncommon for unhappily married women to kill themselves, and if the husband is grieving, it may well be because he now has to buy a new wife. Huc believes that it is the woman's miserable role that makes her so susceptible to the Christian message, especially the Catholic worship of the Madonna. 

“…it need hardly be said that the little girl born in a Christian family is not murdered, as is often the case among the Pagans. Religion is there to watch over her at her birth, to take her lovingly in its arms, and say. Here is a child created in the image of God, and predestined, like you, to immortality. Thank the Heavenly Father for having given her to you; and implore the Queen of Angels to be her patroness.” 

Girls growing up in Christian families are taught to read so that they can study Christian doctrine and develop intellectually. And at school, they meet other girls and learn a bit about "what life in this world is like."

This relative freedom continues into marriage. A girl in a Christian family can influence who she marries, and Huc writes that he has seen several examples of girls protesting and having their Christian parents break engagements made in the old way. And the relatively strong position of women in the family means that they have more freedom to move around outside the home, in church on Sundays and at religious festivals. 

“They often go out to visit each other, and form from time to time those little social parties which are so useful in dissipating care and vexation, and in helping one to support the burden of life.” 

As an atheist, it is strange for me to read this. We have always assumed that all religion involves the oppression of women but imagine the woman who would not want to be born into a Christian family if the alternative was lifelong slavery.

It also made me think of the young couple in Shanghai. I wonder what Huc would have written if he had met them. After all, their freedom to choose their partner was not thanks to the Christian church. 

Beijing, October 17, Friday

Like many other backpackers, I made my way to the Qiao Yuan Hotel which is southwest of the Temple of Heaven. You must take bus 20 or 106 to the Yongdingmen Railway Station and then walk a few kilometers along a canal. It's not much of a hotel, but you can get a bed in a dormitory for 8 yuan and share a triple room for 32 yuan, which I did during my time in Beijing. After checking in, I rented a bike and cycled up to the Tiananmen Square where I parked the bike and got a receipt from an old man in a worn Mao jacket.

I later had lunch at the Beijing Hotel with a couple of German backpackers and then continued to the Foreign Ministry where the guard let me borrow the phone to call the press department.

"I'm a Swedish journalist and would like the press list of authorities and companies," I said.

"There is no such list," said the man on the other end of the line.

"I'm sure there is such a list," I said firmly, as Fanny, the correspondent, had told me about it when we sailed down the Yangtze River.

"Who are you? Who invited you," he said angrily.

I gave up and rode my bicycle to the Swedish embassy in the diplomat quarters in the far northeastern corner of Beijing. It took me an hour.

At the embassy, two letters from my mother and a package of English business cards from Datorernas Värld were waiting for me. I was well received and got a lot of tips from the technical attaché. Afterwards I continued to the Great Wall Sheraton Hotel which was luxurious and seemed to be populated by retired Americans.

It took an hour to get back into town. I stopped at the Jiangguo Hotel where I changed money from one of the black-market guys lined up outside. 

* 

Beijing is a very large city, but it seems quieter, less intense, and not as crowded as Guangzhou. The silence comes from drivers not honking all the time and cyclists not ringing their bells incessantly. 

* 

It's gray outside. Occasionally a light rain fall. I tried to call a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The person who answered did not speak English and when I tried in Chinese, she hung up. This was repeated several times, but fortunately I was helped by a Canadian who happened to be nearby and spoke Chinese.

"The professor is not there right now," he translated and left a message from me. 

* 

I met Zhao Bang at the Foreign Language Bookstore. He is studying economics and speaks English fluently with a deep and booming voice. He said he also knows French and Japanese, and that he rides, boxes, swims, and practices tàijí quán.

I told him that I was trying to find a friend of a girl I had met in Chongqing. Zhao offered to help, and without him I would hardly have found Chiang Lei. We registered with the guard and Zhao wrote a false name on the visitor's registration form. Chiang was wearing tight jeans, high-heeled shoes, and a sweater under her half-length coat. She had been notified by her friend and was already thinking about how she could help me with contacts. 

October 18, Saturday

I was sitting at the bar on the second floor of the Beijing Hotel when a pretty girl sat down and ordered a gin and tonic. She had brown eyes, bright red lips, bright red tinted glasses, a blue tracksuit, and new red basketball shoes. The bartender placed the drink in front of her, but took it back when she tried to pay with renminbi instead of FEC. At first, I thought she faked it, but when it was obvious that she had no FECs, I called the bartender over and said that the drink was on me. She thanked me and I moved closer. She told me that she was from Shanghai and that her father was a railroad engineer.

"I have money, but not US dollars, Hong Kong dollars or FEC," she said, complaining about Beijing, which in her eyes was a boring place. In her view, Shanghai was better and Guangzhou the best, largely because of its proximity to Hong Kong.

"The discos are better there," she said, adding that she would go to the disco in Hotel Xiyan tonight.

"Which bus do you take?" I asked.

"I take a taxi," she replied. 

October 19, Sunday

The "Forbidden City" is open to tourists, but Beijing is otherwise full of forbidden neighborhoods and walled buildings with guards stopping all unauthorized people. This includes residential areas, which are often surrounded by walls and guarded by old blue- or black-clad old men and women with the red armbands of the neighborhood committee. 

* 

I experienced my first Peking opera. It was too loud for my ears, but the audience — mostly older people — enjoyed the performance. I sat next to a teacher of Chinese literature at Beijing University. The woman in his company seemed too young to be his wife, so maybe she was a colleague or student. He himself was completely absorbed in the drama and seemed to enjoy every line, tone and movement. He uttered many sentences just before they were performed and sometimes sang along in a low voice. 

October 20, Monday

I had dinner with Zhao and a handful of Chiang Lei's friends. We went to Quanjude which is one of the biggest restaurants for Peking duck. Zhao sat next to me and showed me how you first take a pancake-like piece of bread, spread some sauce on it and roll the duck pieces in it. Then you eat it like a pirogue, but with chopsticks.

"My family is from Inner Mongolia and my grandfather was a Ming general," said Zhao. "We had plenty of money and valuables until the Cultural Revolution, but our treasures were destroyed by the Red Guards and the family was sent to Xinjiang in northwest China."

"My family is reactionary, and I have blue blood in my veins. I'm not like them," he whispered to me, looking at the others around the table.

When I objected that things have improved in China compared to 1975, he replied:

"You shouldn't compare with the past. Then you can also compare with what it was like before 1949, when people were starving to death."

Instead, he compared it to Japan, which he thought had the same post-war situation as China.

For him, China is too crowded and corrupt. He doesn't like the congestion in Beijing and sees no future in Inner Mongolia. He wants to leave and hopes to study in the US. 

* 

Zhao reminded me of another Mongol, the young Mandarin Huc and Gabet met in Nanchang towards the end of their journey back to Guangzhou and Macau. 

“We were one day reclining on porcelain seats in our balcony, breathing the fresh air from the river, and watching the passers-by on the quay below, when a young Mandarin entered abruptly, without being announced, bade us good day with a proud and independent bow, to which we were unaccustomed in China, and, pushing forward a bamboo seat with his foot, sat down opposite us. We were at first inclined to recall him forcibly to the observance of the Rites, and to soften a little the bluntness of his behavior. But his countenance pleased us; it was lively, intelligent, full of candor and integrity, and we thought that his conduct might denote a haughty character, but not necessarily an impudent one.

‘You treat us like old friends,’ we said; ‘between friends etiquette is superfluous.’

‘The Chinese are very ceremonious,’ replied he; ‘but I am not a Chinese, I am a Mongol.’”  

* 

On the way to the Jiangguo Hotel, in addition to the usual black-market guys, I saw a young woman who appeared to be a prostitute. She was standing in the parking lot as if waiting. Inside the bar was at least one girl who seems to be in the same business. At the luxury hotel, I also saw Chinese cadres with foreign guests. Many still wear Mao suits, but well pressed ones. Because this is a social elite. An elite enlivened by their new role. 

* 

“...the rebirth of a country lies in the rebirth of its people.”

(Lu Xun)

 

“Instead, he concentrated on exposing the distorted human nature and psychology of people under oppression of the traditional culture.”

(Liu Zaifu in China Daily, October 20, 1986)

 * 

Almost every day I see serious traffic incidents, or accidents that have already happened. Dangerous tools have been put in the hands of too many people who are not ready to handle them. Pedestrians and cyclists are also hopelessly negligent. They rarely look where they are going, they just walk or ride their bicycles straight into the street and when they do see an approaching car or bus, they ignore it until they are on the brink of disaster. Sometimes they cross the line. 

* 

Today, Beijing is shrouded in a gray haze. By evening, the air becomes raw. I think of the poor homeless people I saw on the way back to the hotel. There were four or five people wrapped in blankets on the pavement. I wonder how many people will freeze to death in Beijing this winter. 

October 21, Tuesday

The night was cold and the morning misty. There was a thick fog beyond the hotel restaurant located in an adjacent building. In the distance I could see the occasional construction crane rising out of the fog, but when I looked up, I saw that the sky was clear, and the sun was up. I'm still thinking about the homeless I've seen from the bus over the past few days. Should I try to photograph them tonight? I'm a bit afraid, afraid that they will be upset. I would have to use a flash. 

* 

I was going to take the bus back to the Beijing Hotel after the interview with the Academy of Sciences professor, but I couldn't get on board. You need your hands free to struggle if you want to get on the bus. As dusk fell and it got colder, I waited in vain for a bus that wasn't filled to capacity. I gave up after 45 minutes and took a taxi. 

October 22, Wednesday

Efficiency, what is it? Well, it's definitely not having half of the waitress staff washing windows when the dining room is full of guests waiting to order their breakfast. 

I walked north across the Tiananmen Square after lunch and took photos of children and old people flying paper kites while Chinese tourists posed in front of the Mao portrait. Later, I had coffee at the café to the left of the Beijing Hotel lobby. The huge hotel used to be the gathering point for businessmen, scholars, and journalists, but those who haven't moved on to newer, more elegant hotels, are now joined by young people and backpackers. I was on my third cup when I spotted two pretty girls looking for a free table and, gentleman that I am, I invited them to my table. The blond girl looked to be in her twenties, with straight hair and blue eyes. Her name was Andrea, and she came from Frankfurt. Her friend's name was Zara, and she was from Los Angeles. She had long dark hair and was a few years older. They had arrived yesterday and were staying at the same hotel as I. 

Andrea had taken a break from her university studies to travel the world, while Zara had gone to China to find herself after a divorce. She had married her Iranian boyfriend who was very disappointed when he discovered on the morning after the wedding that the sheets were not bloody. He refused to believe her assurances that she was indeed a virgin.

"I realized that I had married an idiot and also wasted my youth. Oh, how stupid I was," said Zara with a sardonic smile. 

* 

"Bloody bureaucrats!"

Sometimes the cup runs over. I spent two hours in the morning trying to call a several Chinese contacts. It often takes ten attempts before you get on the line at all, and then it's often busy, so you have to try to get on the line again.

Once you get to the switchboard on the other side, someone says "Wei!", and I try to tell them which extension I want to be connected to, such as "Wo zhao xianzheng..." or "Si si qi fengzhui" (extension 447). Every other time there is a long flow of words that I don't understand why I must repeat the question. The operator then gets mad and hangs up. If I happen to be on the right line, the risk is that someone will say "bo zai lai!" which means the person is not there. This leaves me with the task of finding out if he is on the toilet or on a one-year study trip to the US. It's not so easy when you only know a few phrases of Chinese.

The biggest name of the day, Bo Hongwen at the Ministry of Mechanical Engineering, would be away for three weeks, I was told. Another contact could not be reached because of a constant busy signal. Zhao Bang's friend Chen Zi was out at the moment and after a long wait, the person at the other end of the line managed to find a girl who knew enough English to take down my phone number and ask him to call back. This went on for two hours until I gave up in exhaustion, without a single positive response. I couldn't even reach the people at the Swedish Embassy because they were in a meeting.

Frustrated, I took the bike to the Beijing International Post Office where the guidebook said the Poste Restante department would be located. It took three quarters of an hour to find the office, and once there I learned that the department had been moved to the other end of the city.

Zigzagging in the Middle Kingdom is the fourth part of  novel with the working title Shifting Passions.