A Reporter's China Diary

Ever more self-confident, outward-looking and relaxed, China in recent months has invited dozens of foreign delegations to visit Peking. The largest was the 600-man group of Canadian businessmen, officials and journalists who were in China to stage the largest trade fair ever held hy a foreign country in Peking. Canadian External Affairs Minister Mitchell Sharp led a delegation to the fair's opening and journeyed through the country for ten days. With the group was TIME's National Correspondent for Canada, James Wilde, who filed these notes:

DIPLOMATS in Peking categorically affirm that China wants to see President Nixon re-elected this fall. Reasons? Foremost is the fact that the Chinese know Nixon, respect him, and feel that they understand his and Kissinger's way of thinking and political philosophy; better the devil they know than the one they do not. Second, they feel that reactionaries in general are easier to manipulate. Third, Chou En-lai is reported to doubt whether McGovern can ever enact the reforms he has promised, even if he is elected. In particular, Chou is suspicious of the McGovern plan to withdraw American troops from Western Europe. If that happens, the Chinese reason, the Soviets may simply add five more divisions to the 45 they already have encamped along the Chinese border.

The rampant puritanism of the Cultural Revolution has given way to the resurgent folkways of an older Peking. One can see Chinese workers playing cards under the street lights in Peking, something unheard of not long ago. Mao badges, Mao statues and the little Red Book of quotations are disappearing from many public places. In the past couple of months, too, Chinese have been able to wash down their noodles in the myriad noodle bars of Peking, Shanghai and Canton with draft beer, a popular practice that almost ceased during the Cultural Revolution. Most of the restaurants are packed, since for the Chinese eating and drinking are among the few entertainment alternatives to such pious homilies as the ballet The Red Detachment of Women, even when, in its latest version, it has shed its heavy Mao-cult finale.

There are only two functioning churches in the whole of China, both of which reopened recently. The Protestant one, opened last Easter Sunday on a street opposite Peking's Tung Tan shopping center, is served by the Reverend Kan and his assistant, a 50-year-old deacon. A white-haired little old Chinese lady plays hymns on an upright honky-tonk piano. The hymns and the service are all in Chinese, even though the congregation is mostly European and only four members are actually Chinese.

I attended Mass last Sunday at the Roman Catholic church, which opened last November and is located in the southwest corner of the old legation quarter. The Mass was celebrated entirely in Latin by the Chinese priest, who stood, gorgeously vested in a green and gold chasuble, with his back to the congregation in the old manner. A choir of one woman and four men sang Latin hymns. Again, the congregation was mostly European, with a sprinkling of Africans from Zambia and Tanzania and a few Chinese, among them a party member who said that he was "just checking."

Susan Stockwell, wife of Canadian Diplomat David Stockwell, finds living in Peking extremely cheap. She and her husband pay about 50 yuan monthly ($22.22) for food bought in the local market. "We do buy some supplies from Hong Kong on a monthly basis, but you can get nearly everything you need here in Peking," she says. "But butter is expensive, $2.50 a pound, and coffee, which you have to roast and grind yourself, also sells for $2.50 a pound." Their monthly wage bill for a cook, a washing and cleaning amah, and their baby's amah amounts to only $151.

Mrs. Stockwell had her second child in Peking's Peace Hospital--it had been called the Anti-Revisionist Hospital before President Nixon's visit last February--where diplomats are permitted to have private rooms. Her problems began after she returned home. If she had not delivered a boy, she explained, "all the servants would have started to wonder about my husband's virility. As it was, they were scandalized that I came home after spending only three days in hospital. Most Chinese women spend ten days." When Mrs. Stockwell tried to take the baby for a stroll in the baby carriage, her cook barred the door: he explained that she should have stayed in bed at least one month before going outside. Now, she says, "our baby's amah actually wants to call a doctor every time the child gets a cold. So I have to fill a medicine bottle with water and give the child a few drops just to soothe her. I finally managed to persuade them to let me take the child out for a walk, and the amah even consented to do it too. She explained to the shocked amahs she met that this was the Canadian method of raising children." The total bill for all hospital expenses and medical attention came to $34.

In Canton, I wondered why the city looked so familiar, with its crowded streets lined on either side by two-story arcades. Then I realized that Canton is the mother of all the Chinatowns across the world: Bangkok, Singapore, Djakarta, San Francisco, Vancouver--all have small or large copies of Canton. Most of the overseas Chinese came originally from Kwangtung province, and they naturally built replicas of Canton. The sights and sounds were the same too: the barred windows, the shops on the ground floor with the living quarters above, the little old ladies with their hair done in a bun, and the smells--all those sharp, sweet and sour smells of charcoal, spices, washing and cooking.

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