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from Peking
A British Diplomat in China 1972-1974
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We are now rather more securely ensconsed in our flat than we were when Celia last wrote. We have organized the furniture and are almost at the picture-hanging stage. However, the painters are still with us, and until they go we shall not really feel the place belongs to us. Our fat cook [Lao Wang] improves by strides: he is jolly and friendly. We have sacked the ayee in an unprecedented move since we saw little point in continuing to employ someone who was so sour and did not seem to enjoy J. Not only that but she read me the editorial from the People’s Daily aggressively each morning as I emerged from the bedroom. This probably means that we shall have to wait weeks or months for another one. We have spent a nightmare time trying to fit all our accumulated junk into this tiny space: but with patience we shall make it quite habitable. But compound living is peculiarly isolating from the local environment. We sally forth on Wednesday afternoons and weekends and find Peking endlessly fascinating. It is such a strange mixture of the drab and the fabulous. We have now explored more of the Forbidden City, where in two draughty corridors is displayed the pick of the imperial porcelain collection (but no electric light so one has to go in daylight to see it!). Celia has been to see more of the treasures which are not normally open to the public, on a jaunt of the kind that the Diplomatic Corps is occasionally invited to at a few hours’ notice. But I was duty officer at the Embassy that week so could not go. They have some very lovely things indeed. And set among the golden-rooved palace complex the effect is stunning. The main throne room is in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, and all barbarians tremble and obey.
We have consorted with an ever-wider selection of our diplomatic colleagues: our contact with the Chinese remains limited to interviews and occasional banquets. Crowds collect round us wherever we go in the city but any attempt at talking merely frightens them away: more so does the use of cameras, though using J as a decoy I have been able to take some film. We have explored shops where the masses shop: goods on display are fairly functional and unexciting – much as one would expect in a developing socialist economy. But basic consumer goods like radios, cameras, watches etc. are all available at a high price and are eagerly bought. It is still amazing to see the crowds in these places all uniformly in the ubiquitous blue baggy outfits or People’s Liberation Army (PLA) khaki. Their curiosity for Foreign Devils seems endless. So does ours for them: and it is a continuing source of frustration that opportunities for contact are so few.
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