Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China

Huai’an, which was on the Grand Canal.

Mongols had been Chinese emperors—the Manchus were a Mongol dynasty.

I was happier than I had been since starting this trop on The Iron Rooster. I was driving. I was in charge. I was taking my time; and Tibet was empty. The weather was dramatic-snow on the hills, a high wind, and black clouds piled up on the mountains ahead. I also thought: I didn't die the other day.

I was aware that in handing these pictures out I was breaking the law. But what the hell. They had nuisance value. They made the Tibetans happy.

Nothing is stranger than being in a fairly bad place and being told that another place-your destination-is a great deal worse.

When I considered that it was still illegal for a foreigner to talk at random with any Chinese citizen-the old rule was seldom enforced, but it was a well-known rule nonetheless-I was grateful for this frankness. The healthiest sign in China was this straight talk.

Most intellectuals were sent into the countryside-to farms and into the mountains. They went to the most backward provinces, like Qinghai, Ningxia and Gansu. And Mongolia. Lots of intellectuals ended up in Mongolia. They had to suffer.

Transportation in China is always crowded; it is nearly always uncomfortable; it is often a struggle.

the predominating characteristic of the Chinese was stoicism

Primeval forest,' he said. 'Original forest.' 'Wouldn't you like to build a house here and live alone with your wife?' 'Yes,' he said. 'Have a family and write something-poems and stories.' 'Maybe have four children.' 'It is not permitted,' he said. Then he smiled. 'But this is so far they wouldn't know. It wouldn't matter. Yes, I would like that.

I often had the feeling that it was the old immemorial Confucian family that had kept China orderly. Mao had attacked the family-the Cultural Revolution was intentionally an assault on the family system, when children were told to rat on their bourgeois parents. But that had faltered and failed. The family had endured

Using an extremely clever if somewhat fanciful Chinese technique for ensnaring awkward visitors, they insisted that I was too important to travel alone and so stuck me with Mr. Fang.

It is wrong to see a country in a bad mood: you begin to blame the country for your mood and to draw the wrong conclusions.

He had been sent to nanny me and breathe down my neck. He had been discreet-he had not gotten in my way; but who had asked him to come? Not me.

I told him to tell the truth,' Mr. Fang said. 'It is important to know the truth about the Cultural Revolution. Foreigners must be told. We must face the facts. It was a disaster ...

Xian was one of the few exceptions I found. It was genuinely interesting and pretty, and rather a stately and dignified place

I found my berth and discovered that no one else was going to Xian. The sleeper was empty. This was the rarest situation on a Chinese train, and one to be relished. Such circumstances were almost luxurious and definitely cozy.

The Peace Corps was innocent and inefficient

I could tell he was worried by what I would ask to do next. I spent the rest of the day trying to elude him and his deputy, and at last, in the market, I succeeded. It was late in the afternoon. We were all (Mr. Fang, his deputy, the driver and I) admiring a stack of vegetables, and when I saw they were transfixed by a shaggy mound of blue cabbages I slipped away.

Where are you going, Mr. Paul?' 'For a walk.' Mr. Fang conferred with his Hothot deputy. My walk was given official sanction, and I was driven about a hundred yards to the People's Park and released.

How many Muslims are there here?' I asked a man in a skullcap. 'Thousands.' 'Have any been to Mecca?' 'One,' he said. 'The government sent him last year.

If he doesn't talk to me, and he doesn't walk around with me, and he doesn't travel in the same compartment,' I said, 'I don't understand why he wants to come with me.' 'To make sure you are comfortable. Hospitality. You are our guest ...

Lom mister,' he said, and winked at me. 'It's the CIA, isn't it? You're an agent, you tell people you're a journalist because that's good cover ...

What could be crueler? I suppose the answer was: lots of things-an intellectual forced to shovel chicken shit, a Muslim forced to keep pigs, a physicist ordered to assemble radios, an historian in a dunce cap, a person beaten to death for being a teacher.

It was always like a fire drill, getting on or off a Chinese train, with people panting and pushing

Here at Sudan the students humiliated their teachers,' she said. 'But in the high schools it was not unknown for students to beat their teachers to death.

He said that he believe that Nixon's visit to China had something to do with his release, because some of the people accompanying Nixon in 1972 showed an interest in political prisoners and had asked to visit prisons. 'Usually, we got one thin slice of meat a week. If the wind was strong it blew away. But just before President Nixon's visit we started to get three pieces. The prison guards were afraid that he might visit and ask how we were being treated.

... nothing is more indicative of a war going badly than valiant propaganda ... Anything officially denied was probably a fact.

Chinese blaming is always reserved for the higher-ups: underlings are always innocent. That was how they had been able to cope with the monstrous guilt in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution.