China between Mao and Tiananmen: a week in Hangchou

China, 1980 (Alamy)
It was 1988, probably the time when China was at its most democratic in its long history. Mao was dead, the “ Gang of Four” (responsible for the greatest disasters of the Cultural Revolution) languished behind bars and the brutal oppression of the Tiananmen Square protest was still a year in the future. In contrast to my visits to Russia, there was no fear in the air. Poverty was tangible, but everybody spoke freely. They all believed in a bright future.
I was sent by the British Council for a lecture tour of China, a week of which I spent in Hangchou. My wife Marianne was allowed to come with me. That was 33 years ago, but I remember our stay very well because that was the only time in our lives when we were treated as VIPs.
Our accommodation was in a guest-house reserved for Chinese visitors to Hangchou University. We had a room and an adjoining bathroom. Everything was fine, I had though some concerns about the electric wires in the bathroom coming down from the ceiling which were wound round the tube delivering the hot water. I mentioned this at the reception. They assured me, speaking a kind of English, that it was perfectly safe. The room was clean, a double-bed, with fresh sheets and we had the luxury of a small television set as well. When we first switched it on we saw Marlon Brando speaking Chinese to Blanche, just before the seduction scene in the film version of Tennessee William ’ s A Streetcar Named Desire.
We were offered a guide, an English-speaking university student in her third year, and a car with a driver. It was a fairly old car, one of only three I saw in Hangchou during that week. Marianne was delighted and happily accepted the offer. While I gave lectures and had discussions at the university, she was driven around. First she was shown pagodas and Buddhist temples, but when she got bored by them, the driver was happy to drive her wherever she wanted to go. She expressed her desire to visit some villages in Hangchou ’ s neighbourhood. After some discussion between the guide and the driver, they chose two villages. Being five foot three, in England she was, to put it bluntly, short. (She belonged to the five-foot-three-and-under category.). In the Chinese villages they visited she towered above them: a willowy giant. Women regarded her as a curiosity. They were particularly fascinated by her blonde hair. One woman touched it, another even pulled it. They could not believe it was natural.
On the third day she wanted to buy a present for Mayen, our pretty guide. “How about a nice dress?” Marianne asked her. Yes, that was exactly what she wanted: a nice dress. In the centre of Hangchou there was a shop selling dresses. There was one problem though: seen through Western eyes, they were hideous. The guide reached the same conclusion within seconds. She told Marianne that recently some new possibilities had emerged and they should investigate these. They walked. The car was not available that day. After a number of drab streets lined with drab houses, a sight appeared that was both perfectly ordinary in one sense but quite extraordinary in another. “ You mustsee it. Even then you might think it is an optical illusion,” Marianne told me. “ Come with us tomorrow.”
So, next morning I played truant at the university and went with them to the place of wonder. Filling the street in front of a one-storey house were 18 shiny sewing machines, Singer ’ s latest, arranged in three columns and six rows. Eighteen women, dressed alike in Mao suits, worked them diligently without ever looking up. Their uniformity made them look particularly unreal: a dream maybe? Mayen disappeared into the house. Ten minutes later she re-emerged, beaming. She was wearing a dress, which from any perspective, Western or Eastern, was stunning. And it fitted her perfectly, as if tailored for her. As I learned later, the previous day her measures had been taken and she had chosen the design from a Western fashion magazine. The dress was ready a day later. Mayen was thrilled and we were happy to pay. From conception to final version, the dress cost just under three pounds, half of her student grant for a month.
The morning of day five I spent at the university. In the afternoon I decided to see the city. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. But what if the Romans advise against it? “ Will you really be able to cope with the traffic?” My academic contact questioned sceptically. “ Of course,” I said, “ Will you lend me your bicycle?”
Cycling in Hangchou turned out to be similar to cycling in Oxford in at least one respect. Cyclists ignored traffic lights. The flow of bicycles appeared to be continuous. So what happens at crossroads? I admired their innate sense of compromise. It was like the old school tie in Britain. They recognised their own; they helped each other and when conflict arose they came to some kind of accommodation. In practice this meant that traffic slowed down at the crossroads. The flows perpendicular to each other interpenetrated without ever compelling a fellow-cyclist to dismount. It was the Chinese version of ride and let ride.
The great majority was happy to follow the unwritten rules but like everywhere else (and Hangchou was no exception) there are always those who do not. Some simply claim the road for themselves. I was happily cycling along, near to the kerb, when a cyclist suddenly shot in from one of the side roads, reminding me of the worst excesses of French priorité à droite . He rode into my road; I rode into him. We both ended up, luckily unhurt, on the ground. He muttered something, I suppose he deprecated the riding skills of foreign cyclists, but realising the lack of opportunity to remonstrate (discuss the details of the case), he left me brooding and rejoined the flow.
At night we cycled to a theatre where a Chinese opera was produced. Although we were a little late I took time to count the number of bicycles parked in front of the theatre. We found the number just below six hundred. Parking was not free. It cost three fens, which amounted to a little less than a penny.
The performance was already on. The theatre was about half full. After ten minutes I realised that Chinese opera was not for me: I was bored. The last time I was so bored by music was in a fado evening in Madrid.
As always, I tried to canvass political opinions among the academics. They all approved of the Communist Party ’ s reforms towards free enterprise away from a rigid planned economy. I asked no fewer than two dozen people, ranging from doctoral students to professors: “Where would you like to spend a couple of years if you were free to choose any place you like?”
“ In the United States,” said 24 out of 24. I could hardly hide my disappointment. To one of the professors, I posed a direct question: “ Would you not like to come to Oxford?” “Of course,” he said. “ I would love to go to Oxford, but your question was about my first choice, was it not?” Well, it was.
How could I summarise what I thought of China after the visit? Yes, they had had their wild, irrational, ultra-revolutionary decade of the Cultural Revolution, but by 1988 they had the same ambitions as any Western country: They wanted to be rich. The 18 sewing machines showed the route to riches: foreign investment and cheap labour.
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