China :: Beverley Jackson

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: I Want to Go to Shanghai

by Beverley

November 3rd, 2013

Chapter Thirteen
I WANT TO GO TO SHANGHAI

Beverley in front of the Chairman Mao statue on the Nanking Bridge

It took almost daily trips to China Travel office, and endless arguments in English and charades, but I finally convinced the mysterious powers who were always higher up and had to be consulted no matter what you wanted to allow Marge, Torrie and me to go to Shanghai. Our visa out of Peking and into Shanghai was finally granted.

More than I wanted to see Shanghai I wanted to ride the train that Marlene Dietrich had made famous in Josef von Sternberg’s 1932 film “Shanghai Express”. Marge and Torrie weren’t easy to convince taking this train to Shanghai was a great idea. And the Chinese hierarchy, China Travel, hadn’t been easy to convince either. But I finally convinced the Levys that the antique pickings might be good for them in Shanghai so they decided to join me on the Shanghai adventure. And it turned out the antique buying opportunities in Shanghai were fabulous.

We booked a compartment meant to accommodate four and split the extra ticket. Sharing the small compartment with a stranger hadn’t appealed to us. And we definitely needed that extra upper berth for luggage. I maneuvered myself aboard with four bursting suitcases and hand parcels of every shape. I can’t even begin to explain what the decorator/antique dealer mother – daughter team carried on board. While visions of gorgeous Marlene Dietrich riding the legendary train in the middle of China’s civil war, with never a bird of paradise feather or hair in her well coiffed head out of place, the reality was we were an American version of all those peasants with their bundles of belongings and livestock boarding the back cars of the train.

The train left Peking Station at 6:30 in the evening and our Peking interpreter got us there extra early. He herded us and our luggage porters through the crowded station most skillfully. We were extremely excited about this 24 hour adventure we were taking on our own. This was our first time traveling without guide or spy. Our entourage filed past hardback cars like we’d ridden from Tientsin to Peking early in our China trip. Twenty-four hours in those uncomfortable quarters certainly didn’t appeal to us. But the military and peasants who filled them to over flowing were all laughing, talking, munching and spitting watermelon seeds, smoking endlessly, and apparently quite happy.

The car of private compartments we were led into was a delightful surprise. Our little nest, Compartment D, featured teal blue velvet seats backed with lovely handmade white filigree and lace covers. Great piles of pillows, encased in shams embroidered quite elegantly in blue flowers and white on white embroidery looked most inviting.

Between the two bed-seats, was a table draped with a white lace cloth. Four of the ever-present covered tea cups (these decorated with skillfully hand painted trees, flowers and pagodas) and a blue and white porcelain pot holding a live purple cineraria plant sat on the table.

The window was draped in blue velvet and curtained in white lace. Strains of Chinese opera played over the loud speaker — and it was loud! Air conditioning was working and just the right temperature. Lighting was better than the Peking Hotel. A table lamp of bright blue and clear cut glass, and two sidelights, shed more light than we’d had in any bedroom the entire trip.

Bathroom facilities were at either end of the railroad car. One was quite passable, the other an unusual standup affair used in China at the time that will never be popular with American women and hell to try to maneuver on a fast-moving train on a bad roadbed. The washroom area, like hotel rooms and western restrooms throughout China, offered little wrapped cakes of soap, a nail brush, clean comb, pink toilet paper, and spotless thin white Turkish towels. There were two clean sinks and a young girl was always mopping the floor or cleaning the sinks.

Our interpreter handed us our tickets and visas, as always, at the very last moment when the engine had a full head of steam up and was ready to roll. Now we were really on our own. No one else on the entire train spoke English. Well, if they did they were there to spy on us and we never had a clue they did speak English.

Other than an armed policeman stationed two compartments down from our car, and a few kitchen workers, the entire work crew of the Shanghai Express was young women. The engineer up in the steam locomotive and the conductors of each car were women. And it was young women who were up front shoveling coal to keep up the steam for our engine.

Not unexpectedly, we saw very little of the people in the luxurious compartments in our car. But from what we saw they were all middle European with the exception of an attractive Chinese family from France with whom we could speak French. The father helped Torrie clean the train windows at every stop so that we could take pictures through them.

Dinner in the diner turned out to be just like every other dining experience outside our hotels for Westerners, it was cleared of Chinese before we could go in. The stewardess came to our compartment to lead us into the deserted dining car. Since our interpreter had preordered for us, everything that was placed before us on a table covered with starched damask napkins was a surprise. Cooking under the most limiting conditions, the crowded tiny train kitchen produced shrimps in spicy tomato sauce, pork-like baby veal with winter bamboo shoots (we all missed Steve when this appeared), and dinner ended with a most creative fruit soup, a large bowl of steaming sweetened broth with chunks of apple and tangerine sections swimming about in it.

One of the young women working in the dining car had her little girl traveling with her. As we were enjoying our hot fruit soup we could hear the tiny child singing quietly to herself at the far end of the car. With a bit of urging, charade style of course, she came and sang for us. And she even did a bit of dancing for encore. There were no guards watching, no cadres leering mysteriously. It was a lovely relaxed interlude filled with warm camaraderie. While we were still lingering over tea and cigarettes (yes, in those days we all smoked), our little entertainer was carried protesting past us to the nearest bathroom. Her mother was carrying her under one arm with a cup, toothbrush and tooth paste in the other. The child held out her arms to us, probably hoping we’d ask for one more song and thus prolong bedtime.

Following dinner we were escorted, past the armed guard, back to our compartment. We weren’t going anywhere on that train other than from our car to the dining car. There was no mingling with the Chinese passengers.

Our berths were made up for night when we returned. Crispy white sheets edged in floral embroidery covered them, and a cozy quilt was there for warmth. Torrie got the second upper berth, the one that wasn’t overflowing with luggage. She had long legs and youth in her favor. There were none of the ladders that were supplied for upper berths on the trains I’d traveled on in days past, the Super Chief, Broadway Limited, Sunset Limited — that transported us around America in style. Torrie had little chrome footholds about three inches by four inches, three feet off the floor, and agility to get her up to her bed. The ascent was complicated. It involved putting one foot on the lower berth, the other foot on the foothold, grabbing on to anything solid available and pulling yourself up.

We were completely comfortable in our snug little world. The roadbed our train traversed was as smooth as the one from Tientsin to Peking had been miserable. We all fell into deep sleep, Marge and I enjoying the nostalgic “Blues in the Night”(1) train whistles and the clattering wheels. But we did awaken when the sounds ceased at a station stop in the very late hours of the night. Peeking through the curtains we saw a platform solidly packed with young boys in thin cotton military uniforms. As we looked at them, hundreds of pairs of eyes stared back at the two strange white faces with hair in curlers looking out at them.

A harsh blast of martial music over the intercom brought us out of our deep sleep at 6:00 AM. Marge found the speaker control fast and cut off the music as well as the endless shouted propaganda that would follow. But with daylight allowing us to see China out there just through the curtains, there was no going back to sleep for any of us. We passed canals with sampans and junks under full red sail, small tugs pulling ten boats loaded with coal or grain in a row sailing parallel with us. There were straw and mud huts with children and big black pigs wandering in and out the small front doors. The mysterious wonder of China continued to unfold — graceful little rock bridges out of classical Chinese painting, occasional forbidden burial graves — half-hidden mounds of earth with small piles of rocks on top and an occasional stone slab. We’d been told the Mao regime was very firm in forbidding burials in the ground. They felt too much precious agricultural land was wasted by large gravesites. Cremation was expected.

Then we were in area where thatched roofs replaced the familiar blackened red tiles of our previous travels in China. Piles of orderly pine boughs banked the front of each little rock house. Small umbrella pine trees covered an area of barren rocky hills; later green stretches appeared where goats and sheep grazed.

We were waiting now for 12:13 when our train would cross the legendary Nanking Bridge. The accurate time for this adventure had been garnered through the usual hand movements and drawing little pictures procedure during dinner the previous night. The Nanking Bridge was the first Chinese railway-highway bridge built over the Yangtze River designed by a Chinese architect and is the longest bridge of its kind in China. The Chinese were very proud of this bridge and with good reason. They built it in spite of western engineers proclaiming quicksand and Yangtze tides prohibited a bridging structure of any sort in this area. The Soviet engineers, who originally drew up blueprints, withdrew with their blueprints and modern machinery in 1960, leaving the Chinese completely on their own. However, by 1968 the Chinese had completed the two-tiered bridge using methods entirely primitive to western engineering. It was done the ancient way, hauling materials in baskets suspended from bamboo poles carried on peasant shoulders, of moving giant steel girders by men’s strength, not modern cranes. Tens of thousands of men and women participated in this miracle of construction.

The highway part of bridge is 15,056 feet long and 49 feet wide enabling four normal size cars to cross at same time. The 22,218 foot railway enables two trains going in opposite directions to run simultaneously. At 279 feet, the highest point of the main bridge span, vessels of up to 10,000 tons can pass underneath. Twin bridge towers are found on either river bank. Elevators in these give access to the railway bridge, highway bridge and top observation post. A most impressive accomplishment indeed!

At 12:13 precisely we crossed the amazing bridge. The excitement was more in the anticipation than in the reality since being on the lower level what we saw mainly was glimpses of the Yangtze River through all the criss-crossed steal girders. Had we crossed on the highway above us we would have seen groups of sculptures of peasant workers and soldiers and on the sides of the great towers quotes from Chairman Mao in huge red characters. One well known quote found there read: “The people are the only hope, are the driving force behind world history.” This could well be the quote for the incredible success of China in 2009!

Once over the bridge we continued to watch the spectacle of the mysterious world of China rolling past our window. Filtered dramatically by the endless steam blowing past we watched women bent in two working in the flooded rice fields; the gigantic canal being dug with shovels by hundreds of women and children; children near the tracks in the middle of nowhere waving at the train or just staring in wonderment. Sometimes the adults would wave too.

1. A popular 1941 song in the United States written by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer that was recorded by all the leading singers of the day. Train whistles were incorporated with the background music in certain segments of the song.

Chapter 1: Part 1 Part 2
Chapter 2: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Chapter 3: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Chapter 4: Part 1
Chapter 5: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Chapter 6: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Chapter 7: Part 1
Chapter 8: Part 1 Part 2
Chapter 9: Part 1 Part 2
Chapter 10: Part 1
Chapter 11: Part 1 Part 2
Chapter 12: Part 1
Chapter 13: Part 1

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories Books, My Life
Comments (1)

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Literary Starvation

by Beverley

October 16th, 2013

Chapter Twelve
LITERARY STARVATION

Forbidden City. And was it cold!

Another day I returned with the group to see what was allowed to be viewed of the Imperial Palace. Restoration was going on which was surprising in view of the political thinking of the cultural revolution in which art, books, anything intellectual or part of the glamorous imperial past was being destroyed. Our guide gave us a general idea of the layout, and strict instructions of which gate to exit to find our taxi, then turned us loose.

The Forbidden City was and is an overwhelming place. Where to begin? Listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world, it covers 7,800,000 square feet. Construction of the Forbidden City began in 1406 when the Yongle emperor Zhu di became emperor. More than one million workers labored for 15 years to complete the construction. At this point 980 original buildings survive. Peter and I covered only a small section of what we were allowed to see in 1975. And in my many subsequent visits the past 34 years I feel as though I haven’t really covered that much more. I still find it overwhelming.

Steve Allen center of attention at Forbidden City

Steve Allen is the center of attention in the Forbidden City

Needless to say, everyone had trouble finding that gate the guide had told us to use as our exit point at the end of our visit. After viewing fascinating buildings with lovely names — the Throne Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Palace of Heavenly Purity, and the Hall of Imperial Peace — Peter from Denmark and I who had toured the Forbidden City together somehow emerged through the right gate and found the taxi. We tried charades to find out if others had already been transported back to the hotel. It didn’t work. When he delivered us to the Peking Hotel we thought he understood he was to return for the others. At dinner that evening an annoyed group of our fellow travelers were complaining about having to walk back to the hotel on feet weary from hours of wandering in the vast Imperial Palace complex. They couldn’t figure out where the taxi was that was supposed to pick them up. Peter and I listened, saying nothing.

It was strange having nothing to read. I’ve always been a two or more newspaper a day woman and still mourn the demise of afternoon papers and extras. How many readers remember coming out to the street midday, or leaving a night spot late in the evening and hearing a boy shouting “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” while waving a paper in one hand and carrying a batch of them under his other arm. A natural disaster, a train derailment, a murder, the outbreak of war were all extra fodder.

But our orders were, take nothing into China to read. No newspapers, magazines, books, and certainly not a Bible!! This was one country where you didn’t find a Bible in the bedside table drawer. So we had nothing to read. Although the miniscule wattage of the hotel room lights was more suitable for lighting a child’s doll house than illuminating a book.

There were racks of political propaganda pamphlets in at least ten languages in the hotel lobbies. And it was possible to find Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book in English everywhere.

I did stumble upon a small book store that had some English reading material one day in Peking. There were ten paperback volumes of Chinese Literature for 1975. The volumes were numbered one to ten and dated. They were quite comprehensive — comprehensive of art and literature during the Cultural Revolution. A featured story “A Sea of Happiness” in volume one concerns the adventures of Miao-miao whose dad and mum were building new boats and making fishing nets for the good friends in Vietnam. In the poetry section “Ah, Chungnanhai, Pride of My Heart” is political poetry about Chungnanhai. “From here (Chungnanhai) Chairman Mao directs our revolutionary course. Here Chairman Mao meets heroes from all our fronts. Storm centre of revolution where the red flag will always fly.” Not exactly Byron or Keats.

Color photos of paintings from the National Art Exhibition show included two smiling triumphant workers pulling tin buckets of water out of a hole in the ice, a snowy scene with oil wells in the background. “Where the oil is, there is my home” is what the title winning painter Chang Hung-tsan called this painting. A black and white woodcut, “The Slave System Must Never Return!” shows a very forceful group of young people surrounding a woman pulling a big metal chain between her hands.

Literary starvation proved to be comparable to food starvation. If you are hungry enough you eat roots and grass. So now as I see the wild modern painting and the traditional ink and watercolor scenes being produced in China today, I can appreciate how the world has opened up for Chinese artists since the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. No one promised us China during the Cultural Revolution would be fun and indeed amusement was hard to find, even in the arts.

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories Books, My Life
Comments (1)

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Trouble In T’ien An Men Square (Part 2)

by Beverley

September 12th, 2013

Chapter Eleven
TROUBLE IN T’IEN AN MEN SQUARE
Part Two

Monument to the People's Heroes and the Great Hall of the People. 12/26/2004. By Jacob Ehnmark from Sendai, Japan (Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Monument to the People’s Heroes and the Great Hall of the People. 12/26/2004. By Jacob Ehnmark, via Wikimedia Commons

While I’d been waiting for my box to be built earlier in this production, I’d been able to look outside through a window to the small back street below. There were rows of bicycle rickshaws waiting for Chinese customers. No way would we have been allowed to ride in one of them. The Communists would have considered this an example of westerners exploiting the poor Chinese, treating them like beasts of burden as they pedaled the westerners through the streets of Peking.

I’d also noticed a small side entrance through which people entered and left. So, when I finished, sure that my taxi/spy/driver was still lurking somewhere out front, I slipped out the side door.

I knew that I was somewhere in back of T’ien an men Square, the largest square in the world, and it wasn’t hard to find. This is one gigantic open area as the world now knows from the massacre films. Being totally on my own for once I was overcome with the feeling of exhilaration. The big Russian style buildings on three sides of the square weren’t of particular interest to me. The Monument to the People’s Heroes, a tall square granite obelisk on a raised platform right in the center of the square was more interesting. As with almost everything in China, there was a quote from Chairman Mao on the monument. I found out later that this quote, engraved into the marble in Chinese characters, translated in English to “The People’s Heroes Will be Remembered Eternally”. And carved into the base were relief depictions of historical events, starting only with the mid-nineteenth century Opium War. The highest section of that raised platform looked like a good place to take photographs so that’s where I headed.

As I found my spot and got the camera out, in the distance buses pulled up in front of the National People’s Congress Building and masses of young people piled out, unfurling big red flags as they went. They fell into formation and started going through elaborate routines with their red flags. This was a great photo op! Or so I thought as I snapped away, until I saw through my lens a frighteningly large group of young people wearing red neck scarves quickly and menacingly coming directly towards me.

I was frightened! No one knew where I was and there were so many of them coming at me. I had no idea what I had done to prompt this action. But I obviously was their target. Then just as suddenly as they started towards me, they reversed their direction and quickly returned to their training area. I had no idea what had intervened, but I was deeply grateful for their change of plan.

To be safe I moved down slowly and started taking lots of photos of some very cute colorfully dressed children near the monument. I wanted to appear innocent. I was innocent! And children were always an accepted photo choice.

I worked my way casually across the gigantic square, shooting pictures of children all along my route (all the while knowing I’d run out of film some photos before) heading towards the Gate of Heavenly Peace which is across from the square on the other side of An Chieh highway.

Having had enough independence for the day I walked on past the entrance to the old Imperial City and the site from which Mao Tse-tung proclaimed the People’s Republic of China back to our hotel. The taxi driver wasn’t there waiting for me as I’d thought he might be. No one was looking for me. In fact, it wasn’t until several weeks later that I figured out why no one was searching and why the angry Red Guards had had done such a quick retreat.

I found the answer while sitting in my Santa Barbara living room viewing the colored slides of my China trip that I’d just picked up from the photo shop several weeks after my return from China. In several of the photos I noticed a plain looking man in blue Mao suit and cap was walking across the square, directly towards where I had been standing. He had his hands behind his back and appeared to be out for a casual stroll. But in one photo he was turned towards the advancing Red Guard gang and one hand was raised. Obviously the taxi driver had returned to the hotel and reported me out on my own and party cadres had taken off quickly to find me. The older cadres were well aware of the violence towards westerners the young Red Guard were capable of, which was one major reason we were watched constantly while we were in China. The Communist Party government was most concerned that no negative incidents involving the visiting westerners take place. Belatedly I was most jubilant this time they had infringed upon my independence.

My alarming encounter with the Red Guard in T’ien an men Square in 1975 came particularly alive to me years later when on June 4th, 1989 I watched on TV as a lone young patriot faced down a gigantic military tank, one of many the Communist Party leadership had ordered into T’ien an men square to crush an unprecedented democratic peaceful protest. I watched the brave young women and men falling like toy soldiers in their battle with the well trained heavily armed army troops in what has come to be known as the Massacre of T’ien an men Square. The old men in power were tremendously frightened by the young students who yearned for democracy in China and gave orders to stop them at any cost.

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories Books, My Life
Comments (1)

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Trouble In T’ien An Men Square

by Beverley

September 2nd, 2013

Chapter Eleven
TROUBLE IN T’IEN AN MEN SQUARE
Part One

It was Theodore White who called T’ien an men Square the Place de la Concorde of Chinese history. That was in the 1950’s. Little did he know how prophetic his words would prove to be!

T’ien an men Square and the Forbidden City face each other straight on — the old and the new. In 1975 it was Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Fredrick Engles and Chairman Mao who faced the Forbidden City. King-size portraits of them on stone lined the entrance to the colossal square facing the Gate of Heavenly Peace from which Mao Tse-tung proclaimed the People’s Republic of China. You never for a moment forgot who was in charge of China in 1975, although in later years we learned Mme. Mao should really have had her picture up there too since she assumed so much power as Mao aged and his health failed.

My own T’ien an men near-catastrophe started out so innocently. But so did the massacre of the students in the same place in June 4, 1989. Torrie Levy had glowing tales of the interesting process of mailing a package home from the big main post office. The post office in our hotel could only handle small mail. And since the big post office was in the picture book for taxi trips I decided to go there with a bundle of souveniers from the Baihuo Dalou (Main Department Store) I wanted to send home. It was only a short distance from our hotel so I pantomimed instructions for the taxi driver not to wait for me once we arrived at the post office. It was my only opportunity to spend some time there with real Peking citizens, not the rehearsed people our guides continually led us to. The driver kept nodding his head “no”. I kept nodding “yes” and finally disappeared inside.

There was no one in the entire big busy building who spoke English so this became a test of my pantomime skills. I stood in the entrance looking quite bewildered, my arms loaded with things and not knowing where to start. Almost immediately a man came up and pointed me in the direction of a worker sitting on the floor hammering wooden boxes into shape. This was the first step in the mailing project. The box man accessed my bundle and produced a lidless wooden box he’d just made.

This man pointed me towards a man who had baskets of wood shavings to be used as filler. Together we packed the box. He then directed me to a counter where the inspector would take the box all apart looking for whatever sabotage devilment I might have concealed. It was quite fascinating standing in line watching what people were sending off. Freshly dried seaweed was being shipped to relatives by one elderly woman. Young girls were sending a hand knitted red scarf. The old man in front of me was mailing a photograph of children to an address in San Francisco. The inspector took the photograph out of the plastic “frame” and went over every inch of it with his finger tip — the top, the bottom, the paper thin edges, the entire frame. He was looking for hidden micro-film I was later told. Finding nothing but smiling little faces a proud grandfather wanted to share with fortunate relatives far away in America, it finally passed inspection. A man sending tobacco to Thailand really got a thorough check.

In the line next to me a woman was sending off packages of rice and dried mushrooms. They were each opened and spilled into a big enamel basin, the kind used for everything from washing clothes and brushing teeth to cooking. And the inspector ran his hands through every grain of rice and every mushroom. When he had finished he left the poor woman to get it all back into cloth bags that seemed to have shrunk since the inspection began. Once she had it all in the original cloth bags she sewed them up, having come prepared with needle and thread.

The inspector really wasn’t too hard on me. My purchases looked innocent enough, which they definitely were. It really puzzled him that I needed so many hand painted bone tooth brushes and six pairs of brightly colored plastic sandals in ridiculously large sizes. But I passed inspection and ultimately was directed to the table across the vast marble lobby where for a few pennies a man with a hammer and nails put a wooden lid on my box.

Next I “rented” a big paint brush and pot of black paint. It took me at least 20 minutes to paint on my daughter’s name and our home address, with my Peking hotel address in the proper spot. When I returned the brush and paint pot, they handed me an enamel basin filled with hot water and a clean but threadbare towel to wash the paint off my hands. I paid what I considered a very small sum for over two hours of entertainment — plus a big box that had to travel many thousand miles. …to be continued

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories Books, My Life
Comments (1)

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: The Summer Palace Blanketed With Snow

by Beverley

August 17th, 2013

Chapter Ten
THE SUMMER PALACE BLANKETED WITH SNOW

Jayne Meadows by the frozen lake at the Summer Palace

There had been snow flurries the day we visited the Summer Palace. Our visit was at a time when the royal family would have been in residence in the Forbidden City in Peking, not the Summer Palace. During the imperial era this was a summer escape spot for the royal entourage from Peking heat that could soar to 104 degrees Fahrenheit with very high humidity. The small umbrella pines lining the road to the palace were dusted with snow. Bicyclists were generally dressed in the same cotton padded Mao suits that appeared to be inadequate for the extreme cold but somehow worked. Men from the north heading into the city wearing Mongolian fur hats with ear flaps and sheepskin clothing, driving large horse drawn wagons filled with loose hay or great balls of rope were more suitably dressed.

We passed what our contrary cadre guide called a gymnasium. A more adequate explanation was not forthcoming however we assumed it might be a prison. Outside in the snow more than 100 men standing in precise rows did exercises waving red flags. Since this waving of red flags was a common practice in China during the Cultural Revolution it wasn’t a clue to what the gymnasium actually was. However, a few days later in Tien en mien square I was to remember this flag waving performance.

In that legendary world long gone the royal court could actually reach their summer palace refuge by canals that led from the Forbidden City northeast to the Summer Palace. The lovely lake at the palace has always been fed from streams which in turn feed into the canals. The lake was partially frozen over the day we visited, presenting a gray and white mystical scene, accented by the bright red tile roofs of the Palace of Orderly Clouds on the shore and far away scarlet bridges faintly visible through the mist.

Looking far out across K’un-ming Lake, Steve and I wondered about dark spots on the ice that appeared to very large birds. Our tour guide for the day, a particularly unpleasant man, was determined to impress us with Maoism and the Cultural Revolution unceasingly. Any minor question was answered with a party speech. But I plunged right in and asked him if the birds far out on the ice were some form of penguin.

“Those are not birds,” he practically screamed at me. “Those are markers put there by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to keep the children from falling through the thin ice.”

“I don’t care what that guy says,” Steve whispered. “I just saw one of his markers lay an egg!”

The rigid Stalinesque geometric architectural designs of the new Russian built buildings in Peking were in direct contrast to the lovely rambling scheme of the Summer Palace. The Garden of Pleasant Harmony flows into the Palace of Virtue and Harmony where theatre was performed for the joy of the all-powerful last dowager empress Tz’u-hsi who ruled China from 1861 until her death November 15, 1908. She delighted in anything of dramatic, theatrical nature.

The stage several stories high had the capability of bringing fantastic sets up from below or having a great deal going on in heaven overhead. And on many occasions the dowager empress herself had appeared in performances for the enjoyment of the royal family. Her favored role was that of the beloved Goddess of Mercy Kuan-yin. On these days it was presumed she wasn’t having princesses thrown down wells to die, or poisoning relatives, which she was known to do on off days. A favorite story that emerged from her court detailing one such bad day concerned a new eunuch who was called in to dress the empress’s hair. The eunuch hairdresser who always attended to the elaborate imperial coiffeur was ill. In a state of nervous terror at this task trust upon him unexpectedly the stand-in hairdresser accidentally pulled a couple of hairs out while combing the long black hair. The enraged dowager empress ordered him to put them back in immediately or he would be beheaded. The problem with this story, repeated for decades, is that no one knows the outcome.

We nestled into our fur coats and dug our mitten covered fingers deep into pockets for extra warmth as we strolled the famous open Long Corridor beside the lake. This elaborately painted meandering walk is a treasury of more than 8,000 paintings. It was originally built in 1750 by the Qing dynasty’s Qianlong emperor (1736-1795) so that his mother could enjoy the gardens of the Summer Palace without concern for the elements. Following the destruction of the fascinating structure by Anglo-French allied forces in 1860 it was rebuilt in 1886. The Chinese say that the Long Corridor on K’un-ming Lake is long enough (2,366 feet long) to speak the first words of love at one end, and be engaged to marry by the other end. I lingered extra chilling minutes examining an overhead beam painting of a mother panda carrying her baby through a bamboo forest with classical Chinese mountains beyond.

An adjoining covered gallery looks upon the aquatic garden in the lake. Imaginative windows shaped like bats, stars, fans, medallions, all outlined in strips of red and black lacquer, break through the stark white walls of this enclosed walkway. These are double windows, with paintings on the inside glass. Enjoying the unique windows Jayne was reminded of a window treatment Marge had used on an interior decorating job in Beverly Hills.

“Marge, do you remember what you did in Danny Melnick’s bedroom?” Jayne called innocently to Marge who was at the other end of the long gallery. The Chinese missed the hidden humor of this question and didn’t laugh. The sexual innuendo was totally lost on them. But our group of Americans found it most amusing.

Steve Allen at the Temple of Heaven

The snow had stopped by the time we reached the Temple of Heaven, one of the most frequently visited sights in China. It is the three-tiered Altar of Heaven whose bright blue tiled roof shone strangely in the unusual light that followed the disappearing clouds dispensing snow. There are actually three tiled roofs pile on top of each other looking quite like a three-tired blue Chinese summer hat.

While we quietly admired it in the context of a Ming creation utilized by the theatrically clad emperor (who wore special blue robes, not imperial yellow for his performances at the Altar of Heaven), our guide droned on about this great example of chairman Mao’s directive to “Let the Old Serve the New”. Now the people of China walk the marble paths where only the emperor and his entourage trod in the era past. However, this is the one place where this living god, the emperor, was humble. He came here once a year in his role as the Son of Heaven, taking upon himself the sins of all his people, prostrating and humiliating himself for the redemption of mankind.

This humble attitude only struck once a year. Escorted by soldiers, officials and princes of royal blood, he went from the Forbidden City to the Temple of Heaven in an anything but humble procession. Every window along the route had to be covered, from the gate of Ch’ien Men to the entrance of the sacred temple area. This was due to the very strict laws that no one was allowed to look upon the face of this man who was about to be humble. Even foreign diplomats were strongly advised to stay indoors on the day of this journey from the Forbidden City to the Temple of Heaven.

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories Books, My Life
Comments (1)

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Some Freedom In Peking (Part 2)

by Beverley

August 13th, 2013

Chapter Nine
SOME FREEDOM IN PEKING
Part Two

Peking Duck. (photo by Kheng Guan Toh | Bigstock.com)

Peking is probably as well known for Peking duck in the western world as for the Forbidden City. It was with drooling anticipation we set off for a banquet at the legendary Peking Duck Restaurant one cold snowy night. Due to illness our ranks were smaller — we were down to Helen, Louise, Jerry, Steve, Peter and me. The hors d’oeuvres were similar to those previously described and were served with hot wine in tiny earthenware cups followed by fertility food, shark’s fin filet in sauce. Duck made its first appearance in the form of duck liver and kidneys, served with winter bamboo and strips of peppers. Winter bamboo was showing up with frequency this meal, with chicken, with sea cucumbers, with crisply fried seaweed.

The third dish prompted Steve to remark, “Its great winter sport here to watch them shoot the bamboo!”

We were served slices of stone mushrooms from the mountains, a rare treat. It was explained that these mushrooms, found in the Himalayas, grew to several feet in diameter. They could be cut off in the morning and the next morning it would have grown back to full size. An interesting story. And who was going to check it for accuracy?

The chef came in with great ceremony, displaying our golden brown Peking ducks. Then he showed his true skill in slicing the crisp skin with surgical precision. We next rolled the skin of the duck, with shreds of leek, in thin pancakes covered with delicious plum sauce.

Various parts of the ducks arrived in assorted sauces and shapes as course followed course. At one point heads arrived in a dish many of us passed up. The last of our Peking ducks arrived as duck soup with lettuce floating on the surface. Were this meal served to Chinese guests it would have ended with the soup, but since we were westerners we received toffee apples sprinkled with sesame seeds. They arrived like hot coals and after we plunged them into ice water the exterior turned into crackling caramel. Not being forewarned we discovered to our discomfort the interiors were still like hot coals. This feast that lasted several hours of continuous eating cost us approximately $12.00 per person.

During dinner everyone compared tales of their day’s adventures. No one in this group had a hospital day. My panda bear story inspired all to take a trip to the zoo before departing Peking.

“And there is a fur fair going on in the building next to the zoo,” I added although I hadn’t investigated it. “It’s in a big green and white building right next door.”

Jayne Meadows wasn’t there to play her usual role as straight person to her comedian husband, but unwittingly I was.

“That’s a great place to have a fur fair, next door to the zoo,” Steve quipped. “Saves travel time.”

The Peking Duck Restaurant wasn’t very far from our hotel so our group strolled home through back alleyways. Some people were still awake and active in their cramped quarters, a single light bulb of lowest wattage dangling from the ceiling. On every window sill sat an old bowl or pot with a living plant growing. Some were simply pots of wild green clover. Passing through a park lightly frosted with fresh snow we saw young couples sitting on benches enjoying a bit of time alone, a luxury seldom found in the cramped living conditions of China during the Cultural Revolution.

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories Books, My Life
Comments (1)

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Some Freedom In Peking

by Beverley

August 3rd, 2013

Chapter Nine
SOME FREEDOM IN PEKING
Part One

Because the hotel phone service was so impossible, except for distances exceeding 10,000 miles, we left lots of notes under each other’s doors. “Meet me in morning at 8:00 in dining room” or “Do you have any extra hair rollers?” and similar messages would be slipped under doors at all hours. Once we’d hit Peking and the evasive entry visa was discovered, we didn’t see much of our leader. But we did have daily assemblies to coordinate our plans. The note-leaving operation was great when it worked. But there were times it didn’t. One night I was tired and didn’t go to a late night assembly so Marge left me an important communication. “We are meeting at 8:30 to go to the China Travel Office. Very important so get up early.” Fortunately Jerry, an early riser, saw the note and beat on the door awakening me to give me the note to tell me to get up early. Well, as I said, sometimes it worked better than phones.

The constant visits to China Travel had begun in Hong Kong and only grown more frequent and frustrating as the trip progressed. The only sign I found in English in all branches of China Travel read “The People who have triumphed in their own revolution should help those still struggling for liberation. This is our internationalist duty.”

Visits to the big local hospital were unexpectedly on our agenda. Doctors could not come to the Hotel. Patients had to seek aid at the hospital. Louise went for a swollen jaw. An English speaking Chinese doctor sent her to a dentist. Here she was given a prescription and the medicine. Her total bill was $1.50. Comparing notes at dinner it came out Marge’s sore throat was only an .80 cent illness.

My health was holding up so I went to the zoo. They had an interesting setup with the Peking Hotel taxis. If you could find where you wanted to go in a little book that was written in Chinese and English with simple drawings, you could get a taxi to take you there. The taxi would wait, even if it was hours. And once there it wasn’t surprising to look back quickly wherever you were and see your driver following at a distance. There was always someone spying on us. The fare was shockingly cheap. At the end of your ride the driver would give you little tickets which you presented at the main desk of the hotel and you paid there instead of paying the taxi driver directly. You might have had a one ticket ride, or a long wait could mean a nine ticket trip.

The Front Gate of Beijing Zoo was built in 1904. (Photo taken 2004 by snowyowls | Wikimedia)

The Peking Zoo was big and well-tended. People were proud of their zoo. And the real pride of the zoo was the panda bears, which of course was where I was heading. When I first got word I was going to China, my 17 year old daughter’s immediate reply was, “You are going to your version of heaven, a world of Chinese food and panda bears.”

Not wanting to waste time I drew a quick picture of a panda bear and showed it to two teenage girls passing by. They giggled and pointed left. Through an arch to the left was a large brightly painted map with each animal beautifully painted in its own locale. As I tried to orient myself with my back to the map, several people pointed the way to the pandas. They knew where an American lady in a funny ski hat with a tassel on top wanted to go.

The two pandas were worth the trip to China. They were smaller than expected, but were definitely professionals constantly performing for the huge audience that surrounded the moat that circled their world. Space was immediately cleared for the foreign lady by the smiling citizens, a relief from spying cadres. My enthusiasm must have been adequate thanks. I was enchanted.

Nabisco-like wafers were thrown to the pandas by children and grownups alike. The pandas assumed the most ridiculous positions to eat, reclining with one leg over the other or lying on their stomachs. Anything they did was amusing. Chomping on bamboo was a whole routine. Finally I got down to serious photographing. Literally hundreds of people participated. They would clear space at the rail every time a panda changed direction, sending a child to bring me there by the hand.

Deeply engrossed in what I saw through my lens I wasn’t paying much attention to anything else — until I heard laughter behind me, the kind of laughter that designates something naughty. It’s a laughter that sounds the same in any language. I looked up from the camera viewer to find the source of the merriment. It was two soldiers near me who were staring down at the boy panda in the moat beneath us. The panda was looking straight up at the big border of beautiful blue Norwegian fox that served as the hem on my brown broadtail coat. He was staring at the blue fox and most embarrassingly appeared to have been excited into a full erection by the fur on the hem of my coat. …to be continued

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories Books, My Life
Comments (1)

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Near Tragedy In The Hotel Dining Room (Part 2)

by Beverley

July 22nd, 2013

Chapter Eight
NEAR TRAGEDY IN THE HOTEL DINING ROOM
Part Two

The first day in Peking that we were all going our own way with no official activities planned for us I decided to implement my treasured book with directions and maps. At breakfast I studied the big 1936 fold-out map carefully, having selected my destinations the previous night, starting with the former palace of the late Prince Ch’ing near the former Catholic University. After the last delicious beads of caviar had been enjoyed, and everyone else had disappeared, I spread the entire map of the city of Peking open all the way on our table to consult with our nice elderly little waiter who spoke quite good English. I had already written down where I wanted to go and located it on the map. What I needed from him was directions of how best to get there. We worked over the map together about ten minutes, he showed me the most direct route to take, I thanked him and left, off for a day of adventure in old Peking. It had never occurred to me that the elderly English speaking Chinese waiter was forbidden to speak to us for anything beyond the essentials of serving us our meals and that the penalty for breaking such rules could mean imprisonment or worse.

I still don’t know what prompted me to stop at the entrance to the empty dining room and look back towards our table. A horrifying sight met my glance. The dear little waiter was being half carried out by two soldiers in uniform, one grasping each of his arms. I tore back through the otherwise empty room shouting his name. The soldiers stopped abruptly.

“I think you gave me the wrong directions,” I told him sternly while shaking my finger at him for full effect.

“I’m going to check with these men and see if you were right,” I announced in a strong voice quickly spreading out the suspect map on the table. Continuing as though I were suspicious of him, I ordered him to translate for me to the soldiers. Lots of hand gestures were involved in this performance!

“This is where I wanted to go,” I said pointing out the first location on my list so that it could be scrutinized even though they couldn’t read a word of English.

“Now we are here at the Peking Hotel. You said I should go down this street, and then turn here, etc.” tracing an incorrect route he supposedly had given me with my finger. “But I think I should go this way,” I added my finger designating another improvised improbable route.

“You ask them!” I instructed pointing to one then the other of the belligerent military men.

And it worked. At least fifteen minutes later the four of us were still standing over the map while the two soldiers argued over my route to each place on my list. My translating waiter friend and I avoided eye contact but I could feel the warmth of his unspoken gratitude for possibly saving his life. I then ordered him to bring me another cup of tea before I left, thanked the soldiers for being so smart and figuring out the correct route (which of course was way waiter had told me to go originally) and sipped slowly until they were safely gone, feeling very proud of themselves.

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories Books, My Life
Comments (1)

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Near Tragedy In The Hotel Dining Room

by Beverley

July 15th, 2013

Chapter Eight
NEAR TRAGEDY IN THE HOTEL DINING ROOM
Part One

Mural in “New” Peking Hotel dining room.

We ate most of our meals in that big hotel dining room, staring at the Quilin scene created with mosaic tiles on the back wall. The same round table covered in white cloth, with fresh white cotton napkins, awaited us morning, noon and night. The same sweet elderly waiter who spoke very good English was with us three meals a day. Our room numbers were displayed quite boldly on the table. And as in Tientsin, certain private supplies were found on various tables around us. On one sat catsup and a bottle of Chinese wine. The level went down faster than an inch a day on the wine. We assumed it was a British group who shared the marmalade, bottle of Scotch and a bag from Lyons Coffee Company on another table. One table featured Johnny Walker Black label and on another was a jar of Maxwell House instant coffee and some powdered milk.

Most of our group took advantage of English breakfasts that were available. I leaned towards the Chinese, being very fond of congee (a sort of cereal made of rice that has been boiled down to the consistency of cream of wheat and eaten with slices of meat or chicken, or bits or vegetables — or just plain). However, in Tientsin I’d discovered I could get their delicious rice pudding for breakfast. Rice pudding and orange pop for daily breakfast. It’s a menu I haven’t tried to duplicate since that trip.

In Peking I was to discover caviar for breakfast. Russian caviar was available by the plateful for about thirty cents a plate and that was a dinner size plate. In fact you could get this very fine caviar any meal you wished as a “side dish”. So with a change in city there was a change in breakfast. I now enjoyed congee with pickled vegetable, good Russian caviar (lots of it), freshly made yoghurt which the Chinese did very well, again the Russian influence I assumed. Oh yes, and tea. Tea was so much better than the powdered coffee many of our group had brought from home. One member of our group had brought what appeared to be a lifetime supply of peanut butter and basically lived on that the 10 days she stayed in China.

When our Danish friend Peter had left us in Tientsin, he’d given me a lovely gift. We had become good friends because everyone else, except Rosa who frequently disappeared with no warning or explanation, was in pairs. Peter, being a Dane instead of an American, had been allowed to bring a book with him. Actually he had been in Peking many times before as he bought carpets for the largest department store in Copenhagen. We as Americans without full diplomatic relations with China had been forbidden to bring any books, newspapers, or magazines with us.

The book that Peter gave me was a 1936 copy of In Search Of Old Peking by L. C. Arlington and William Lewisohn. This book has proven to be a true treasure to me. It has through the years allowed me to trace long lost monuments, legendary ancient trees and many other forgotten remains of the past in the outskirts of Peking and the Western Hills. A patient guide and I once spent a long day trying to locate the old French Jesuit cemetery where famous Jesuit missionaries were buried and most importantly the Ancestral Hall and compound gifted to the King of the Eunuchs Kang T’ieh, known as Kang Ping, by Emperor Yung Lo. The directions weren’t very good since they said things like “take the dirt road through the village of….. “ which of course now was a super highway through masses of ten story apartment buildings. Peking had spread out and modernized since those days. But my driver and guide approached every elderly person in sight in the general area the guide book described and ultimately they got information that led us to the remains I sought. Most of the buildings were gone, but on this pathetic remnant of the past we located I found traces of red lacquer that once covered the pillars in its days of splendor and hidden parts of imperial yellow tiles, another honor the emperor had bestowed upon Kang (allowing him to use imperial yellow tiles on his roof — something previously only allowed the emperor).

The reason Kang Ping was awarded such honors by the emperor is most unusual. Kang Ping, the most important eunuch in Chinese history, was originally army general Kang Ping who served the emperor Yung Lo. On one occasion when the emperor went off on a hunting trip he left Kang Ping in charge of the palace. Kang was deeply grateful for the trust the emperor placed in him, but was very afraid of his enemies at court. They were not above making up stories such as that he had become involved with one of the court ladies in the emperor’s absence. To prevent this, he castrated himself, and hid the parts he removed in the hollow of the saddle on which the emperor would be riding. Just as he feared, upon Yung Lo’s return one of the ministers did tell him that General Kang had behaved badly with one of the imperial ladies. In reply to the emperor, Kang explained he had made a eunuch of himself before the departure and asked the emperor to send for his saddle.

The emperor could not believe such loyalty and awarded Kang with great honors and made him Chief Eunuch. He also built a gigantic compound and ancestral hall in Kang’s honor where retired eunuchs went to live and a burial grounds for eunuchs in the western hills. The imperial family continued to finance this area until the end of the dynasty in 1911. …to be continued

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories Books, My Life
Comments (1)

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Visiting A Future American President

by Beverley

July 10th, 2013

Chapter Seven
VISITING A FUTURE AMERICAN PRESIDENT

George Bush and Steve Allen in Tientsin

That invitation George H. W. Bush had extended on our hurried encounter outside the Tientsin carpet factory was repeated in Peking. Needless to say, we accepted. The man we now refer to as father of the first President George W. Bush was at the time Ambassador George H. W. Bush. He had been the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, before being appointed Chief of Mission from the United States to China. We didn’t have full diplomatic ties to China in 1975, so we didn’t have an Ambassador there. And we didn’t have an embassy.

Where we were invited was to the United States Legation. It was a nondescript concrete brick building exactly like all those around it, except in size. The Czechoslovakian Embassy just down the street was tremendous and had a swimming pool, tennis court and large staff. The Greek Embassy right next door was much larger than the U.S. Legation. And the Russian Embassy, with reportedly more than 400 people living inside, was gigantic. The U.S. legation had a total of 28 people connected with it. Bush wanted to keep it small. And unlike the Russians, he had all Chinese staff. They did however have one debugged room in the legation for confidential talk.

Barbara Bush was grounded with a flu bug the evening we went to visit, as were Rosa and Jayne who remained in their rooms back at the hotel. But George Bush was the perfect host. Before any sightseeing, he steered the American guests straight to the bar where they were met by an unfamiliar sight — no orange pop, no Mao tai — there was scotch, bourbon, gin. My request was not for any of these, but for an English language newspaper. “Sadly I can’t supply that Beverley,” he replied. I have to go out to Hong Kong to get one myself. Not allowed in China. No western magazines either.”

Our future president couldn’t have been more personable. He was warm and friendly and obviously delighted to have guests from home, particularly Steve Allen.

The living room of the residence section of the Legation had magnificent walls covered with many coats of deep yellow lacquer. Our host gave full credit to former resident Mrs. David Bruce for this. Evangeline Bruce was a woman of superb taste and she had achieved wonders inside this unimaginative concrete brick structure. Chinese earthenware pots with bamboo trellises four feet high displayed espaliered nasturtiums in bright orange and yellow bloom in various areas of the room. These were most effective against the spectacular yellow lacquer walls. The room was divided into comfortable seating groups, with the sofas covered in yellow, orange or brown raw silk. You can be sure there were no white lace antimacassars here.

Paintings hadn’t been sent out from Washington yet to adorn the walls. But Barbara Bush did some interesting improvising in the large dining room. She displayed a very large finely executed needlework piece she had done herself. “Barbara had a lot of time to work on it sitting there during the long sessions when I was at the U.N.,” her husband explained laughingly. I photographed our host in front of the framed needlework and many years later, when Barbara Bush appeared at a political fundraiser in Santa Barbara in role of First Lady of the United States, I presented her with a copy of that picture. She was so pleased she said because she had no other photograph of that project that involved so much work and she’d left the framed needlepoint behind in Peking.

My great interest in the house, having heard about it in detail shortly before leaving Santa Barbara from Evangeline Bruce’s best friend Baroness Pauline de Rothschild, earned me a private invitation for a tour led by our host. Everyone else was quite content to relax in American surroundings, with no one listening behind every chair. The upstairs sitting room was done in shades of beige and rust, and there were pictures everywhere of the large Bush family. Four of the five Bush children were expected for a visit to their parents in China a short time after we left. Ambassador Bush’s mother had just been visiting from her home in Connecticut. She had been a great hit with the Chinese as she bicycled all over Peking.

The private quarters were spacious and contemporary. The bathrooms were modern, though not fancy. The guest rooms were comfortable and cheery. The contemporary Chinese earthenware the Bushes had collected since arriving in China was pointed out with pride. In the living room we were shown a Boehm porcelain panda bear similar to the ones we had seen pictured when President Nixon had given them as gifts to his hosts that first trip to China. The kitchen was a large white tiled room, centered by a gigantic stove and grill. George Bush spoke glowingly of their Chinese cooks.

He reported both Barbara and he loved the food, and they were generally quite delighted to be in Peking. They played tennis, and thanks to daily Chinese lessons he could now keep score in Chinese when playing with Chinese friends. Sundays they attended church services held at 9:30 in an old bible school building. “I wouldn’t miss church,” he explained. “It means a lot more here. The service is in Chinese. The Africans all sing the hymns in African and we sing them in English. It’s a very personal part of our lives. We’re very glad that we are permitted to have it,” he added. Hearing this we were all brought back to the realities of the world outside, the world where we were in the middle of the frightening Cultural Revolution in China.

It was a nice visit, and well worth the time I had taken earlier in the day to visit the beauty salon in our hotel. It was probably the only one in all of China at the time. Vanity was definitely not encouraged under the communist rule, and was even less encouraged during the Cultural Revolution. Even wearing lipstick was considered a serious offense for a Chinese woman during the Cultural Revolution. Actually it was just nice to have really clean hair again. Torrie had been very optimistic with that hair dryer, and very athletic to get hair washed in the Chinese hotel sinks. I opted for the beauty salon.

The Peking Hotel Beauty Salon looked like an American hospital operating room. The floors and walls were white tile. The cute young girl with her hair in two braids who did my hair wore a white surgical smock. She soaped my hair for about five minutes with me in a sitting position, periodically carrying off excess soap to a sink across the room. For the rinsing process one transferred to an oral surgeons chair near where the excess soap had been deposited. A very clean smelling lotion of some sort was applied. My operator had fairly modern rollers and there was quite a good modern standing hair dryer to facilitate her work. She asked me if I’d like my hair teased. This was the most contemporary encounter I had with any Mainland Chinese the entire trip. Back in my room, examining the finished product in my bathroom mirror, I had to admit she did quite a decent job.

China excerpt from David Frost’s interview with George H. W. Bush in the A&E documentary “One on One with David Frost – George Bush: A President’s Story”.

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com

Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend

Categories My Life
Comments (1)

Archive for China

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: I Want to Go to Shanghai

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Literary Starvation

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Trouble In T’ien An Men Square (Part 2)

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Trouble In T’ien An Men Square

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: The Summer Palace Blanketed With Snow

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Some Freedom In Peking (Part 2)

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Some Freedom In Peking

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Near Tragedy In The Hotel Dining Room (Part 2)

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Near Tragedy In The Hotel Dining Room

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Visiting A Future American President

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