Footloose Scot

by Jim Glendinning

  We followed a three week itinerary by plane, train and bus to Shanghai, Wuhan, Chinan and some smaller towns, and finally to Beijing before returning to Hong Kong, our starting point. We saw all the main tourist sights and enjoyed a lot of good food and plenty of beer. In Shanghai our guides made a point of telling how the sign outside the Foreigners Club on the Bund (Shanghai's waterfront drive) said: "Dogs and Chinese not permitted." We visited a model farm, a school, a factory and Mao's birthplace; later, in wild mountain terrain, we watched the Red Army practicing tank maneuvers. We connected briefly with the culture of ancient China in Old Peking and with its history when we stood on the Great Wall.

  We were warned that our trip would be heavily chaperoned and tightly programmed, and we would be subject to constant political propaganda. At each place visited there would be a throng of people holding up poster-size Mao pictures, each person with a copy of the Little Red Book, a 312-page booklet with a red plastic cover known as Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse Tung. Each member of our group was given a copy immediately we crossed the border from Hong Kong.

  It was winter and, as we moved north, it became progressively colder. The population was all bundled up, and to our eyes looked the same. People were busy everywhere doing manual work. Our impression of living conditions was that everyone was taken care of, but there were not many comforts available, certainly no luxuries. We often stayed at old hotels which had been reopened to accommodate a group of our size. We saw all the tourist sights such as the Forbidden City in Beijing, China's best preserved imperial palace, in addition to places our hosts thought we should see.

  Among the non-tourist sights we visited was a school where we saw 6-year olds chanting anti-USA slogans. In the classroom, where a copy of the Red Book was prominently displayed under the chalk board, a soldier of the People's Liberation Army stood in the background to make sure that the teaching was politically correct.

  At one point during the tour we stayed at a commune and did some symbolic hoeing of the land. The earth was rock-hard, and the temperature was below freezing. It was without real purpose but still we went along with the idea without too much complaint because we understood the propaganda nature of the tour.

  We were accompanied by many guides and minders and there was little chance to stray from the group. When we did have some free time and could stroll around on our own, the reaction of local Chinese people was often sheer astonishment; they gaped at us. Sometimes as we entered an institution for a formal visit, I would see Chinese teenagers in the background pointing and laughing at the foreigners with large noses. We were probably the first Westerners they had seen.

  What sticks in the mind these many years later are not the Ming Tombs or the Great Wall but an incident which could have ended the trip. By the end of the first week, some in the group were beginning to chafe at the constant propaganda. We had had numerous receptions with formal speeches of welcome, cups of green tea, and expressions of mutual respect which took forever to translate. By now we had learned the words of "The East is Red," the national anthem of the Cultural Revolution, so we could sing along heartily with our hosts.

  It was perhaps inevitable, given the independent frame of mind of the average Australian student, that an incident would occur. The incident happened following a flight to Shanghai, and it involved a student who was sitting next to me on the plane. In flight we had been given a snack and then the hostesses encouraged us to sing "The East is Red". I noticed that my seat mate was whiling away his time by adding a mustache to Mao's face which featured on the tag of his carry-on bag. I thought nothing of it.

  We got off the plane at Shanghai and went into a room in the terminal building for a reception. After an hour of the usual formulaic speeches and responses, there was a sudden disturbance. A man in a worker's uniform, clearly agitated, entered from a side door and approached the chairman of the reception committee, waving a piece of paper in his hand. The committee chairman listened and looked at the piece of paper. It was the baggage tag, with Chairman Mao's added mustache, and it had got separated from the bag. The cleaning crew had found it.

  In no time at all the tone of the meeting changed. The Chinese started speaking loudly among each other, some pointing in our direction, the speeches forgotten. The Australian tour leader looked grim as he spoke privately with the Reception Committee chairman. The interpreters did not say anything, and seemed as confused as the students in the group. After a while, the tour leader stood on a chair and shouted for everyone to be quiet, and that he had an announcement to make.

  "We've got a major problem here, which only a radical solution will take care of," he said. He continued, saying that the Chinese said their country had been insulted and insisted on a public self confession. Otherwise the future of the tour was in doubt. "We are in their country," he continued, "and should live by their rules, however we might disagree." It was a difficult concept for some in the group to accept. The group started to argue, some saying the whole thing was totally overblown, that no insult was intended and the Chinese should get real. Others insisted we should apologize, do whatever was necessary to save the tour. This point of view prevailed. After some minutes of argument the student who had caused the problem stood up. Alarmed that his thoughtless action might jeopardize the tour, he said he would do a public self confession, on the spot. He just wanted to be told what to say.

  And this is what finally happened. The student said his actions had been bourgeois, stupid and insulting to the Chinese hosts. He asked for forgiveness and hoped that the tour could continue. His apology went on for some time. But it was sufficient. The group may not have realized at the time, but

  author and interpreter, beijing we were witnesses at first hand, to a feature of the Cultural Revolution, this one without violence.

  POLITICAL GRAFFITI ON MING TOMB

  POSTER OF CHAIRMAN MAO

  AUTHOR AND INTERPRETER, BEIJING

  A year earlier, events like this were commonplace and often fatal, as millions of Red Guards ransacked cultural and religious sites; in Tibet Buddhist monks were forced at gunpoint to tear down their monasteries. Dissidents, many of them teachers, were forced to confess and paraded them through the streets with signs around their necks. They were spat on and beaten, and many killed. Today the Chinese authorities calculate that during the Cultural Revolution 30 million died, many from starvation as whole populations were displaced.

  What we had seen was something as valuable in its own way as the tourist sights such as as The Great Wall or the Winter Palace. We had seen at first hand an alien political system at work. The group soon regained its spirit, drank more beer than before, but was careful not to provoke any incidents which might require a public self confession.

  The group returned to Hong Kong at the end of the tour and attended a press conference where our first-hand views of mysterious China were eagerly awaited. For me, I was glad to have gone. It was a learning experience for the whole group, and many were clearly shocked to have been a witness to such an uncommon occurrence, the public self-confession.

  In the back of my copy of the Little Red Book, I wrote that the revisionists had failed and that the Party was in control again. Little did I know that within eight years, Mao would have died and that a new China would arise, still confined within the Communist political straightjacket but free to practice economic capitalism, the success of which we are having to come to terms with today.

  PART II, CHAPTER 7

  GROUP ADVENTURES

  _______

  1974

  DRIVING TO INDIA

  I got married in 1973 and with my wife Christine, who had a similar travel bug, decided on an overland trip to Asia. We bought a Bedford camper van, and planned a six-month trip to India. We would then continue to Southeast Asia and Japan by plane or ship before coming back to New Delhi, where we had parked our camper, and drive home.

  A travel agency in London, Trailfinders, offered advice to potential overlanders. Overlan
ding meant driving your own vehicle from London to Goa or Kathmandu or through Africa. Pre-planning, they said, would save us expense, breakdowns, accidents, headaches and perhaps even jail. Make no mistake, they added, without pre-planning we would be well advised to stay at home and enjoy a safe, middle-class holiday in Bognor Regis (a town on the English Channel). They should know; they were specialists in this field.

  They provided a loose leaf Pre Departure Handbook with 61 separate route segments from London to New Delhi together with maps. It also contained a mass of information ranging from country-to-country visa requirements, the best type of vehicle, how to obtain a vehicle carnet (the vehicle permit for temporary entry into a foreign country), as well as insurance, inoculations recommended for each country and food suggestions.

  We had a useful interview in London with the Trailfinders staff person, Harvey Bonham, who wrote the pre-departure handbook. We didn't tell him we had already bought a Bedford Camper, not one of their recommended vehicles. It had a softer suspension than VW or Ford vans, but in the event we were not let down. Also, I took a trainee mechanics course for a couple of days at a garage in Oxford. We put a roof rack on the camper and strapped on fuel cans and an extra tire. Excited and a little nervous, we were ready to go. In the mid-1970's morale in England as well as the economy was rock bottom. It was a good time to be leaving. Twelve countries and 10,000 miles to New Delhi lay ahead.

  In March 1974 we took the cross Channel ferry to Belgium then linked up with the German autobahn network, heading south. Buying local food and cooking in the van, using campsites or sometimes just parking overnight by the side of the road, we drove through Germany and Austria then over the Loibl Pass into Yugoslavia, the same route I had hitch-hiked in 1958. We detoured to the Dalmatian Coast and camped on quiet beaches.

  Old Dubrovnik's claim to be "The Pearl of the Adriatic" was well deserved. A walled city founded in the 7th century as a Byzantium fortress, stuck between the blue Adriatic Sea and the coastal mountain range. it was crammed with wonderful old buildings and featured pedestrian streets paved with marble. We then turned inland and headed southeast across wild mountain terrain. I saw Cyrillic lettering on shop signs, and noticed roadside memorials to partisans killed fighting the Germans during World War II. Nine days after leaving England we arrived in Istanbul.

  Truly a world city, Istanbul enjoys a stunning location on a strategic waterway with a foot on two continents. It has been capital city of three empires as its many mosques, palaces and monuments bear witness. Western and tourist friendly on one hand, its other side suggests a Middle Eastern lifestyle.

  Istanbul was no place to drive around so we parked the Bedford safely and explored the city by foot, on trams and by ferry. Memories such as watching two men walk by hand in hand across Galata Bridge, smelling roasting meats and getting lost in the Grand Bazaar linger with the grander sights of Topkapi Palace, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (the Blue Mosque) and immense Museum of Hagia Sophia. This mighty structure surmounted by a massive dome and held up by enormous buttresses has since its dedication in 360 AD served as a cathedral to both Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic religions, as a mosque for 500 years and finally, when it was secularised in 1935, as a museum. We avoided carpet salesman and various rogues on the sidewalks, and after two busy days were ready to take the ferry across the Bosporus into Asia.

  We detoured to the battlefields and cemeteries of the Gallipoli peninsula, alternatively moving and numbing in its profusion of graves, trenches, obelisks and memorials. This failed campaign in 1915, proposed by Winston Churchill, was intended to secure the Dardanelles waterway and capture Constantinople. Instead, the Turkish victory laid the ground work for Ataturk's new Turkey. After landings by French, British, Australian and New Zealand troops, the attack stalled after many casualties leading to a withdrawal from the peninsula. You won't escape a showing of Peter Weir's Gallipoli movie if you stay in any of the budget hostels; and the site remains a magnet for young Australians.

  Along Turkey's Mediterranean coast we enjoyed warming weather and empty seaside campsites. Inland we explored the rock dwellings of the ancient Christian settlements of Goreme, and the white calcium-formed plateau with terrace formations in Pamukkale, the thermal baths and the nearby Roman remains at Hierapolis. The further east the wilder the scenery became; it was now spring and wildflowers added some color to increasingly barren landscape.

  Driving through a cold rain shower in mountain terrain, we found the road blocked by a herd of emaciated sheep tended by a bedraggled old shepherd holding his coat over his head. He looked at our vehicle and at us and, nodding towards two sickly looking sheep at the back of the herd; he drew his hand across his throat. He was not threatening us; he was suggesting we give his two sheep a ride in our vehicle or they would die. Born on a sheep farm, I couldn't refuse. We loaded the shepherd and his smelly sheep into the back of the van, and drove them to a lower altitude. The odor of wet wool remained with us for days.

  We had experienced good roads so far, well surfaced and maintained. The Bedford was running well, and we had started to personalize the vehicle calling it Bedford. "Would Bedford be happy with this detour?" was the sort of question we might ask when looking at a choice of routes. Often in the mountains or along the coast we would pull over for a picnic lunch, heating tea on the stove. At night we would look for a campsite but, if none was available, simply find a secluded spot and deploy the pop-up roof. I always checked for a clear escape route, and had Bedford pointing in the right direction in case of a hurried departure, but we never had any unwelcome nighttime visitors.

  On the main highways, the principal source of anxiety were the long-distance trucks, sixteen- or eighteen-wheelers, driving fast and often in the center of the road, covered in dust and bearing a TIR sign (International Road Transport). They were hauling manufactured goods .to Asia and produce to Europe. Many of them originated in Tehran.

  Eastern Turkey was wild, primitive and not welcoming. Bands of wild dogs ran through the empty streets of bleak towns, and kids would sometimes throw rocks at the vehicle. Sometimes we took shelter in a local hotel, rather than risking camping. A little hostility was something anticipated, and we had no thought of turning back; there was always the anticipation of the next country.

  Driving into Iran things changed completely, and for the better. Smart guards in US-style uniforms manned the border crossing, and there was a working water fountain in the immigration office. We were warmly greeted and quickly processed. A line of trucks waiting to get into Iran stretched half a mile was not so fortunate. We didn't know it, but we arrived during the last days of the Shah's rule.

  Tehran was large, modern and bustling, not normally a place we would look forward to.. But fortunately an Iranian friend from my Oxford days called Reza was expecting us. We stayed at his apartment and he acted as a tour guide for two days. It was a relief not having to do all the planning ourselves as well as being constantly alert; now we had a friend to show us around the city, to see the opulent Golestan Palace (The Palace of Flowers) and the treasures of the National Museum as well as to restaurants which we would never have found on our own. One evening we met up with a friend of his, a slight, sensitive-looking man. Towards the end of a night of beer drinking he confided he had just resigned from Savak, the Shah's secret police. He could not stomach the methods of torture inflicted on political suspects and we didn't ask for details. One wondered about his own future, as someone who had renounced the agency.

  From Tehran we drove south to Isfahan in seven hours, expectantly. A Persian proverb says: "Isfahan is half the World", and we soon found out why. Mosques, minarets, palaces and caravanserais filled the town, as well as bath-houses and bazaars. The graceful curves and intricate blue tiling of the mosaic domed mosques dominated the skyline. Tree-lined boulevards led to Nagshsh-a Jahan Square, the largest in Iran, surrounded by wide galleries. The city of over one million was one of the few spared by the Mongols, hence the rich treasures visible today.
An outstanding example of a wide range of Islamic architectural styles from the 11th century, it was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. We drove around, and then walked around for a long morning in something of a daze at the richness of the architectural feast before turning to mundane matters like finding a campground.

  From Isfahan a good road led us south for 300 miles to Shiraz. Known as the "City of roses and nightingales", Shiraz can't match Isfahan's architectural wonders. But it is a centre of arts and letters, and home of Iran's two greatest poets from the 13th and 14th centuries, Saadi and Hafez. This pleasant oasis was a good rest stop before we turned east on what the map described as "a desert or dangerous road" to the city of Kerman. We were so far south that, instead of turning round and heading back to Tehran, we decided to take a southern route eastwards through Iran into Baluchistan Province of Pakistan and from there enter Afghanistan.

  The desert road was unpaved, hard-packed sand and gravel. Occasionally there were soft patches where Bedford got stuck. I was alarmed and momentarily panicked as the rear wheels sank deeper into the sand the more I pressed on the accelerator. There were very few other vehicles from whom to ask for help, and I didn't relish a night stranded in the open desert. We had no sand ladders, so I started throwing an overcoat and winter sweaters under the back wheels while Christine gunned the engine. This did the trick and we started to move again, with some shredded garments as souvenirs.