Walking into China - Winter 1981-2

Walking
I looked across the long military style bridge that stood before me. On the other side was Communist China and adventure. I had stated when I was five years old that one day I would learn to speak Chinese and go to China. Here I was twenty years later on the cusp of realizing one more Dream.

I looked across the hundred or so meters of metal bridge with wood planking for a road way. It was a bridge where no vehicles drove, with barbed-wire covered barricades at both ends. On either side in seemingly endless rows I could see soldiers of The People's Liberation Army standing at the ready facing inwards to scrutinize all who walked the gauntlet.

I had just talked my way into China, now I had to face the music – military music. I took a breath, whispered a quiet prayer, and stepped forward into history.

These were the waning days of the hardline Maoist regime and China was in flux, but everyone knew that what I was doing could mean imprisonment and even death. I smiled, walked calmly and even whistled a bit as I walked slowly towards my destination and destiny.

I knew very well how the poor people of China had languished under Mao's authoritarian government, while in some way they had also been liberated from a dreadful past.  I had come to bring hope to these people.  I had a Plan and I was determined to execute it and initiate change in the ancient Middle Kingdom. 

Thinking
I had a model from Chinese Buddhism in mind as I prepared to share democratic ideas as an alternative to tyranny.  China had become over 80% Buddhist within thirty years of being introduced according to census data from their history. Social conditions then were almost identical to those of Mao's China when I arrived.

Mao's China was a threat to the world at that time. It was like North Korea today – with a 'supreme leader', paranoid, heavily armed, with a huge nuclear arsenal and a belligerent attitude towards all outsiders and non-conformists.

Something had to be done to change the direction of that nation and the hands of governments were tied in the dance of diplomacy.  I was a Chinese Scholar, an expert in their Classical period, ideas, history, language, art and so on, with a degree from the University of Toronto and several months of living in Taiwan. As a democratic citizen I took responsibility and acted when others could not.

Talking
My Mandarin was pretty good by then, in spite of my limited talent for language learning. I marched slowly, looking side to side into the eyes, minds and hearts of these young soldiers, all in green uniforms with automatic weapons across their chests as one long unbroken line of defense and hostility and danger.

I smiled and walked and imagined a new China that could emerge in twenty years. The risk seemed worthwhile. If China did not change then the world would be destroyed. 

No one could get into China in order to influence the direction events would take now that Mao was dead, even though his wife was on trial for treason on television. I knew the Chinese would come to Canada one day and I was hoping they would arrive in business shoes rather than army boots so I told them about free market capitalism.

Hoping
Now halfway across the bridge I saw a light dawning in my heart and over the ancient Sleeping Dragon - China. I calmly and compassionately looked into their eyes and tried to communicate that I was a friend and that I had come to bring something wonderful – hope.  My personal encounter with the great Marcel Marceau, inventor of modern mime helped me to communicate non-verbally.

I walked towards the last possible point of destruction – Customs and Immigration. If I could get through there without them searching my bag I would be fine. But they could search me, arrest me, imprison me and even execute me for simply talking about democracy.

I was the last passenger from the train I rode from Hong Kong to the frontier. The Customs officials all looked at me as I walked in and surprised them. They had likely already heard about me coming from the officials on the other side of the bridge who had admitted me after a lengthy political meeting in their open workspace.

Thirty of them had gathered to discuss how they should deal with me. I had shown up out of the blue and told them I wanted into China and my passport had already been stamped by their office in Hong Kong.

This was unheard of and unprecedented!  I asked politely and with a compelling and intimidating political argument in quite good Mandarin to be admitted.  They would not disagree with Mao - at least not yet.

This caused quite a stir among them and they were forced to accept my interpretation of Maoist doctrine and let me in.  I knew more about current ideological trends in China than some members of the Politburo and the Communist Central Committee. They had never met anyone like me before.

Flirting
The woman in the green uniform scowled a bit as I walked up and placed my bag on her counter and smiled at her. Where are you going? To Hang Zhou? Why? To visit my friend and fellow Chinese scholar from Canada. How long would I be in China? About there months. She began to smile a bit.

Let me see your passport. What's this stamp from Taiwan? I told her and her associates what I had told those Border security officers at the train station on the other side of the bridge. They also bought my argument and we had a few stifled laughs over my strange official designation.

I am a student at a Chinese university. Which one? Tai-Da. Oh, in Peking? No, in Taipei. Shock!  Taiwan and Mainland China had been enemies since 1949.


Arguing
That's not in China! she said as mouths dropped open all around in disbelief at my audacity.  Quiet hands slipped towards holstered guns and machine-gun triggers. "That's not what Chairman Mao said about it. He says that Taiwan is part of China - a province - and that there is only One China." I argued

Therefore I should be allowed to travel freely as other scholars in Chinese universities do and I should also receive the student discount for travel and accommodation. They were flabbergasted, but they signaled me forward shaking their heads in disbelief. I was jubilant within. This was me using Mao's own doctrine of One China. "One China" principle (一個中國原則/一个中国原则).


I counted on the reputation of all Chinese bureaucrats of the day coming into play. They were reputed to be too lazy to pick up a piece of paper let alone do any kind of work. She waved me through with a sweet smile and fluttering eyes.  

Traveling
I jumped on the train to Guang Zhou City where I stayed overnight before the eighteen hour train journey to the ancient capital city of Hang Zhou near Shanghai. The stream driven train made it's lumbering way across the great central rice plain and onward towards the coast. This was all railway rolling stock from Canada and I ate a lot of Canadian wheat products as I traveled through China.

I planned to tell the staff and students in China's most respected art college  about democracy, free-market capitalism, human rights and the open society. I asked them to carry these great ideas to the ends of their nation to share peace and hope with all. I had found hope in these things and I knew others could too.

This seemed like the best possible place to launch a new set of revolutionary ideas. And these were the best possible people to do it. 

Leaving
The Chinese revere their classical artists above all other citizens in all other professions or pursuits. This is a deeply rooted value that is in all Chinese and is in their culture, their customs, their value system and more.

This is an ancient value rooted in their collective DNA. This was protracted counterrevolution. These artists have been instrumental in the renewal of China and it's modernization.

See Mao's On Protracted War (simplified Chinese: 论持久战; traditional Chinese: 論持 久戰).

I threw my heavy bag over my shoulder, turned and walked away with relief.  Within a few weeks I would deliver my cache of ideas, travel in China's heartland, visit Shanghai, be interrogated by the Chinese Secret Police and then flee on a night train to avoid another discussion about my actions in Hang Zhou.

Getting into China was not easy. Getting out almost became impossible. But so much seemed at stake and worth the risk.

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