An American Looks at Communist China

Even if you wear Chinese clothes and speak the language, you are always a foreigner in China. Once or twice I was able to "pass" as a member of a national minority, but generally my appearance would call forth a chorus of "there goes a Russian friend, hi Russian" from the kids in the street. We foreigners all looked alike.

Event the Foreign Minister, Chou En-lai, had trouble placing me on one occasion. I was swimming on the Peking city team and we had an exhibition when the British swimmers were racing the Chinese national team. Chou came down from the stands to greet the team after the meet, and appeared puzzled at finding a Westerner wearing a Peking swimsuit, instead of a British one. He looked back and forth between me and the Britishers for a second; finally he shrugged and, smiling, held out his hand.

Surprisingly, there is no animosity towards the few Americans living in China. On the contrary, the authorities make every effort to distinguish their attacks on our government from their often-voiced admiration of the American people. Thus, when some of my friends jokingly nicknamed me "old American imperialism" (it is not as cumbersome in Chinese), the teachers were unamusd and tried to stop the practice.

I later found out that the first time I was absent from school, my classmates spent the whole day discussing the difference between the government and the people in a capitalist country, and how they should treat an American friend. The author Felix Greene, a frequent visitor to China, told me of attending a giant anti-U.S. rally in People's Square in Peking. All around him thousands of people were chanting hysterically "Down with American imperialism. Long live the Cuban people's revolution." Yet in his immediate vicinity, many were pushing past each other in their eagerness to shake hands with the "American friend."

On May day speakers often pay tribute to the "great American working class." No one is allowed to forget that May I was chosen as International Labor Day to commemorate a strike in Chicago. Similarly, every Chinese school child knows and honors the birthdays of two Americans, Paul Robeson and W.E.B DuBois.

As foreigners, my family and I enjoyed a much higher standard of living than any Chinese--a standing government policy. Of course we had no car, no television, no washing machine, no steam heat, but we did have a larger meat ration, enough money to buy milk, butter, and eggs, and a house with its own courtyard. In the summer we were given vacations at the seaside, still reserved for the most outstanding model workers. Whenever we travelled, however, we were plagued by red tape and special passes.

It is impossible to live in China for five years without picking up many Chinese social values. Waste of any kind is one of the worst sins there; math problems frequently take the form: "If every Chinese wasted one grain of rice each day and each grain of rice weighs one gram...." I learned to write on both sides of scratch paper before throwing it away and to use pencils until I could barely hold them. We always ate everything off our plates including the crust of rice around the edge of a bowl.

Another thing I learned was the value of sharing when everything is scarce. Before I got a pair or track shoes, I asked all my friends their shoe sizes and then bought that average size. It simply never occurred to me that there might be any other way of picking the "right" size.

Peking Street Scene

The street scene in Peking is wonderfully exciting. Vendors set up their stalls on every corner, selling fruits, roasted chestnuts, toys and sweet potatoes. Tinkers, potters, ragmen, cobblers, each with their own identifying street calls, make the rounds. Since there is almost no plumbing, even in Peking, the "honey carts" come around to collect fertilizer for the country.

Another tradesman to go from door to door is the coal-ball man. At each house he digs up a little patch of earth in the courtyard, mixes in some coal dust and water and then spreads out the resulting paste and cuts it into squares with his hoe. The squares are then tumbled around in a big basket, until the corners are knocked off by the rim of the basket. These coal balls burn very slowly, and of course represent a great saving in coal, since half is just mud to hold the heat.

Crowds of people always fill the streets in Peking. Cars are few and the speed limit is low because bicycles choke the streets during rush hour. Taxi-cabs are too few to hail on the streets, but can be called by phone. If a taxi-driver doesn't seem to know the city, it is usually because she is an administrator taking her turn in the lower ranks. (This is a normal practice throughout Chinese society: a factory manager will work for a time at the bench and an army officer will serve as a "private.")

Buses and Trolleys

The larger number of Czech buses, recently supplemented by Chinese-made trackless trolley, are generally overcrowded. People wait in orderly lines until the buses come and then scramble for the door, the conductor bodily pushing the last few persons aboard. Frequently the conductor makes the trip to the next stop hanging halfway ou the door, trying to force his own way in.

The peddi-cab, a cross between a rickshaw and a tricycle provides another major form of transportation in

This is the second article in a two-part series by William W. Hodes '66 on life in Communist Chins. Mr. Hodes and his family spent the years between 1955 and 1960 in Peking, the capital of Chins. the city. Flat-top peddi-cabs also transport everything from cabbages to cast iron to live and squawking chickens. Nursery schools even have "school buses," converted peddi-cabs which are actually just big boxes on wheels with a driver peddling away in front.

When the Chinese go about cleaning up a city, they go at it with a vengeance. Flies used to be so numerous in Packing that you couldn't eat a piece of watermelon in the street without brushing them off between bites. A campaign was organized in which everyone took part. Even grade school in matchboxes and counted. The result: Peking is now free of flies.

A few years later the government proclaimed a national campaign to exterminate sparrows, one of the "four pests," (they eat many times their weight in grain each day) and Peking did its part in a one-day all-out effort. Early in the morning, the whole population started making noise and shooing sparrows. Every-where in the city, the sight of a single sparrow on a rooftop or in a tree was the signal for a tumult of shout, gongs and tin cans.

As the day wore on, sparrows began to drop with exhaustion, unable to fly away even when someone came right up to them to wring their necks. One or two areas in the parks were deliberately left "quiet," and here an army of BB-gunners lay in ambush for the resting sparrow. Some of our British comrades demurred, of course, but the campaign saved many tons of grain for the Peking area.

Another campaign was aimed at the spitting in public that was very common all over China. Young Pioneers (Socialist "boy scouts") took to the streets with megaphones and leaflets, explaining the health problems created by spitting, and lecturing passers-by who were caught in the act. At the height of the campaign, the Pioneers went around with pieces of chalk, drawing circles around the spit and labelling them with the date and the culprit's name.

It is impossible to write an up-to-date account of life in China: a new campaign may be launched while you type your notes. The only thing that remains sure is that the vitality never changes, the energy of the people is never peaked. No matter what they set their hands to-- Killing sparrows or winning a swimming race--the Chinese put their entire strength into it. For every task, there are 1000 volunteers.

This is what makes China so fascinating to all and so frightening to some