The Correspondent, Vol 2 No.8 1977 by The Foreign Correspondents' Club, Hong Kong

Vol.2 No.8

Foreign Gorrespondents' Glub, Hong Kong

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Ww The Officers: President

Anthony Paul First Vice President Frank Beatty Second Vice President Keith Jackson Treasurer

Derek Davies Secretary Tony Scott

The Untold Storyof

fümmunist Genocicle in Cambodia

During my nine years in lndochina the only visit I made to Cambodia was a 3G minute stopover between Saigon and Bangkok - before that little country was ripped by war. I knew it only by the words carried by friends who had been there, and wanted badly to return. Hugh Vàn Es, who took the cover photo near the end of the war, and Bert Okuley, who wrote his comments on Tony paul's

- Murder of a Gentle Land - did live for lengths of time in Cambodia. They know at

book

first hand why people returned often,

and

they know the whys of the outrage that wells up in those who knew Cambodia at what has

The Staff¡ Editor Bert W. Okuley Photographer

Hugh Van Es Eddie MartÍnez Advertising

happened in the past few years - and it didn't necessarily begin with the Khmer Rouge.

It is the

festive season. perhaps Cam-

bodia is not the. most gratifying reminder of the season . . . but let us not forget that there is a time and a place outside our own.

Nida Cranbourne

DER.

Fl ublished monthlv as

HulGrü f EcuHc

organ of rhe Foréign Correspondents' Club of Hong Kong. Offices at l bth Floor, Sutherland House, 3 Chater

Road, Hong Kong. Tel: 5-

237734 and 5-233003.

Cables: CORCLUB HONG KONG. Address all correspondence to: Editor, Foreign Correspondents' Glub of

Hong Kong, 1sth Floor, 3 Chater Road, Hong Kong. Adver-

Sutherland House,

tising: Nida Cranbourne. First Floor, 30 lce House St., Hong Kong. Tel: 5-248482.

following their military victory over

Printed by Yee Tin Tong Printing Press, Ltd., Aik San Factory Building, Ground

By Bert W. Okuley

Floor, Block A, 14, Westlands

the place because the food was the best in town. Phnom Penh. A city of sarongs whose lovely people were at peace

Road, Ouarry Bay, Hong Kong. Tel: 5-622271-7.

LE@W

Let us consider pre-war Phnom

Penh, that gorgeous city of towering trees and broad boulevards, of well-kept French colonial villas. The perfect mixture

of East and West. Phnom Penh. One could get away from it all in old Phnom Penh. Perhaps in the Hotel Le Royal with its vast, high-ceilinged rooms overlooking a beautiful courtyard where aging white-jacketed waiters

served up the finest wines in Southeast Asia with your salade nicoise. Nearby was the Wat Phnom, the country's most sacredBuddhist shrine. Phnom Penh. You had the oc-

casional Mercedes in those (pre1 970) halcyon days, but for the most part the Phnom Penh nights

were disturbed only by the occasional whistle of cyclo tires

//22.'., , trt,'rtl Sole Aqents: FRENCH FASHIONS LTD., Hons Kons.

with the world. Where a

barber once literally chased me down the

street after I mistakenly gave him 50-riel note for a S-riel haircut.

rhe American-backed Lon Nol government in April 1975. The book does not deal with the war, only its aftermath.

Survivors of mass murders which rival those of Nazi Germany

tell in their own words of 1 million people. That's right. Between

5OO,0O0

Phnom Penh. Less than 20O miles away lay the treasures of

and 1 million people of a total population of 7 million put to death or who were too weak to survive the

Angkor Wat, and one could hop an Air France flight which deposited

horrors perpetrated by the fanatical minions of 2 dozen. homicidal

you at the delightful spa of Siem Reap only a few miles from this

maniacs who operate under the name Angka Loeu, or "Organization

cen-

on High." And has the United Nations (of which Democratic Kampuchea

Phnom Penh. Playboy Prince Norodom Sihanouk didn't much care for American journalists but if

anything about it? Has the Con-

wonder of the world hidden deep in

the Cambodian jungles for turies.

you listed your occupation as bible salesman or farmer or some such you could get a visa easily enough. Remember Phnom Penh.

Then read Murder of a Gentle Land by John Barron and Anthony

Paul (Reader's Digest

Press;

somehow became a member) done gress of the United States bothered

to do anything about it? No. They sit on the banks of the East River and on Capitol Hill like

twin

conventions

most grisly business

us$s.95).

Auschwitz.

The cyclos more than likly were

This book, also published as Peace with Horror (Hodder and

language newspapers

Stoughton; [4.95), deals with the g enocide carried out by the shadowy Khmer Rouge leadership

yogarishis

while the xenophobic regime of Premier Pol Pot goes about the

gliding along Monivong Boulevard. bearing their occupants to a quiet dinner at the Circle Sportif or the Cafe de Paris, where you put up with the arrogant Corsican who ran

the

slaughter of between 5OO,O0O and

since

(And why do the English-

of Hong Kong dignify this madman with the

t¡tle "Mr"?).

Don't read this book

before 3

retiring. But read it. I read it while vacationing in East Java. Riding back to Jakarta on the train, my comPanion (who knew Phnom Penh well) and I found ourselves staring out at the miles of paddies and rice farmers and im-

agining what

was like for

the

That, according to a suryivor who managed to escaPe to

old lth Thaim, whom the Khmer Rouge had drafted to drive the truck, remembers that a terrible

Phnom Penh. And this narrative:

stillness settled over the plantation, the Khmer Rough saying nothing' 'the blood like water on the grass."' There are 212 Pages of this horror in a meticulously researched

Thailand, was the fate of manY girls taken awaY to the countrYside from

Led bY an officer called

Taan, who was in his earlY thirties'

inhabitants at the time. I figured that between 2O,OOO and 30,000 people must have died just during the first month, just in the one area

from Phnom Penh into described."

Loeu.

"Just think, these guYs have not had a woman in five Years!' exclaimed the chief."

YOUR

NEW OFFICE

And most people looked with amusement on William F. BuckleY's

suggestion .\ s#; u.:.

1r'"sÉ: '

the

Cambodian PeoPle and to sPare the

world a repetition of their tragedy."

Murder

of a

Gentle Land

available at varying Prices in Hong Kong. lt's $ô4'40 at Harris, but $49.50 at KellY and Walsh in lce House Street.

tf'"iotOier. rounded up 1O (former) civil servants together with their wives and children, about 60 Peo-

book in which Mr. Barron and Mr Paul were assisted bY Katherine

each behind the back, forced them aboard a truck at about 5 P'm" drove them some 3 kilometers out of town to a banana Plantation' ' ' "Weeping, sobbing, begging for their lives, the prisoners were pushecl into a clearing among the banana trees, then formed into a ragged

eating their meals together, small emaciated children would approach

ple in all. TheY bound the hands of

line, the terrified mothers

and each

children clustering around head of the familY. With m¡litary orderliness the communists thrust

and beg for food' The Khmer Rouge had issued strict orders not to give them any food. On more than one occasion theY chased the little

- algae, leaves, tree

things awaY with sticks"' -

schoolteacher.

"l was thinking about all the bodies I had seen during one

mites."

preface, John Barron

writes: "We believe that

the documentation conclusively shows that cataclysmic events have occurred in Cambodia and that their occurrence is not subject to rational dispute, We hoPe that uPon learning of these events, PeoPle in all

each official forward one at a time and forced him to kneel between two soldiers armed with bayonet-

bark,

bindweed, locusts, grasshoPPers' lizards, snakes, rats, worms, ter-

ln his

lnterior Design ond

Controcting servce

We soeciolise in Commerciolond Residentiol work.

before escaPing: "Our main diet was a very bitter

Paul: "Soon desPeration drove the exiles to eat literally anything edible

Clark and Ursula Naccache. "Often, while the soldiers were

CIARIDGE HCUSE now offers o complete

And while You're eating Your Christmas pie, reflect on this account from Ung Beng Chun, who survived six months in a New Village in northwest Cambodia

water before we could eat it. We also ate the bark of a tree' We'd first scrape it, then boil it in water until it turned into a thick paste"' And from Messrs Barron and

I wonder what haPPened to mY friends in Phnom Penh? I wonder what haPPened to the old cyclo driver outside the Monorom Hotel, which some correspondents Preferred to Le Phnom

Wewillsolve vour problems with¡n

yortbudget Tolk to our expert Soff ot

CLAIìIDGC HOUS€ uo. l2c Sncere lnzuronce Bldg. 4-ó FlennesyRd FbrgKorg

Td5278\21-4

(neé Royal),who wa¡ted dailY to take me to the morning Press briefing?

I wonder what haPPened to mY

Vignettes from the Past: Khieu Samphan of the Khmer Rouge greets Prince Sihanouk, the tragedy of war and a Peaceful temPle'

ever-cheerful driver, always with a bottle of Jim Beam handY at the end of a daY and who, thank God, I was able to bring to Hong Kong

once for a couPle of weeks and who delighted in the FCC? I wonder what haPPened to the

scholarly office manager who

then stabbed the victim

decided to stay on in APril, 1975 instead of accepting evacuation with

chest and the other through the

the Americans? I wonder what haPPened to mY stringer-photographers, who didn't

back.

" Family bY familY the communists pressed the slaughter,

get paid verY much for Producing at great personal risk the Photos You

moving down the line' As each man lay dying, his anguished, horrorstruck wife and children were

Hôno Kono. Tel.5-2601MI7 ' inÁJsociaiion *¡rh the Avanl Garde Group

sYndicated

the ongoing annihilation of

fruit, which we had to soak

simultaneouslY, one through the

202 Far East Exchange Buildrng,

in his

column in the United States that a combined United Nations force do something to stop the madness in Phnom Penh.

-.-!

tipped AK-47 rifles. The soldiers

Office ConcePts (Asio)

the

countryside, from which he escaPed to Viet Nam.

same kind of PeoPle whose fate it was to be in Phnom Penh or Battambang or KomPong Cham or Pursat in April, 1975. ". . . Before the entire village all the girls from Phnom Penh would be lined up and each made to dance so as to disPlaY herself. After the exhibition each (Khmer Rouge) invalid from the convalescent camP would be allowed to Pick a wife from among the girls. AnY girls left over would be taken bY war heroes' All the Phnom Penh girls that same evening would be married off in a mass wedding staged bY Angka

Dr Vann HaY, taken

parts of the world will act to halt

dragged uP to his bodY. The women, forced to kneel, also received the simultanous baYonet thrusts. The children and babies, last to die, were stabbed where they stood.

"(As) the last child was dis-

patched, an eYewitness, 35-Year-

cãme to see me, half of whom I knew were not going to live. I used to see between 2O and 3O sick people every day. Extrapolating to cover the area which I had traversed, between Oudong and the border, plus the estimated number of

saw in the newspapers for five years of warT I wonder what haPPened to the scholarly Young man who ran a

cultural magazine and, although he couldn't sPeak English nor I French, we were buddies? They're all dead, Goddamnit. That's what happened to them.

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HO CHI MINH CITY, Viet Nam Old Saigon is dying. ln its place is growing up a new city with a new name, a city that is quieter, smaller and less cosmopolitan. It is probably better for many factory employees and others now known as "workers." lt is worse, at least economically, for much of the middle class and for many of the

minology.

"lt is quite natural that those

BEST

who got rich on the war and exploited the workers don't like the

CONTACT DON PYMAN AT 5.26225,5 ( 4 LINES } ON DROP IN FOR A CHAT ABOUT YOUR HOLIDAY PLANS: Rooms 12lJ4 or 1502, Tung Ming Building, 40 Des Voeux Road, Gentral, Hong Kong.

CARDINAL TRAVEL CONSULTANTS LTD.

By Richard Dudman

self-employed, now called the "bourgeoisie" in Marxist ter-

Y()U r,,l

OT]IET CITY

ÁÐ

Ery

new regime," said Le Ouang Chang, deputy chairman of the People's Committee that governs the city. An American visitor is confronted by many changes that have taken place since the communists

won and the last

Americans

departed April 30, 1975.

The name itself has

changed.

The former capital is now Ho Chi

Minh City on all the maps,

business letterheads, on the side of the Ho Chi Minh City tourist office's blue-and-white airport minibus and increasingly in coversation. But ordinary citizens and frequently even communist officials

Dudman wao tho fir¡t

Arnerican roporter admifted to Vietnam for an extended vi¡it since the U.S. forcea woro withdrawn. This article wa¡ filed from Hong Kong after hi¡ trip. still speak of "Saigon," and people in other parts of South Vietnam

seem unfamiliar with the new d

esignation.

Cha

nge

comes

gradually.

Officials say Saigon's wartime peak population of 4 million has already been reduced to 3,3 million, mostly by the return of former peasants to the underpopulated

countryside. The city is losing its American influence. There is no more Coca-

Cola. The plant has shut down, although a glass factory still turns out the familiary Coke bottles, to be used for a local soft drink.

No more new American

in, of course. And all motor traff¡c is much automobiles come

reduced, including the motorbikes and three-wheel Lambretta jitneys

and motorized pedicabs whose defective mufflers used to cover Saigon with a permanent blue haze.

Even

the French influence

fading. A French businessman said he was one of only about a dozen

"true" Frenchmen still here meaning those who had not married Vietnamese. The French schools, which used

to educate the children of the merchant and officer class, have been converted into public schools with

government-prescribed 7

curricula that include MarxismLeninism and the history of Viet Nam's Communist revolution along with the old standard subjects.

sampling of teachers and students suggests that the new regime is emphasizing Russian,

proud of themselves and their new skills, When asked what they did with the small amounts they made from sales of their handicrafts, they giggled and said it went for cakes, candy and bananas. The swarm of beggars and pimps

possibly in

that used to line the walk next to

that order - ahead of French. Old Saigon's lavish French and Italian restaurants with their huge

the verandah of the old Continental Palace, once a hangout for Western

English and Chinese

menus and expensive wines are mostly gone with the Americans and the American dollars, One of the few st¡ll operating is the

soldiers, spies and journalists, are all gone. Only a half-dozen beggars were seen on this visit, mostly in

"liberation." Officials charged that

addiction was actively promoted by

top officials of the regime

President Nguyen Van Thieu to enrich themselves and manipulate the victims.

At a drug treatment center, Dr

Pham Phi Long said the addicts are restrained if necessary for an immediate "cold turkey" denial of all drugs, with acupuncture and oriental medicines to help the addict get

days. No one has died

Steve, the glib Vietnamese-born Chinese who runs it, said he planned to close in five or sfx months and go to Hong Kong, where his family

the

withdrawal stage, he said. Then come three to six months of gymnastics, sports, singing, oc-

cupational training and selfcriticism sessions to develop selfrespect and a sense of "collective

lives. He complained that taxes

were too high, that the new government is too friendly to Moscow and that Larue beer, which

for 1 dong (44 cents) for a large bottle in government-run

sells

hotels, costs him 5 dongs on the free market. He sells it for 7. He apologized that he would have to

Tu Do St. - once Catinat and now Dong Khoi (Simultaneous Uprising) St. - was Outside,

Remaining orphanages are renamed "bamboo shoot" schools to connote future promise rather than burden or un-

the grating over the front window.

the central market. Streets are not entirely safe even

Thieu regime, direct traffic,

were seen learning to make baskets and doormats. One class was learn-

wristwatches before venturing into crowds. Small boys still can grab a

truckload of soldiers with Chinesemade AK-47 rifles was seen one afternoon in Cholon, the Chinese

ing to read and write Írom a 24-

watch in a flash from an unwary

district.

year-old former prostitute who had an 1 1th grade education. The young women are confined to the school for the six-month initial course. An official said almost

stranger.

all had to be treated for venereal diseases. Three-hundred have "graduated" to take useful jobs,

said.

Several said, through a Communist interpreter, that they were

wrecked in another of the bloody

river and then with a mine blast

Viet Cong bombings, is once more

that caught U.S. servicemen fleeing down the gangplank. lt still charges 1 O per cent for service, a practice

luxury hotel, reserved for special

customarily remove their

Officials say there are 15,OOO to 2O,OO0 drug addicts on the city's

streets. Before Saigon fell, there were said to be 15o,o0o, but many vanished with "liberation," possibly influenced by the spirit of the revolution, as an official said of the many prost¡tutes who disappeared. Of the addicts, 90 per cent were said to have been on heroin during

ïhe only violence seen or

heard area

in nearly two weeks in the

consisted of two dozen shots at midday near the Roman Catholic cathedral in Post Office Square. An

official said a man had stolen

bicycle and policemen had converged on the scene firing their pistols into the air, catching the man and recovering the bicycle. Police could be seen runn¡ng across the in-

Palace, where dissident Vietnamese airmen lried to bomb President Ngo Dinh Diem and where Viet Cong Troops besieged President Thieu in 1968, stands empty, said to be undergoing repa¡rs. Across the front in Vietnamese is the omnipresent slogan, "Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom." A huge portrait of the author of

that statement, Ho Ch¡ Minh, decorates the tower of the city hall. The massive white U.S. Embassy

building, where Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker took refuge in 1968 on the same roof from which helicopter plucked Ambassador Graham Martin in 1975, is being

converted into offices for the government's Bureau of Oil and The My Can floating restaurant

Itisntt

unknown in the north where tipping is deemed a degrading capitalist device to depress wages.

guests.

Polish and Soviet tourists were

entertained recently in the redecorated Rex nightclub with (Please see page 17.)

the recipe that separates '-

dontsf

thepe

kit There is a common opinion that

Despite an occasional incident,

law and order have generally taken the place of the turmoil of wartime Saigon. Tan-uniformed police, many of them patrolmen under the

in the daytime. Visitors to the city, including Vietnamese from Hanoi,

of the young women

tacked it, first with a bomb from the

have changed.

The Rex Building, which housed

the joint U,S. Public Affairs Office and a U.S. officers' club that was

wantedness,

The prostitutes who used to

hundreds

Many landmarks of old Saigon lndependence

palace.

Gas.

into private homes.

beggar peered at the diners through

although now with ordinary Vietnamese. The Viet Cong once at-

figure on the number of VietnameseAmerican orphans but that orphans

segregate those with American fathers and to promote tha adoption of all orphans

was only one other group in the restaurant, several Swedes. A

st¡ll does a capac¡ty business,

presidential

the roof of the old

The policy is not

almost deserted at 9:3O p.m. There

tersection and taking positions on

mastery." Dr Long said the school, one of several, had restored 4.000 addicts to normal life in two years. A city official said she had no

of all types numbered 4O,OOO in orphanages and that there were many more not institutionalized.

crowd the joints along Tu Do and drink tea "cocktails" with American Gls are gone, many to schools for "restoring the dignity of women," On a visit to one of the schools,

the heroin supply was cut off

through the rough f¡rst four to six

Pizzeria.

charge $16 for a half-bottle of moderately good French wine.

the war, switching to opium when

aìl oins are the same.

lt may be true of some. But not of Gordon's. For the way we use juniper.

coriander and other botanical ingredients in ourdistilling recipe. makes subtle differences to the taste of our gin. The actualdetails are of course a secret. But the results are not. fürdon's is thebest selling gin in the world. Need we say rncre?

GORDONS The in drink for generations

@trICTtrII,vELL

CHRISTMAS

Marty, the Club guitarist and vocalist, is ioined by ) others for a folk night.

-1977

Brian Talboys of New Zealand explaĂns a point at recent Press Conference at the FCC.

Sir Denis H a milton of Fleet Street adresses the

FCC Lim Thanh Van and Burt Lancaster

get together on the set Ă?n

Los

Angeles. Van was formerlY a UPI photographer in Hong Kong. What is it this noted television executive has on his mind?

"Mummy, daddy's practising again." Dick Hughes Jr was the first jazz pianist to play solo at the National

Dadday's pract¡s¡ng with typical Hughes style

in Sydney. He has also played in Paris and London.

His father can't even whistle, much less caïy a tune, but Dick Hughes Jr can. He is what you would call a musician. Louis Armstrong once said that

Dick was Australia's no. 1 jazz pianist, a tribute that the Sydney Daily Mírror columnist and subeditor modestly disclaims. Now comes word from Australia that, following in our doyen's footsteps, Dick has wr¡tten a book. It's called Daddy's Practising Again, (Marlin, $4.95). He got the t¡tle for the book frorn a remark made by one of his three daughters when he was fiddling around with a new composition:

A BRAVE GUY SAYS "THANKS'' would like

Dear Friend:

These days, when he's not toiling appears regularly at the Sydney Journalists' Club and one of the city's leading resta urants. Like his grandfather, Dick taught himself. how to play the piano. A new record album will come out around the same time as Dick's book. To quote from the dust jacket

As hard as

it may seem, Dave Jayne is gone. I am sure you arc awarc by now Dave was killed in a plane crash in Amman, Jordan, September 23 while on assignment for ABC News.

for Rupert Murdoch, Dick

The legions of Dave's friends around the world have organized the David W. Jayne lll MemorialTrust. The purpose of the Trust is three-hold:

of Daddy's Practising Agaín: "ln this book, the first by an Australian jazz musician, Dick Hughes reminisces about some of

the great jazzmen he has known

and presents an absorbing picture

of the jazz scene in

Melbourne, Sydney, London, Paris and New York . . . lnformed by Hughes' extraordinary memory, his lively sense

of humor and his life-long passion for jazz, this book is a unique document in the history oÍ jazz." The book presumably will be in Hong Kong shops around the first

of the year.

Bert Okuley.

Jim and Margot Miller of VOA

are packing up for a

Dear Mr President and Members,

ffill0ll0nI[ûllll

Opera House

to thank all the

members of the FCC in Hong Kong

on behalf of Mrs Anant Chunchun

and myself for the

contribution made to assist our families after our

battlefield act¡on last January

which Anant died, The fund money was recently sent to Bangkok.

Mr Anant's second wife gave birth to his son last June, so the

money from Hong Kong and Tokyo will be used half to help this child that Anant never saw. Mrs Anant has asked me to send her thanks to the FCC and all those people who contributed. I would also like to thank all of my ol9 friends in Hong Kong, and those others that I do not know personally for their concern and their

c/o Walter Porges 7 West 66th Street New York, New York 1OO23

Stephen, 8. 2l To establish an honorary award in Dave's name at Williams College where he was an honor student. 3) To establish a special award in journalism at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in Dave's

Plans are going foward in Chicago to establish a suitable memorial to Larry Buchman. You will be advised when firm decisions have been made.

honor.

Executive co-chairpersons of the Memorial Trust are Harry Reasoner and Barbara Walters. Others serving on the committee are Howard K. Smith of ABC News; Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather of CBS News; John Chancellor of NBC News; Elie Abel, Dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism; and John Chandler, President of Williams College.

Each of us has our own special memory of the way Dave gave of himself to all and the high standards for which he stood. We ask that you be as generous as

new

They'll be leaving Asia early

January, presumably with new pool cues to replace those destroyed by Miller on a recent weekend in the 18th floor. Jim will be remembered around the FCC as one of the people who

worked long hours (anonymously) behind the scenes to get the Club's

redecoration successfully com-

ä T

--.1

2 1 o E

The "Spanish Lazarus,"

Don Javier Martinez Lindbergh Padilla of La Vanguardia, returned to Asia "for

cLo:l.

ã E3ß B l.q¡. o ; 9r8. 9 0-5.1 ? RNg ô z^ -trk(D

in November, but almost before he got settled back in his old haunts, was off again to Barcelona. The way Senor Padilla described it, his editors decided there was not really that much news in Asia of interest to readers in Spain. Adios, good"

;

:.=

o g I

ol/,

33E

= E'

:S 8ÊE o dx o

amigo.

forget.

Yours sincerely,

Joseph Lee ABC News Bangkok 12

Contributions should be mailed to: David W. Jayne lll Memorial Trust

lf you wish your contibution to be applied to a specific purpose of the Trust, kindly include such instructions with your contribution.

action, which I greatly appreciate. Your moral support also I will not

Thailand

Porges.

1) To provide for the education of Dave's four children: David lV, 14; Lisa, 13; Debbi, 12; and

assignment in Panama.

pleted.

Trustees of the Memorial are Dave's widow, Betsey; his brothers-in-law, George Baldwin and Neil Nichols; and two long-time friends, Paul Altmeyer and Walter

AIB ilIAOilUI

+o.

= J,+a ^ td 9,o t¡, all

+ II

-l

lure of that city - we stayed in a cavernous hotel that had been built for the long-departed Soviet technicians - we were all anxious to reach Shanghai.

For me there was a special reason.

Some people wouldn't go across the street to meet their father-in-law, but I had come halfway around

the world

- 1O,OOO miles and through the gates of history's most closed soc¡ety - to meet mine. It turned out to be one of the most dramatic and emot¡onal experiences during my more than a dozen years as a foreign correspondent. But on that first morning in Shanghai I was still not certain that the meeting would come off; my excitement at just being in the largest city in the world was heightened by the suspense over whether or not I would get to see my

wife's father. Father-in-law Chen, Neilan and T'ai-li, 1973.

By Edward Neilan

onlhetoail IoDck¡ g The Shanghai Express hissed to a halt in the No. l Western Station with a billowing of steam from the blue and black and white painted locomotive. Trains usually run on time in the new China, but this one was early. Our hosts, members of the Shanghai Bevolutionary Committee had not yet arrived, so the group of eight American journalists and writers,

enthralled by the very fact of being ín Shanghai, horseplayed on the platform like a bunch of kids.

Susan Sontag, the writer, struck

Marlene

Dietrich pose from that film and said "you have to

have known many men

to get the nickname

'Shanghai Lil.' " Phil Stern, who wrote The Rape of the Taxpayer

and The Great Treasury Baid and who is

philanthropist of sorts, engaged in a strictly one-sided butearnestconversation with a porter who spoke no English and whose monthly pay was about g2O.

Reg Murphy, then editor of the Atlanta Con-

stitution, now editor and publisher of the San Francísco Examine¡, continued his running corruption of the English language speech ability of yeh Chin, on leave from the Hsinhua news agency to act as one of

the ¡nterpreters for our group.

The clock in the station tower was just gonging 6 a.m, of a cold, gray day and here was Murphy teaching Yeh the "correct" Georgia twang of ,'y'all c'mon, let's eat." The journey from Peking had been broken by a stay of a few days in Sian, the ancient capital. Despite the 14

When my visa for travel to the people's Republic of China was approved, my Shanghai-born wife Linda, of course, wanted me to try to look up her father. She had not seen him or spoken to him since lgbO when she and some other members of the family left Hong Kong shortly after the Communist takeover. Despite all the news reports of openings to the West, China's much-talked-of Bamboo Curtain was st¡ll a reality in February of 1973; especially when it

to communicating with relatives. Mail ex_ changes are now allowed but personal overseas telephone calls are still strictly regulated usually forcame

bidden.

And my father-in-law, Chen Cheng-nuen, then 73, was a rather special case. As a wealthy construction executive before the Communist takeover, he was stripped of his property and listed as a member of the "national bourgeosie,, that Peking has tried to "reconstruct,, and ',reeducate" as part of the new society. It was apparent that my father-in-law would take a lot of "reconstructing." He did business and socialized with foreigners, owned several cars, and during the course of an active life had eight different wives and concubines. My wife was the daughter of his first legal wife and the old man's favorite daughter (l con_ tend to this day that he spoiled her); meeting him would be quite an adventure, I thought. The search began in Ottawa, Canada in the

summer of 1972. When my passport application was presented, I also submitted the father-in-law,s name and the name of my wife's brother, Chen Hung-chen, 37, and their addresses. I repeated my request to v¡sit my relatives in meetings with Chinese authorities in Kwangchow and Peking. At each place the officials

were very cooperative, Yeh Chin took a special interest in the case. ,,This will be very interesting for me as well," he said. I still do not know how many late night phone calls he

made as we travelled across China, making arrangements to set up the meeting. Yeh and I hit ¡t off well on the trip and like so many friendships among journalists, ours was forged partly

during rather intense periods over liquid

refreshments. One night, at a banquet in Sian thrown

by local newspaper executives, Yeh tr¡ed to get me drunk. He should have realized that the possibility of his winning such a challenge was remote since he weighed only about 140 pounds, while I came in at over 1 95 and had something of a track record for endurance in such contests. Our toasts with the fiery mao-taí had gone well past the dozen mark when I noted out ofthe corner of my eye that Yeh had finally succumbed and was filling his glass secretly with water instead of the clear mao-tai. He was proposing the next challenge-toast when I

called him on it.

"Funny how the water makes those bubbles in

your mao-tai glass," I said. Everyone at the table laughed and Yeh took his exposure good-naturedly. But his ears were about as red as the political banner that hung over the doorway proclaiming "Peoples of the world unite to defeat the

imperialist aggressors." The next morning, Yeh's dark mood confirmed that

even Communists get hangovers. By the time we reached Shanghai, representat¡ves of the Revolutionary Committee there had checked the dossier on my father-in-law and had already visited him and confirmed he was in good health. The authorities, I should mention, knew earlier that the old man had a "foreign son-in-law" and that I was a newsman. A member of the Street Committee

(lowest state-run administrative unit) where my

father-in-law lives had come to the house before the China visit of President Nixon and said: "Your foreign son-in-law may be coming with this group. Make the necessary preparations to make a good impression." I didn't make the Nixon trip and, as it turned out, had a better opportunity to see China for a longer period, and in more depth, on this later journey. After we had been in Shanghai for a few days, Yeh

came around to my room one morning in the very comfortable Peace Hotel, the former Cathay Hotel owned by Sir Victor Sassoon during Shanghai's more adventuresome days. Noel Coward put the finishing touches in Private Lives while a guest at the Cathay. "lt's all set," Yeh said, every bit as excited as I was. "Your relatives will come here tonight around seven." Part of my intention in meeting my father-in-law was to arrange an overseas phone call to my w¡fe, who was at the time back in our home in Alexandria, Va. I knew that father-in-law had been unable to make or receive overseas calls previously. But I also knew that the authorities would not stop me from placing a call. So I filled out the required form for the call, and awaited the arrival of my relatives. At 7:O5 p.m., I heard Yeh's knock at the door. "Neilan, your father-in-law and brother-in-law are here to see you," he said. I shook hands with the old man and he clapped me on the arm and said "We finally meet. lt's good to see

you." He was wearing a plain gray Mao-type tunic under a topcoat, which he removed along with his scarf and cap. His English was still very good, even though he hadn't used it much in the last 20 years. Brother-in-law Chen Hung-cheng was there also with his wife and we greeted each other warmly. His wife's half-sister, T'ai-li, was with them. Yeh spotted her immediately as being very attractive and placed his chair next to hers. She was 26, unmarried, and was wearing a bright red jacket. Her hairdo was arranged more stylishly than the u'sual "Mao-bob" seen on most women. As I had sensed earlier, Shanghai people tend to dress much more colorfully, and seern more anímated and more aggressively curious in the street, than Chinese in other cities which I visited. We exchanged pleasantries and at the last minute I told Yeh about the overseas phone call.

"Why not? lt's a good idea," he said. We sat in the hotel room, sipping tea and talking about relatives scattered all over the world. Some of the conversation was in English; at other times Yeh

'We Wear Skirts in The Summerr' Said T'ai-li. Her Beauty Would Turn Young Men's Heads Anywhere in The World.t translated

the relative's comments made in

the

Shanghai dialect. After a while the telephone on the bedside table rang. The Shanghai operator said the call to Alexandria, Virginia, United States of America, was ready. "Go ahead, please." I spoke to my wife briefly and told her everything was set, that her father was sitting beside me anxious

to talk to her. The old man took the phone, spoke my wife's Chinese name twice happily "Kwei-li, Kwei-li. ." and

then he started to cry tears of joy. lt was the first time they had talked in over 20 years. On the other errd of the line, across the Pacific Ocean thousands of miles away, my wife was crying also.

After the old man had talked for about

five

minutes, he handed the phone to my brother-in-law who spoke emotionally to his sister (my wife) whom he had last seen as a little girl. While the brother-in-law was talking on the phone,

Yeh put his arm around the old man and saíd something in Chinese. The short Hsinhua man was obviously moved by the situation, He later told me that he treasured the experience; a rare East-West family meeting.

After the phoning was finished, we poured tea and talked, warmed in the aftermath of the overseas call 15

that had emotionally spanned years as well as miles. Everyone was pleased that the call had come off so

well. I took from my suitcase two

calendar wristwatches that I had brought as gifts. I gave one to my father-in-law and one to my brother-in-law. "Just what I need," said the old man. He held up his old watch; "l've had this one for over 40 years."

He was wearing a Mao button on his padded, woolen jacket. "ln the old days I often wore Western suits," he said, laughing, "Not any more. I also wore a Rotary (Club) pin instead of this Mao pin." All of the relatives were dressed well and warmly. Brother-in-law's tunic was of darker gray than the old man's. His wife wore a brown jacket. Both of the ladies were wearing trousers - I didn't see a skjrt on a Chinese woman during my entire 28 days in China. "We wear skirts in the summer sometimes," said

T'ai-li. Her beauty would turn young men's heads anywhere in the world. At the time of my visit she was a worker at the Shanghai Tractor Factory. She proudly said she was No 3 in ping-pong at the factory. I asked her about marriage; after all, there must be a lot of young men at the tractor factory. "There are 2,0OO men workers there," she said

and added with a laugh of feigned haughtiness. "None of them appeals to me."

Although the younger members of the Chen family had all gone to college in the pre- "liberation" days, this new generation of youngsters in the family hasn't had the chance. Because of their "bourgeosie" standing, they are assigned after middle (high) school to jobs in factories. And of course they must observe the

guidelines that "suggest" late marriage for both young men and women. More attractive jobs were reserved for offspring of workers, peasants and

soldiers. One of the young cousins, Ping-Ping, whom I met the following day was an acupuncturist and at 27 still had not married. The relatives had brought many gifts for me to take back to the United States. For the adults there was silk brocade, lacquerware and carv¡ngs. For my two young daughters, there were ceramic

figurines of the "White Haired Girl," a revoluntionary heroine. lt was a gift from the younger cousins and nephews and nieces for whom the revolutionary characters are their counterparts of our Mother Goose and Dr Suess. The following day I arranged to go to the family home, which is the working quarters of the former

family mansion in the French Ouarter of the old Shanghai. The big house is now a community center. The old man's room and the upstairs rooms of his niece - "Mary" was her name when it was permissi-

ble

have foreign name

were neat, but rather

frugally furnished. Under a glass plate on a table were several photographs of relatives around the world there was even one, incongruously it seemed, of Swarthmore-graduate Auntie lrene, the Hong Kong 16

advertisting executive, wearing a miniskirt. We spent

the morning taking photographs that would record the event of my visit for relatives scattered in half-adozen countries. The sun did not seem to want to cooperate at first, but finally enough light was found to take two rolls of film indoors and some more shots in the modest garden.

Everyone was quite excited

including the

neighbors. Several hundred children and adults pressed around the car outside; it was a rare event for an American visitor to come to this lane, A couple of the kids shouted "Hello" in English. All of the adult relatives were given the day off from their jobs to spend time with the visitor from the United States. That evening I was invited (along with Yeh) by my relatives to dine at a well-known restaurant on Nanking Road. The street was the former capitalist business center of Shanghai. Our party was to be l2

in all and there was the

usual crowd

curious

Chinese at curbside as Yeh and I alighted from the grey Shanghai-made sedan outside the restaurant. The restaurant was clean and modestly decorated. ln the old days, there were "Drink Coca Cola" signs on the walls near the entrance hallway, as well as traditional paintings and calligraphy. Now there were Mao slogans instead of capitalist consumer advertisements. The food turned out to be a notch below the banquet fare we had been getting on our trip, but it was very good and it was a pleasure to be able to eat in a restaurant without the trappings of a banquet. Near the end of the meal I began to feel that the relatives were going overboard in entertaining me and that dinner might be very expensive. I knew that the old man received a pension of about $45 monthly from the state, and that brother-in-law made perhaps

(Continued frorn Page 9.)

colored lights and a white spot focused on a revolving mirrored

to resume

service.

ln the Saigon River, the twisting

ball. They sat at long tables drinking

stream that changes clirection here four times a day with the ocean

tea during a two-hour program of

tides, one rarely sees two ships un-

Vietnamese songs and dances and a jazz version of The Song of the Volga Boatmen. Across the intersection where

der way at the same time. Those

that do appear are usually

Vietnamese, Soviet or East European.

stationery, Bic pens, shoes, plastic sandals, to¡let articles, U.S. Army gear and clothing, drafting supplies, embroidered blouses, padlocks, flashlights, hypodermic needles and surgical instruments.

Children of all ages, often in blue-and-white uniforms and generally looking scrubbed, walk or

once stood a huge statue of a South Vietnamese soldier, in a former bank building, is an exhibition hall for Vietnamese export goods. These include hardwoods, spices and handicrafts, as well as

bicycle

school

in morning

and

afternoon shifts all over the city. Parks, coffeeshops and motionpicture theaters are crowded in the early evenings. People still flock to

the beach at Vung Tau by bus or

television sets and a O-horsepower diesel engine made mostly from

motorbike. Young men and women workers

worked.

sewing machine copied from a classic Singer model and priced

The dinner bill came to about 92b. I was about to reach into my pocket for my roll of Yuan currency to help pay the bill but I hesítated. lt

evening in the Majestic Hotel - now the Cuu Long, or Nine Dragons - for a company dinner. lt began sedately, with the guests seated at

where wealth and status were re-

$60 a month in salary at the factory where

would have been too gauche a gesture. By Chinese

custom I was the guest, a family member, from a far place and should not pay. Yeh assured me later I had done the right thing in not trying to play big spender. The old man made several toasts wh¡ch we drank with orange soda and beer. He directed one at yeh. "Welcome and thanks, You are the only non-family member at the party. And we are glad to have you here." The car assigned to me was waiting at the curb after the dinner - along with about 2OO curious Chinese. I said goodbye to father-in-law and brotherin-law and insisted that they take the car back home.

The last thing the old man said to me was "l am getting old. I hope I can see my daughter again." Then Yeh and l, along with T'ai-li and ping-ping and another brother named T'a-ming walked back

toward the riverfront, half a mile down Nanking Road. (Please see page I 8.)

in a

Japanese parts ¡n joint ventures, Another item is a "Simco" treadle about $3OO.

Old Saigon's Cercle

Sportif

workers, providing swimming, tennis, table terinis and volley ball at nominal rates. lt appeared to be widely used and well run, although two groups were playing tennis on courts that lacked nets. Airport and harbor are quieter

now. Tan Son Nhut, said at the

war's height to be the

second

busiest a¡rport in the world (after Chicago's O'Hare), is clean and orderly but drowsy. lnstead of Western airliners, one sees mostly the red-flagged Air Viet Nam planes and those of the Soviet Union, the

People's Republic

China

and

Laos. Air France is said to be about

one

long tables. After much beer and rice wine,

quired for membership, has been turned into a sports club for

glass factory gathered

Occasionally a gray Vietnamese gun-boat goes to or frorn an upstream navy base. T¡ny towboats

often pull three or four wooden barges, each with its tall rudder post and tiller that reaches to a flying bridge above the cargo. For all the change, the city retains much of its old character. Crowds of people still eat theír meals of rich noodle soup at tiny sidewalk tables and buy food,

however, many were tipsy and giggling, several were staggering, and at least two were sick. When the party broke up and the noisy crowd headed for the elevators, a gray-haired official sternly mot¡oned for silence, tapping the loudest ones on the shoulder and motioning toward a group of foreigners eating nearby and taking it all in.

He clapped his hand over one young man's mouth to stop his yelling, then slapped him good

clothing and household supplies in

naturedly on the back and smilingly

where prices are uncontrolled and

sent him on his way. The incident seemed

the noisy jam-packed markets, bargaining is expected.

Street merchants still

hawk

sunglasses and spread out arrays of

to symbolize the light touch by a firm hand that Communist Vietnam is using for its problem

city.

T'a-ming was 25, worked in a factory and liked to swim in any weather. Walking on what used to be the famous Shanghai Bund along the Whangpoo River, we noted dozens of

couples holding hands and snuggling

park

benches.

I even saw one young man carrying a guitar, the first I had seen anywhere in China. All too soon it was time for me to go back to the hotel and for them to head for their homes. T'ai-li said they had been so excited about my visit since reading of my arrival in China in the Peking People's Daily, which is posted ín all the factories and work units across the countfy.

The flow of letters between Shanghai anfl Alexandria has continued since then, actual evidence.of a loosening of the controls that once prevented all interchange.

My wife sent bottles of v¡tamin capsules to her father regularly. They were all received, except for

one, which was sent back without

explanation.

Probably a bureaucratic snafu, we guessed.

Father Chen remained in good health until late 1976 although he seldom ventured outs¡de the house unless the weather was good, ac'cording to letters. Brother Chen wrote that he likes the bicycle which I sent him as a gift. Here's how that was arranged: I asked another relative who was visiting China from New York this last summer to make the purchase. She deposited the money - about $70 - with a Chinese bank and the Shanghai-made bicycle was

to brother Chen at a downtown shop. I might have sent in a foreign-made bike but

handed

the

family had already recieved one this year (only one foreign-made bicycle gift is allowed per veat, per familyl from another relative. T'ai-li is the family member with the most news to report recently. ln 1973 I had written about her beauty. Judging by a selection of snapshots she sent us recently, she is becoming even more attractive. Late marriages are encouraged as part of national policy. Tai-li was married in December 1974, to Lok Wein-ming, a Shanghai mechanical engineer. Their had planned to marry the previous October but a severe bout with the flu had caused T'ai-li to post-

We know frorn 32 yeara of experience thaÈ ñrov¡ng doeBn,t have to ba. a clìaotic business. We'll corne Èo your- home and give you a realistic quotat¡on, and ¡f youtne aatisfied witlî tlîat werll erxperrÈly pack and conÈaineF¡se ycrur poeeessions and insure tfìem ¡f you wietr. Wer'll provide door-to-door

you with experienced servicer...anywhene in Èhe world.

Call Jol-rn Moore aÈ,5-714?37 carch h¡rn at the FCc.,. for Èfìat smolother move.

ot-

in the world do so many travelers like the Reader's Digest?

pone the wedding. We had read that more and more young Chinese women were wear¡ng dresses and skírts, instead of trousers, and the snapshots which T'ai-li sent along

confirmed this. 1

T'aili

gave birth

to a baby girl

976.

Letters from Shanghai are not too detailed political subjects are not mentioned, There

and are,

however, references to sat¡sfaction that U.S.-Chinese

relations are improving, One thing that surprised me was the loosening up, at least in one instance, of the ban on import of foreign periodicals. Although neither Time no¡ Newsweek - and cer-

tainly not magazines like Playboy - are found on news-stands in China, some foreign books are allowed entry in "special cases." One such was a copy of The Future of the Ch¡na Market, a study exploring the prospects for Sino-American trade which I co-authored with another American journalist. Charles R. Smith.

The SrnoothclF Mover lets ycrLt en¡oy yolJ!- trtctve.

TtA/hy

The book contained some pointed political references and observations that were not in step with Peking policy. But the book was allowed to reach the family in Shanghai through the ordinary mail. One family member translated the book to Chinese so the others could read it. Tai Ming was married last year and had a baby boy

this past spring. Ping-Ping was also married last year and that event became a family reunion of sorts with relatives from New York and Hong Kong attending and a splendid three-table wedding banquet was held in a private room of a hotel near the old race course. Father Chen passed away January 20, 1977 at age

77. A memorial service was held and

relatives

some coming long d¡stances - to pay respect before and after cremation. The letters from Shanghai continue, speaking of family matters, questions and statements from the young members on hopes and aspirations for China's

gathered

future and invitations to visit Shanghai again whenever it is possible. t Ed Neilan waa formerly based in Hong Kong

Probably because we're so easy to read. In light installments. An article or two at a time. We're lots of fun, too. Our pages are peppered with humor. With many articles about the exciting cities and countries of the world. The Digest is an international magazine. That's why we aÞpeal to internàtional travelers. Digest is also handy to carry. To read at

airports, aboard jetliners, in hotel rooms. And, at home. If you're looking for travelers, just look at who's reading the Reader's Digest. Reader's Digest is the best-selling magazine at Asian newsstands (where travelers pick up their reading material).

Bought at Newsstands Reader's Digest Asia Edition

Philippines 27,576

Time 7,333

9,2& 2,717 Malaysia 9,612 4,478 Korea lndonesia 10,400 5,520 4,500 3,650 Pakistan Singapore 4,560 2,392 2,æ0 965 Taiwart 2,200 1,616 Thailand 4,(X)0 5,634 Japan Hong Kong/Macau 2,050 2,291 1,600 558 Sri Lanka

TOTAL:

78.,m C7,1il

Newsweek

6,800

2,1æ 1,948 5,000

2,95 2,2æ 1,1 16

1,700 7,æ1 1,951

2æ 3l,061

Source: ABC Analysis of Paid Circulat¡on Reader's Digest, Dec 1976 issue. T¡me, July 19, 1976 ¡ssue Nemwk, Ocl 25, 1976 issue

T)eaderb

\Drgest

is good for business. Yours.

and was a HKFCC member. He is now editor of

The Asia Maí|.

Cogyright 1977,Thc Ada MCt

't9

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